LO1 - Paul Harries

Paul Harries

Genre

Paul Harries is a world renowned band photographer, most famous for his work with the Heavy Metal group 'Slipknot' from Des Moines, Iowa as well as his work with Kerrang! magazine. 

Purpose and Meaning

Harries' work is often used to promote bands. I particularly love Harries' work with Slipknot because of the way he is able to capture so much emotion in photograph's of masks. For example the image to the right features lead vocalist, Corey Taylor, and the band's late bassist Paul Gray.

The photograph is called 'Brotherhood'  and I think the positioning of the two members, general composition and black and white filter all come together to create an enormous amount of emotion in one picture, I think the title is also very important because it conveys how close the two members really were. The central positions of the two members creates a centre of interest, this with their gestures showcases the importance and the meaning of the image, I think, without having to necessarily be a fan of the band.

Photograph Analysis

My favourite image by Paul Harries is 'Creepy Mask', taken in Sydney back in 2008. This picture is of the vocalist, Corey Taylor, holding his mask in front of his face. Again Harries uses the black and white filter, but I feel like this time it makes the image seem a little more eery as a posed to emotional. I again love the simplicity of it and the composition for this image I feel is crucial. The fact the vocalist is not actually wearing the mask is what I think gives it such a creepy and cool effect.

I decided to see if Paul Harries had used the rule of thirds for this image (see left) because it looks incredibly well centred. However, though the eyes of the mask fit almost perfectly on the line there is nothing really surrounding the 'points of interest' so I decided that he did not use this photography technique to create this image. I think the reason the eye is drawn to the centre is rather to do with the level of detail the photograph captures despite it being in black and white. The mask is not clean and brand new; it is dirty and it has obviously been used. I think that really gives a sense of reality to the image as well as reflecting their music, which is obviously very important for Paul Harries, it's raw and it's not at all fabricated and I think that is why I appreciate his work so much.