Christopher Boffoli

Boffoli is a self taught, fine art, commercial and editorial photographer, his work has been published in several countries all around the world. Born in 1969, worcester Massachusetts, he is based in seattle. Boffoli's Big Appetites work was inspired by a childhood fascination with miniature things he'd seen on tv, films and shows that used tiny people in a normal sized world. He was also inspired by America's dysfunctional relationship with food; over eating, and portion sizes.

Boffoli's images are usually very simple, with carefully thought out compositions that engage the viewer to paint a story around the situation. Objectively speaking, this image shows an arrangement of roughly 40 teddy bear biscuits in lines facing six miniature men with guns. Subjectively, the bears resemble an army, heading towards the men who are standing their ground rather than fleeing, the image conveys fear, or rather the lack of it from the outnumbered men. The bears have several different poses yet all appear the same, they may represent an army or even just a popular idea that few are willing to stand up for leaving the men in the image firmly in the minority yet ready to face what they need to. The bears all have the same identity, like soulless robots almost, whereas the men are all different, standing in different poses and in different clothing. The majority dominating the minority, the bears are significantly bigger than the men, in stature, intimidating them. The central mans posture is one of the main factors that makes the bears look like intruders, he is holding up his gun, preparing himself for a fight. 

My images

I managed to buy some miniature figures online similar to the ones used in Boffoli's photographs to create my own versions of his images. I used items on fruit and other pieces of food set on a solid colour background to mimic his style. The figures I used were of small photographers and police men, I wanted to create scenes similar to real life where people will often stop and watch when the police are involved in something, the photographers also emphasise that whilst the police are responsible for watching the public, there is usually someone watching them just as close.