Cottingley fairies

In 1917 to 1921 Two young cousins, Elsie Wright (16) and Frances Griffiths took a series of five photographs that many believed had genuine fairies in them. The first photograph was taken in July 1917 by Elsie, 'Francis and the Fairies'. The photo has a group of five fairies dancing around Frances. The second photograph is of Elsie and a gnome on the grass, it was taken in september 1917 by Frances, 'Elsie and the Gnome'. The third photograph was taken by Elsie in august 1920, it is of Frances and a fairy leaping towards her, 'Frances and the Leaping Fairy'. The fourth photo, 'fairy offing a posy to Elsie' shows elsie leaning towards a fairy, surrounded by bushes. The fifth and final image is of just the fairies, "Fairies and their sunbath".

The image is in black and white, it has a high contrast. Framed in the centre of the image, surrounded by trees and bushes is a young girl, she is dressed in white and has a white bow in her hair. The model is looking to the right, at a small fairy that is flying towards her. The image isn't very sharp due to it being on film, around the time it was taken there was no Photoshop or digital photography, so this adds to the 'realism' of the image. In Post War Britain these images gave a lot of people hope, they believed the fairies were real. When I look at this image I feel a sense of innocence, I think this is because as a child you believe in things that don't actually exist. As a child I thought fairies were real so I feel like I can relate my innocence to the image. The high contrast, the grain, the innocence and the subject matter  of the photograph, all add to the magical ethereal sense of the image.

My response

For my response, I printed out several pictures of fairies I found on the internet, I tried to get the most realistic fairies. I then found some cardboard to stick the pictures onto, using the cardboard made it easier to stand them up. I then went outside and placed the fairies in natural places. This shoot was quite unsuccessful as I had some lighting issues as I was using natural light and I didn't have a tripod with me It didn't help that the colours of the fairies were very bright and bold which made them look out of place. There was also very limited places I could put the fairies so it was hard to make them look real.

Despite having some lighting issues, I think some of the photographs have been quite successful due to the flash on my digital camera. The harsh flash on the camera adds to the unnatural nature of the image. In my attempts I'm not trying to make my images look believable as the children, Francis and Elsie in the 1917-1920 did.