Week 5 Artist Research - Hellen Van Meene

Hellen van Meene, 1972, The Netherlands, is a portrait photographer who studied at the Gerrit Rietveld Academie in Amsterdam. Most of her portrait images are of young teenage girls. She is widely known for her exceptional use of light and the sometimes awkward yet fragile poses. She works with girls that have no experience being a model and guides them in how they need to pose. She only uses natural light in order to keep fully concentrated on her models.

Hellen mainly uses direct light to create shadows and light in different places like the photo above were the young girl is in the sunlight but theres also shadows which contrast. Hellen also uses defused light, a little like the photo of the girl sitting on the chair, there are still some shadows but not as dark; the light is softer.