Monthly Archives: October 2015

Filters

Author:
Category:
Research

Feminist Photographer: Cindy Sherman

Leave a comment

As previously mentioned, I am constantly getting inspiration from the works of Cindy Sherman, specifically her set of Film Stills 1977-1980. Sherman has influenced many tableaux photographers and has become iconic in the movement of feminism. Sherman is an American photographer and film director, known for her conceptual portraits. She was born in 1954 finding her feet in photography in the 70s when she produced her first set of Film Stills. Sherman works in series, usually photographing herself in a wide range of different costumes and makeup changing her identity to create a new persona for each photograph. She will often shoot alone in her studio not knowing exactly what images she wants to produce, she will assume multiple roles and is the author, director, makeup artist, hairstylist, fashion designer and model.

cindy sherman

Sherman’s website: http://www.cindysherman.com

Sherman’s MoMA page:  http://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/1997/sherman/

In the past I have gained a lot of inspiration from Sherman’s Film Stills and am still finding inspiration from these images. I like the idea that Sherman looks different in every image and she becomes a new persona each time. I want to use this for my own experimentation and be able to tell a story myself by becoming each character and looking different in each image. I think that her work is very strong and there is always something going on. Sherman tends to find humour in types of people and she will mimic them within her work and exaggerate certain traits that they have. I find this very interesting as Sherman does not care if she offends people and will just do to make for some good images. A theme that I’ve noticed with Sherman’s work is that she uses a lot of makeup and props to change the shape of her body as well as many wigs. I really like this as she is able to tell so many different stories within her work as a tableau photographer.

film stills

New York Times Sherman review:  http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/24/arts/design/cindy-sherman-at-museum-of-modern-art.html?_r=0

“Cindy Sherman represents everything that is wrong with the contemporary art world.” – Bloomberg Business review

I think that Sherman really stands out in the photography world and has really furthered public knowledge of the unfair advantages and disadvantages faced with men and women. Sherman tends to focus in on the stereotypes of women and she likes to recreate a persona of a person she has possibly seen and exaggerates them to make for more impact and to stand out against other photographs. I really like this concept as she is showing spectators the problems within our own society of how we treat women and how we expect them to be. I think that it is so wrong that women have one set of rules while men have another, it is unfair for both parties as we are all human we all share the same kind of emotions and yet our gender seems to have an effect on the way we show those emotions and the way we treat others. Sherman’s work is very strong and bold, she doesn’t tend to hold back at all and has many over the top nude photographs where she creates a new persona and she makes her own props of different parts of the female anatomy to make for a more interesting photograph. I believe Sherman uses nudes within her work as a way of showing what society expects of women and I can also link this to many painting where women are used as objects to be seen and painted as sexual figures.

Bloomberg Business review of Sherman:  http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2012-02-27/cindy-sherman-self-portraits-offer-empty-entertainment-review

g02a10untitled-film-still-10-1978_largeThis image really shows the cliches faced with women perfectly. The subject is looking glamorous wearing a pretty skirt and makeup while picking up the grocery shopping showing how women are, within society, expected to do all of the cooking, cleaning and household chores while still looking good. I think that this is  a strong images as Sherman’s facial expression doesn’t look pleased at all, she looks very miserable as if she doesn’t want to be doing all of the household work. This image shows how society has treated women in the past and how it still treats them to this day. Spectators are able to see how women are represented unfairly and what are expected of women yet not expected of men. I really like this image as it is very strong and shows the strain put on women within our society. I just really like this image and the way it looks with all of the props and the position of the subject is really interesting to me. I love Sherman’s work showing the cliches women faced in the 70s and it shows just how many of those that women still face today. It is interesting to see how little has changed since the 70s and how women are still perceived in the same way and still face the same unfair expectations.

film stillsssssss

imagesAnother image that I find very interesting is the one above. I really like this image as Sherman is posing almost like a Femme Fatale from film Noir films. She looks like a damsel in distress and needs a man to come and save her. Sherman shows the spectator the expectation of women having to look glamorous all of the time and ready to do anything that her man wants her to. This image is very interesting as it shows the cliches faced by women, like all of Sherman’s photographs. I really like this image because it is obviously staged and something that you would expect to see when someone is mocking another person as a damsel in distress. This photograph interests me as the subject is wearing somewhat provocative clothing and posing in such a way that the spectator would think that she ‘was asking for it’ even though no matter what the woman looks like or is wearing she is never asking for it. I think that this is a strong image and interesting to look at.

tumblr_m9z1g3o2j51qji3pko14_500-22esybpI love this image. There is something about this photograph that really draws me in and makes me want to analyse it further to learn more about it. The lights in the background of this image draw me in as you would usually expect those kind of lights to be behind the camera not in front of it. I like that the subject is looking directly into the camera with only her head as the rest of her body is facing away from it, this seems as if she was possibly sitting on the floor with those big lights doing her makeup and then turned around to look because she was being disturbed. I know that Sherman makes all of her photographs without a clear plan as to what she wants but only a clear plan on who she wants to be. Sherman makes her images alone in her studio yet it doesn’t look that way and every photo is different and unique in itself. I like the subjects outfit, it looks as though she is getting ready for a night out or possibly to do a performance. One of my favourite photos from Sherman’s film stills, there is nothing specific about it I just really find it interesting to look at and I enjoy looking at it. Something that I also noticed about Sherman’s Film Stills is that they are all in black and white, much to do with the time she had a film camera in the 70s where colour hadn’t been introduced yet but they look really awesome and it just adds more atmosphere and effect to the image. The spectator is able to focus in on the subject and what she is doing rather than getting distracted by all of the lights and colours surrounding her.

Record / Photoshoot

Community shoot

Leave a comment

The community event that I have chosen is my year 13 sports day. All of the forms were asked to create teams, and each person would put their name down for a field and track event. This is one of the very few school events that Hautlieu do therefor everyone was asked to participate. Each form was designated a colour to represent them, and the form were told to wear these colours.

I mainly focused on photographing people. Here are my photographs from my shoot;

1a 4 3a 2a

Planning

Start: Planning for my Project

Leave a comment

I am still trying to gain a firm idea of how I will go about the course of this project. I will be quite a challenge but I am hoping if I organise what I need to do and break it down I will be easier to tackle.

This is a summary of what I am doing

  • Learning more about my Granddad who I never met
  • Visiting my Nan every week – photographing, researching and asking questions
  • Photographing all the time – different locations
  • Weekly blog post – recap every week and plan what I need to do in organised chunks
  • Talking to friends and family: Nana, Dad, Steve, Cathy, John Heulin? old Salvation Army Friends? Old Vic College Friends?
  • Re-tracing steps: go to his old house, Vic College, grave etc.
  • Parade Road (Nana’s house) is a good exploration: he lived there!
  • Look at themes that both directly and indirectly explore him; e.g. Nana is lonely. Good starting point.
  • Keep looking at photographers work! – Richard Billingham, Alec Soth,  Yury Toropstov etc.
  • Make any research relevant to this theme: otherwise it is basically a waste of time … this is my main project and everything should be a build-up to get best possible outcome
  • Plan interviews and record conversations
  • Try to enjoy it. It will be an interesting project
  • Making mistakes are good – I will learn what and what doesn’t work
  • Take risk in all areas
  • Plan Plan Plan – Work in stages, it will be too overwhelming otherwise. Get specific sections done that I plan beforehand
  • Stay organised

All in all I will have a lot of work to do. I am going to make the most of the time I have got to make an interesting and worthwile project which is personal to me. Completing the project will be quite difficult, my Nan does worry and get confused a lot (she’s 85). I have to do my best though to work with her in the project and slowly build up photographs of her, and take more risks in what I photograph as she starts to become more comfortable about the idea of being photographed. It might be quite fustrating at times, but I will do my best and work all the time to improve. This project is also new and a challenge for me.

Research and planning will be key. I will use the blog posts to track, plan and monitor. Staying on track will be very important if I want this project to develop and progress.

In most of my blog posts from now on I will try to link back to the project. This will be a good way of making sure that all the extra work I put in is actually relevant to what I need to do in the first place. Otherwise it will be a waste of my time, which I cannot afford to do.

I am just going to go for it and do my best. At the end of the day if it does not work out the way I was hoping, then at least I will have still learned a lot of interesting and revealing information about my Grandfather. I will try to be as creative and experimental as possible, taking risks and developing my own creativity in the process.

 

Analysis

Satellites: Response to Images

Leave a comment

This image was taken at a large metal works in Siberia. The photograph is a new topographic styled landscape shot which Bendiksen has clearly taken influence from the work of William Eggleston, known for his dark portrayal of bleak landscapes. The image is very ambiguous because to some degree it shows the factory in a dramatic, romanticized manner, whilst at the same time it depicts the factory as grim and unpleasant. My judgement is that the image is a metaphor for evaluating Communist Russia (1917-1991), which on one hand was highly impressive in terms of what it achieved, but at the same time a regime which was responsible for great atrocities; death, persecution and mass suffering, in particular under the leadership of Joseph Stalin (1922-1953). Specifically this photograph explores the influence Communist Russia had over the industrialization of Russia.

Bendiksen explores this ambiguity by framing to image to showing factory as impressive, by arranging the image in a traditional landscape format. Bendisken still however through the incorporation of a low level of lighting and the red glow, giving an eerie mood, is highlighting the fact that despite this impressiveness, it still has a darker side to it.

The context behind this photograph is that Bendiksen was out photographing landscapes in the countryside. He then came across a piece of scrap metal, which was the left over of a Russian satellite. The two men on the top of the scrap metal are satellite collectors, people who make a living out of collecting and selling these pieces of scrap meatal. Suddenly as Bendisken was about to photograph the two men, standing on the large piece of scrap metal, thousands of butterflies suddenly appeared out of nowhere. Bendisken stated that “things came together .. you had the swarm of butterfly’s, you had the spaceship, you had the farmers, the stormy dark clouds in the background, the sun was just starting to break out. It was just a perfect storm of different elements.”

This photo relates to Herni Cartier Bresson’s theory of the ‘decisive moment’. Bendisken has combined his knowledge of composing photographs with an element of luck, being the light and butterflies. The result an incredibly powerful and raw image, with a sense of peculiarity which captivates the viewer into wanting to find out more about the context, and so delve deeper into interpreting its meaning. I almost find that this photograph is somewhat dream-like and separate from reality. This theme of being being dream-like is effective because it is able to serve as a metaphor for the scrap metal collectors optimists and dreamers, taking advantage of the rich opportunities that selling the remains of these magnificent displays of metal-work have to offer.  This is an image which I find to be quite positive and uplifting, an image which symbolises hope in an uncertain future.

The image shows a snippet of a darkened room, with the subject appears to the concentrating on a task. On the television set, the face of former Communist leader Josef Stalin’s face can be shown. The presence of Stalin into the frame is very sinister as a result of this and the glim mood established through the green illumination of low level of lighting, it is a very frightening and unsettling. Without Stalin piercing into the photograph this image would not be as effective because it creates this added suspense.

This photograph directly explores the theme of Russia’s Communist past. Russia under Stalin regime was infamous as a society of excessive  social control. Propaganda would appear everywhere. Stalin appearing on the television set symbolises this theme of social control, and serves to unsettle the viewer, reminding them of the horrors of Stalin’s regime and Communism.

Overall I find this type of image to be a more experimental side to Bendiksen’s photography. In terms of composition it is perhaps not the best image however I like the mood and feel that the image establishes.

 

 

Experimentation

Photo editing

Leave a comment

From my photoshoot, I chose my best photographs, and edited them. Although this photo shoot is not part of my family project I used it as an experimentation. I took these photographs using my iPhone, however the quality of the photographs aren’t very good and some are blurry because the shutter speed is set to slow therefore when I do my project I am going to use a camera rather than my phone.

I edited these photographs by experimenting with the brightness and contrast, with the different colors and by cropping them. Overall I think this improved the appearance of the photos.

IMG_8788 edit

IMG_8806.jpg a

IMG_8800.jpg edit (Custom)

Uncategorized

SHOOT 1

Leave a comment

For my first shoot i took images one morning before school of everyone in my house to show how normal life is in my house in the week. For these images i experimented using flash in some of the photos, which i think makes the images look amateurish which i think looks quite interesting. I followed my parents round to take these images, but for some of my other images i am going to try and take them when my family do not know i am taking the images. IMG_4962 IMG_4963 IMG_4965 IMG_4966 IMG_4967 IMG_4968 IMG_4969 IMG_4970 IMG_4971 IMG_4973 IMG_4974 IMG_4975 IMG_4978 IMG_4979 IMG_4980 IMG_4988 IMG_4994 IMG_4996 IMG_4997 IMG_4998

I took this portrait image of my mum as she was showing my that something was in her eye, my mum did not know i was taking this image and so it caught her by surprise. I like this image because of the angle that it is taken as it is a very close up image. IMG_5000 IMG_5001 IMG_5002 IMG_5003

I took this image of my mum when my mum was leaving to go to work. When i took this image i used flash, this image was a spontaneous image as i was just following my mum around the house and i took it as she was turning around. I think that the dull lighting in this image makes my subject stand out because of the motorbike jacket which has been lit up. In this image the main focus is the bike jacket which is important as this my mum needs to wear this on her bike to feel safe as she cannot take the car to work. IMG_5004 IMG_5005 IMG_5006 IMG_5007 IMG_5008

Through these images my main focus from taking them was to document my mums life and to show on an ordinary mundane day what happens in her life. I focused on taking images of her but also taking other landscape images of my house and of other people in my family to show what their life is like with the effect of my mum. These images are ordinary family images which show a  routine of what happens in the morning in my house. I focused on taking images of my mum on her bike as this is what she takes to work, because of her anxiety she cannot take the car to work as she freaks out that she will not be able to get out of the situation.

Research

Conceptual Photographer: Barbara Kruger

1 Comment
Barbara Kruger
Barbara Kruger

Barbara Kruger is an American conceptual artist born in 1945. Much of her work is done in black and white overlaid with declarative captions. These captions are written in white on red backgrounds with phrases in her works often including pronouns such as ‘you’, ‘your’, ‘I’, ‘we’ and ‘they’ really personalising her messages towards the spectators. Her messages address cultural constructions of power, identity and sexuality. I like the concept of Kruger’s work as she brings clear messages to the spectator and tells them what they should see in the image. Kruger is a conceptual and feminist artist.

Kruger’s website: http://www.barbarakruger.com/

Krugers MoMA portfolio:  http://www.moma.org/collection/artists/3266

I think that I will take inspiration from Kruger in my own work and add this kind of Dada style written text and imagery in my own photographs. This style also reminds me of propaganda and really sends out clear messages. It mainly reminds me of the Second World War when they would try to get women into the factories to help in the war effort and how they would influence people to become soldiers. I find this a very interesting concept and can be highly influential and effective if it is actually done well.

The Guardian article on Kruger:  http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2014/jul/06/barbara-kruger-modern-art-oxford-review

“one of the best artists of the 1980’s without actually doing much that is new.” – Roberta Smith review

Conceptual art

Conceptual art is an influential movement that first emerged in the mid 1960s. It brought up ideas over the formal or visual components of traditional works of art. Conceptual artists will often challenge old concepts of things such as beauty, they question the conventional means by which the public consume art. Artists will often reject the conventional arts and use ranges of medias including maps, diagrams, texts and videos. Kruger is constantly making new images, she will find old archive images of something and stick a text in front of it with a clear meaning.

Feminist art

Feminist art emerged around the same time as conceptual art in the 1960s and 1970s. This came about so artists could explore questions of sex, power, the body and how gender categories seem to structure the way we see and understand the world. This art also frequently involves text and performance elements. Kruger will often use staged photographs as backgrounds for her text and manages to find great photographs to make her images stand out even more.

Whose Values? project by Kruger and 400 students: 

I do enjoy looking at Kruger’s work as a lot of it holds strong social messages. She tends to make her messages very clear and easy for anyone to understand as she has blatantly written them in found photographs. I think that I will use the idea of this within my work and incorporate it into my own work as well as experimenting with other works too. I want to be able to broaden my skills within photography and be able to make more artistic links within different forms of art and not just in the photographic sense. I think that I will be able to make quite a few different responses to Kruger’s work as I find this very interesting and unique in the photography world yet it seems so simple. Kruger took inspiration from magazines and made it her own, she believed that if they could do it and hold so much influence then she could do exactly the same thing. I am excited to respond to this body of work.

The Atlantic review of Kruger: http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2012/08/the-unsettling-text-driven-world-of-barbara-krugers-belief-doubt/261348/

barbara-kruger-its-a-small-world-19901This image particularly interests me as the background image is a woman looking through a magnifying glass. The text fits with the photograph as it states that the world isn’t small if ‘you have to clean it’. I think that this is really effective as the woman seems as if she is looking for dirt to clean and that she has to look closely to actually clean up and that there is so much to clean in this massive world. I like the bold font with ‘It’s a small world’ and the rest of the text much smaller ‘but not if you have to clean it’. For some reason this stands out to me and kind of seems like Kruger was saying ‘It’s a small world’ quite loudly and proudly while saying the part in the smaller text under her breath as if making a sly comment. I think that this is a strong image and shows how women are expected to do the cleaning and look after the house etc. There isn’t much to this image as the text is very plain and simple. It is obvious and to the point, it doesn’t just suggest things allowing the spectator to make their own perception it literally tells them exactly what she was thinking and what she wanted the spectator to get from the image. These images aren’t her own but she uses old images to make new ones with her own original text in front of them.

barbara-kruger-your-body-is-a-battleground-19891Another image that stood out for me was this one above. I think that this is the perfect image to go with Kruger’s text as it is very bold in itself and stands out to me. I like that one half of the image is in black and white with the other half in negative. This shows two sides to the subject, one pretty and good while the other looks more scary and a little bit sinister. The message that Kruger brought across was ‘Your body is a battleground’, this really interests me as it is in front of a woman’s face and how possibly the struggles that women face every month with having periods and going through cramps and constant bleeding. This could be what Kruger means by ‘battleground’. It could also be through pregnancy and how women often go through the struggle of being pregnant and then having children and being expected to carry on with everyday life almost straight away. I like this image as it is bold and is open for spectators interpretation.

barbarakruger-untitled-we-dont-need-another-hero-1985One other image that I like is this one above because it seems as if a little boy is being told that he doesn’t need to grow muscle as his mother pushes him down. The text really works with this image and is effective as it says ‘We don’t need another hero’. This could possibly be a message to young boys that they don’t need to feel that they have to fight in wars to be seen as masculine and they don’t need to conform to societies expectations of having big muscles and being strong and independent. It is almost as if his mother doesn’t want him to be another ‘hero’ because she loves him and doesn’t want to lose him like many other mother’s did during World War II. I think this is one of my favourite images as it is quite powerful and stands out to me. I think that the image and the text blend well together and almost look as though the image was made for the text and that is the way it was broadcast.