For this shoot I decided to make some images of a Film Noir detective with a dame. I thought that this would be a good opportunity to take inspiration from the work of Claude Cahun and going against the socially accepted gender norms between men and women and I am also inspired by Cindy Sherman who dresses up as characters and becomes someone new in every photograph.

I did a shoot dressed up as a generic Film Noir male detective to look at how men are portrayed with this old style of film which also goes along with my work on femme fatales and making images of famous femme fatales and inspiration from Barbara Kruger and her newspaper style images. This shoot went well and I enjoyed doing it. I wanted to portray a man well and really become the character so I put bronzer all over my jawline and cheeks to create a beard. I also wore my dad’s grey suit jacket, tie, shirt and my own trousers and braces to go underneath the suit jacket. I wore a large black hat that is reminiscent of the hats that a usual detective in film noir movies would wear. I really wanted to become the character and portray them in the way that I had imagined. Later on I went back into the studio for a couple of hours to shoot the images for the female dame character. This went well and was fun to do. I managed to look back at the images made of the male detective and got them into the same position in order to make it a lot easier for me when actually editing the photos together. I do think that the images will look a lot smoother if they are in black and white which works well as my theme is Film Noir.

Here are a few of the images that I made of the film noir detective. I like these images as I think that I managed to capture the lighting well and really made some good film noir inspired images. I think that they will look a lot better when the noir dame is introduced and when I can actually edit them together by layering them. However, I do really like the look of these images alone as they are interesting to look at. I made an attempt to edit the two images together, one with the detective standing along side his dame but this didn’t really work as the lighting was different and the camera was at different focal points and slightly different positions. At least this way I am able to still use the images of the Noir Dame and create some more interesting Femme Fatale images and I will know for next time to actually do the shooting for one image all at one time and not to go on different days. This will just make it easier when editing and allow me to get really into the characters and the exact positions that I want to be in in each of the images.
I like these images and think that they are interesting to look at as they challenge the norms of gender and how people are supposed to look and be as part of that gender. I wanted to create strong images that are unusual and will leave the spectator wondering who I am and what decade I am from. This can be linked to more recent issues on gender stereotypes and having to conform to the expectations placed on us at a young age by society and to fit in with the norm and be another one in the crowd. I did take inspiration from Claude Cahun challenging how we see ourselves and showing that really we aren’t all that different at all. This was really fun and interesting to explore as it shows a new side to photography and allows me to work more deeply and think more deeply about these kind of situations of gender stereotypes and smudging the lines between what is male and what is female.