Paragraph 1: Dorothea Lange Migrant mother make links to my personal study.
Paragraph 2 : mum at work and responses – link to defaced article – British photography Journal – family structure – compare grandparents structure and way their of life.
Paragraph 3 : dad out of work and responses – traditional family – cultural perceptions.
I realised that students rarely make a fashion magazine when doing the A2 coursework so I decided to make one. I wanted my work to be different from everyone else’s and to showcase it in a different and unique way. I came up with a relevant topic to impact my spectators which I also have strong views on, I wanted it to have an underlining message that is obvious to the spectator and that they are able to see clearly throughout. For this idea I want to carry on my work of self-portraiture and dressing up as both the male and female characters in my photographs. I aim to make advertisement images that almost mimic images that I’ve seen of models making ad campaigns and also exaggerating it and somewhat making a joke out of it. Also, I wanted to make fashion inspired images in the magazine dressing as both the male and female characters wearing the clothing that both men and women wear. I really like the idea of having no boundaries in fashion and feeling inspired by fashion from both men and women I feel that it is important for people not to feel restricted in how they can express themselves in their own clothing. I believe that men should be able to wear skirts and dresses without feeling embarrassed or being labelled as ‘gay’, Scottish men wear kilts and thats fine but anything else is seen as radical. Also, the fact that is is seen as weird if they wear a tailored suit or baggy ‘tom-boy’ clothing. Someone who is a huge advocate for this is Jaden Smith and I really love that he has become the new face of Louis Vuitton womenswear because it is so true that men and women should be able to wear whatever they want and we shouldn’t have to gender specify clothing and separate from one another. However, there are two sides to this. I do think that there are certain types of clothing that more so needs to be modelled by women and needs to be modelled b women. Women and men are shaped differently and so the ideal would obviously be a model for women who has breast and commonly larger hips whereas men would usually prefer a male model with broader shoulders and more muscular features. That is simply how our bodies are and we can’t really help or change that. Ultimately, I do think that if worn in the right way men and women shouldn’t have to feel restricted by stereotypes given to men and women hundreds of years ago. I feel that there is a lot to say on this topic and I want to express this through my own work, it’s so interesting to me and I want to develop it further. I also think that this has a lot to do with body image and being the ideal being. Both males and females have to deal with stereotypes and expectations given through advertisements and models. Body types are so different and people are shaped differently yet we all aspire and try to look the same way.
I came across an article the other day with the release of the latest Louis Vuitton campaign for womenswear with male actor and musician Jaden Smith becoming the new face of the project. Smith has always worn more out there pieces with dresses and skirts being a part of his everyday wardrobe. However, Smith doesn’t wear feminine looking pieces that are fitted to the shape of the woman, he wears pieces that are baggy and are on trend. I really like his style as it is unique and looks great, he manages to stand out. Smith wants gender stereotypes to be scrapped and his aims of this campaign is to change the worlds perception of what both men and women should and could wear. This reminds me of what Claude Cahun was trying to bring across in her own images by smudging the lines between having a male identity and female identity against stereotypes. I really love the ad campaign for Louis Vuitton as I think that it will get people talking and I like that Jaden is using his fame to make the world aware of issues such as gender stereotypes and the pressures that men and women are put under in order to fit in with what society expects us to look like. I also think that it has a great deal to do with the internet and how we are all so involved with broadcasting our lives on social media, we almost become accustomed to judging one another and being judged.
‘Tomboy’ and ‘girly-girl’ are names that I’ve grown up with and become accustomed to. Growing up I was always the girly-girl who wore pink EVERYTHING and seemed to aspire to becoming a princess when I grew up while my two best friends growing up were both seen as tomboys and would run around and not care about how they looked. Don’t get me wrong I loved running around and playing outside with my mates but because of the way I dressed and the fact that I liked the colour pink meant that I was labelled as a ‘girly-girl’. We are constantly faced with labels throughout our lives and often that feels restricting and confining, although at the time I liked being a girly-girl and I thought that was the norm. I believe that as youngsters we shouldn’t be encouraged to dress or look a certain way, we should be taught to freely express ourselves and wear whatever we want. Throughout history men have worn dresses and skirts such as the Roman period and gladiators, Greek God’s and the people, Egyptian pharaohs and typical Egyptian people. All of these time periods show men and women wearing the same clothing just in slightly different ways to flatter and work well with their physique which I think looks great and we should embrace the past and bring it back into our modern world. I feel like white English people have almost become culture-less and don’t really have anything that is definitively English and it doesn’t stand out. The Scottish have kilts which have been around for centuries and haven’t lost their same patriotism or presence within the Scottish community. The vast black culture in America have their African cultures in their fashion and their vibrant clothing. I just feel like our modern first world countries have almost lost what we had and we need to embrace our cultures more and bring back old fashion traditions that allow us to remember and honour our ancestors as well as becoming more accepting of one another and our different fashion choices without worrying how it looks on us because we are female or because we are male.
I feel like this topic is becoming more wide scale and will be a huge part of 2016 as people are looking more and more for gender equality. As a modern society we are very stuck in our ways and don’t like change or anyone that stands out from the norm. We tend to focus on the negative attributes of people and what they are wearing and their physical appearance when in reality it shoudn’t be all about that and people should be able to wear whatever they want without feeling that they are going to be judged or ridiculed by others.
Other current issues which are seemingly surfacing in the past year and finally changing is transgender people. Recently, a film came out titled The Danish Girl based on a true story about a female who was trapped inside of a males body. This film was really interesting and emotional to watch, really giving me an insight to how transgender people feel and what it could possibly to like to be trapped inside the wrong body. This is a really powerful film and was actually 15 years in the making as it took a long time to do all the accurate research and to get the project off the ground. I think that this film is very powerful and addresses well an issue which has become so widely talked about with the transition of Bruce Jenner becoming her true self as Caitlyn Jenner. The issues with this aren’t in the people who are transgender but the issue lies with those who don’t understand it and who don’t wish to understand it. Those people who think that it isn’t natural and so shouldn’t be the case and isn’t a part of nature. These are the people who also stereotype men and women and have separate expectations and standards for both genders. Your sex defines whether or not you have male parts or female parts but gender is a set of stereotypes given to individuals belonging to a sex that can have positive or negative impact. Usually, being labelled and stereotyped as a gender can be quite negative as people are making assumptions about you as a person because of your sex and because of the skin that you were born in which is completely wrong and something that I want to explore in my work and defy through my photographs. I want to challenge the gender norms and stereotypes and smudge the lines between being explicitly male or female.
Establish coherent and sustainable links between your own practical work with that of historical and contemporary reference.
Show evidence for an on-going critical and analytical review of your investigation – both your written essay and own practical work in response to research and analysis.
Words associated with my personal study:
Working environment
Culture/ background
Female stereotype
Hard working ethic
Mum
Family history
Male stereotype
Dad
Possible questions:
How does my mum’s culture and background influence her work ethic?
To what extent does my family history influence my mum’s work ethic?
Does my mum work fit into a stereotypical female role?
How does my mums culture and family history impact her work ethic?
How does my mums role as breadwinner abdicate from her culture?
In what way is my mums work ethic influenced?
Essay structure
Hypothesis/ question
An opening quote – work photographers
Introduction – state what I am going to be looking at, why and my influences.
Paragraph 1 – talk about my mums family history, her background and culture and about her move to Jersey.
Paragraph 2 – Explain the different jobs that my mum has and talk about her work ethic and make links to her background and education.
Paragraph 3 – talk about my mums role at home (main breadwinner) – stereo typically men provide for the family link to family history. Link to female roles and feminism?
For my projects and essay I will be focusing on making a book and a short film to go with that book. If I can I also want to create a fashion magazine as this is something that really interests me and I have plenty of ideas that I want to create for it. I am focusing my work on feminism and the unfair advantages and disadvantages faced with both men and women. I will be focusing on two different aspects of feminism, the first being the unfair stereotype given to women of being the carer and basically live to serve, doing all the cooking and cleaning for the family and/or her husband. I also want to focus on smudging the lines between gender stereotypes of fashion. Both topics really interest me and I want to be able to explore them further.
Main Idea | Personal Shoot
I want to look into the life of my mother and how she is a working housewife. Meaning that she has a full-time job and works from 9-5 yet is this expected to come home and do all of the chores and house work, cooking and cleaning, that a housewife would usually be expected to do. I want to make a short film of my mother going about her everyday chores and what does on a regular occurrence. From those film clips I want to make film stills, inspired by the work of Cindy Sherman, and edit them into strong images. After this I want to then mimic the work myself in a parody sort of way to make my spectators focus on what is going on in the images and how old-fashioned it is for the woman to be doing all of the chores and housework. I will also be interviewing my mum and asking her various questions about feminism and her role in the family. This will go along with my short film that I will be creating. I think that this will be a really fun and an interesting project to do as it is more personal and I do think that the images will be more interesting for my spectators to look at.
– make videos of my mum doing her everyday chores at different times and basically film what she is doing. I want to make it more artistic and film in more artsy and creative ways instead of straight on boring video. I will be turning this into a short film with a voice over of an interview with my mum on her role in life and how she feels about it. I want to find out more about what she deems acceptable within our society and why she has raised me differently and more openly to how she was brought up. After collecting this footage I will make images from this of screenshots of my mother and I will restage these images of myself in front of the camera almost parodying her role and how I don’t want to have that same role and don’t accept to be stuck in an old-fashioned way of life.
inspiration/mood board
Second Idea | Fashion and Gender
For this idea I want to create a fashion magazine dressing as both the male and female subjects of all of the images from the magazine. I have taken inspiration from Claude Cahun on smudging the lines between male and female stereotypes and want to explore this through the world of fashion. I have ideas of exaggerating ad campaigns that I have seen before to almost parody the ridiculous expectations put on both men and women with models acting and portraying the ‘perfect form’. Mainly this idea will focus on smudging the lines between the male and female expectations of fashion as I think that this is such a huge thing in recent times and will make the most impact on my spectators. I took inspiration for this from the recently launched ad campaign featuring Jaden Smith as the new face of Louis Vuitton womenswear. I find this so unique as Smith is bringing attention to gender stereotypes that we are all faced with but deem acceptable, this needs to change.
– make images in studio dressed as both the male and female model [wearing wigs and different clothing]
– possibly make images dressed as a different cultured woman [muslim] to show the difference in society [extra idea]
– make an image dressed as the Egyptian woman Nefertiti to add to the magazine [possibly, extra idea]
Title/question: The entire essay must focus on the title or question of the project. The title needs to involve the concept of photographing the invisible as well as considering the idea of memory.
Introduction: The introduction needs to explain the main body of what the essay is about and what it is trying to address. The beginning paragraph should contain artist movements, quotes and photographers I have taken influence from.
Ideas:
How has Laia Abril and Yury Toroptsov shown the concept of memories and attempted to photograph the invisible?
How can memories be demonstrated through the medium of photography?
How are memories reflected in Laia Abril’s and Yury Toroptsov’s interpretation of the concept?
How has Boltanski, Abril and Toroptsov represented the concept of capturing the invisible through the medium of photography?
Planning stage: How do I structure my essay? What do I want to include?
The essay needs to follow a systematic structure, addressing the question I choose in detail. I will begin with an opening quote possibly from a philosopher or an artist I have found influential. Following the introduction will be the first paragraph and so on. There will be a topic of discussion for each paragraph, I will aim for four solid paragraphs. Finally, I will conclude the essay again referring to the question and making sure I have answered it sufficiently. The essay needs to include a quote at the beginning as I earlier stipulated, it also needs to have references from specific photographers and philosophers, it needs to show that I have thoroughly researched the chosen topic and have a variation of resources.
Obviously I am taking inspiration from the work of Cindy Sherman and her self portraits of taking on different female personas. I am also taking inspiration from Claude Cahun and her work where she smudges the line between the separateness of males and females. I think that this is very relevant and is now growing with fashion changing and people becoming more accepting and open to a new normal. These two are my main feminist photographer inspirations as I find their work so strong and I have always learnt a great deal from them but recently I have started to take a keen interest in the work of Yoko Ono, more specifically her work titled Cut Piece which is a very powerful video. Likewise, I have taken a lot of inspiration from surrealist photographers including Christopher McKenney and his horror surrealism which I absolutely love and find it so unique, it really stands out to me as well as the work of Brian Oldham. Both surrealist photographers work is different and I love to look at all of them. This is the effect that I want to have on my spectator, I want them to see my images and for them to stand out to them. I want to make images that give impact and that make my spectator stop and rethink and evaluate the way that they look at the world and life. I have already looked into the work of these photographers and have found out a fair amount about all of them but I want to compare and contrast them towards one another so that I can see which would be the best to write a response and essay about.
I have decided that I would like to carry on with my personal study, about my grandparents and continue to photograph them over the Christmas holiday. I really like theme of ‘Eternal Love’ between a married couple who have been together for fifty one years. I aim to carry on photographing them in their daily routines and creating portraits of them in their different environments eg; at home, in the car, at church ect. I am very close to my Grandparents therefor I am able to photograph them intimately and give insight into the photographs. The main theme I have chosen for my project is Eternal Love which I think my grandparents have for each other, therefor I am going todo my best to capture it.
The first shoot I will focus on will be on Christmas day. This is the most family based holiday of the year, therefor I will photograph my Grandparents and the rest of my family, and try and capture the atmosphere of the day. This christmas will be spent at my aunties house where most of my family will spend the day.
Secondly I would like to finish my interviews. I would like to interview my grandparents together and ask them about the five main things that i then are most important in their lives; Music, Faith, Family, Jersey and Wales. O need to edit and publish these interviews and also take my favourite quotes from them which I can use in my picture book.
Thirdly I will go down to my grandparents home and photograph it with their Christmas decorations up. As well as taking photographs of both my Grandpa and Grumma I would also like to take photos of their home and their estate.
For my first shoot I want to begin by photographing my grandmother. My grandfather was married to my grandmother for fifteen years, they had eight children together and remained very close friends after their divorce. When my grandfather died my grandmother found it very difficult to deal with, they were very close and she knows him as a husband and best friend. I think through photographing my grandmother I can grasp an understanding of an aspect of my grandfather’s life. I also want to interview her in order to figure out my grandfather’s life further and ask some more in depth questions which I haven’t had the option to ask before. I think this particular shoot is really important as it allows me to photograph someone invisible through another person.
Shoot two:
For my second shoot I want to begin to photograph objects which remind me of my grandfather. For example, letters, pottery, frames, flowers, foods, smells and special moments I shared with him. I think through photographing these items I can reconstruct my grandfather’s life. I want to cover my grandfather’s entire life, his childhood, his marriage, he jobs, his children and his grandchildren. I have found Abril’s work incredibly inspiring and influential. She managed to capture the invisible perfectly, Abril included lots of images of objects in order to tell the story. For example, she included medication and significant items like scales.
Shoot three:
For my third shoot, I am going to look through all of the archival images I have of my grandfather and family so I can include it in the book. A major flaw in my previous project was that I relied heavily on this style of image, however, I think it is important to have these photographs in the book as they represent my grandfather’s life. Laia Abril used archival images in her work The Epilogue it clearly worked extremely well and supported her other photographs.
The goal of a personal study is to investigate, explore and challenge a particular area of interest. My personal study will need to reflect my opinions, ideas and creativity. It needs to include a written essay of 1000-3000 words and a photographic body of work of 250-500 photographs, plus, a number of final outcomes. From evaluating my previous project, I think I need to focus more on experimentation for this personal study in order to show my creativity. I also want to include letters, archive images and drawings from my grandfather’s life.
What artist movements can I include? What photographers should I include? Extra notes:
Laia Abril
Yury Toroptsov
Philosophical articles
Julian Germain
Books- The photography reader, Basic Critical Theory for Photographers
Final pieces- photo book, possibly a video, prints
