Wallstreet is a financial district which runs from Broadway to South Street in New York City. It was established in 1817 when the New York stock and exchange board was introduced where stockbrokers worked together to make a profit. Stocks grew gradually as through the 19th century and early 20th before peaking in the mid 1920’s before crashing in the 30’s. As stated in the newspaper headlines in the moodpboard above, billions of dollars where lost and 1 billion in the 30’s was equivalent to about 13.7 billion today. The crash of the stock market lead to a dramatic economic decline which sparked the period of the great depression before the second world war.
The wall street crash was a devastating time in American history and lead to the suffering of many low income families, this issue inspired many photographers to document the severity of the poor living conditions. A famous portrait produced during this period is “Migrant Mother” by Dorothea Lange. However, I want to look at this decade from a different angle, from the view of those are wealthy and privileged and although would have been effected by the economic decline, it certainly wouldn’t have compromised a roof being over their heads.
This decade was tricky for me as there wasn’t many cultural stereotypes to play off so I decided to choice a social and political one. The character I hope to create for this decade is a Wall Street Wife, a spouse of a business man who makes vast amounts of money and can fund her extravagant lifestyle. This woman hasn’t worked a day in her life and is, for lack of a better phrase, a “trophy wife”. I attempted to create more of an animated scene in this decade, in slight contrast to the static, out of context shots from the 1910’s an the 1920’s. My vision was that the Wall Street Wife was going about her morning when she is shocked by the headline of the morning paper. Suddenly, there is a slight risk that her lifestyle may not be as glamorous as had previously been.
For this character, I decided to wear I plain white bathrobe which I found at a charity shop, there were no visible stains and my family plan to use it as a guest robe in future so it wasn’t a wasteful purchase. I wanted to create the idea of the wife caught in a vulnerable moment hence why she isn’t completely dressed, her hair is in rollers and still in her robe. She is however a very glamorous woman, so I also plan to have painted red nails, matching lipstick ad a full face of makeup. I plan to use my blonde hair for this look as the image will mostly consist of muted light colours other than the pop of colour provided by the nails, lipstick and potentially, blush.
I also want to experiment with different poses. I know I would like the newspaper to be folded in half so that I can hold it with just one hand to free the other hand to make gestures. I also plan to hold the newspaper with the headline facing the camera so that viewer can read it (although I will be photoshopping a wall street crash headline over the top of the newspaper I use as a prop. I want to try using different facial expressions and see is an over dramatic scream, like the example in the mood board or a more subtle showed face will work best. I plan to try both and see what comes out conveying the overall character of the image most successfully.
