I am happy with my progress over the last six weeks. Initially when given the project title i was excited to start and new project and make images. Once i had research the theme of freedom and limitations i decided to go down a political route of feminism and women’s rights for my project. This was a topic that i’ve always been interested in and was excited to research the subject, find out more about it and make images of my representation of women’s rights and feminism. From the beginning of the project i think that my ideas have developed a lot. i researched a lot about the background of feminism and how womens rights have progressed over the last century as well as where they were at right at the beginning of time. I have also looked at some of the huge feminist artist such as i compleated a detailed artist reference on Cindy Sherman which is hugely relevant to my project and also gave more depth to my knowledge of the topic. I think that my ideas have been sustained and focused as i have compleated my target about of artist references as well as continued to make photos on experimental and planned shoots each week. However i think that i could improve on my photoshoots if after i completed them i reviewed each shoot in more detail looking at what went well and what could be improved after each shoot and then taking this into consideration for my next shoot and following shoots which i do for this project.

I have responded 4 times for my project so far however the first shoot was an experiment looking at the technical aspects which i wanted to consider throughout my project. I think that my shoots have been really successful and so far i am really happy with all of my responses. MY favourite shoot so far was my initial shoot which was compleated at Lara’s house. The outcomes for this shoot where extremely successful, with the outcomes being what i had hoped produce during this shoot. Furthermore for all of my shoots i stuck to my plans as well as staying focus on what my project is focusing on, Feminism. However i still think that i could produce more shoots exploring further how women were represented in the 1970’s compared to how they are presented today. I am happy with the experimentation which i have included in my shoots. I have looked at using different types of lighting such as natural lighting and considering the where to place my model so that the lighting is behind me and going onto the model, however have also experimented with taking images with artificial light which create a warm tone to the images. I think that there are clear links which can be seen between by artist references as well as the research that i did at the beginning of my project. I have been consistent with focusing of the similarities and differences of how women are presented in our modern society compared to how they were presented during the second wave of feminism predominately in the 1970’s.

I definitely still think that there are areas i have yet to explore during my project and more shoots that can be done to enrich my project with lots of photographic responses to show my understanding of the key theme. However one thing which i even more so am aiming to look at compleating in the next stages of my project is looking at women in film in the 1970’s. I plan on watching a couple of movies based from this time period which have female protagonists. Whilst watching i will be considering the role they have to play, how they are portrayed and represented and if they seem to have equal rights to males. Furthermore i am going to o some research on essays which have been written on the female representation through film as well as some feminist articles which  i have found. Over the next three weeks i aim to compleate a shoot a week again so when i comes to just before the examination period i will have compleated six formal responses to the title ‘Freedom and Limitations’.

Todd Hido, born in Ohio United States, is formally recognised for being an American contemporary Artist as well as being a Photographer. As an artist he is now based in San Francisco where his works have featured in many top magazines and websites such as; Elephant, Vanity Fair, The New York Times Magazines and many many more. His works are displayed in private and public galleries as collections and he has over a dozen books published and is a world renound success. his most recent monograph titled Excerpts from Silver Meadows was released in 2013, along with an innovative b-sides box set designed to function as a companion piece to his award-winning monograph in 2014. His works mainly involve the photographing of urban and suburban housing around San Francisco however he has traveled around America to make many of his series. However he also does a series of portraits where he focuses on women He used to get a model and take them to a motel or hose which was nearly completely bare and slightly run down look to it and photograph them looking scared and as if they had been a subject sexual acts. However this was done in a positive way to bring about awareness.

I was most interested in Hido’s portraits as the context behind the reason to him taking his portraits of women links to the limitations of women and shows them as be subjective and lacking freedom even in the modern day, which relates closely to how women’s rights and how they are portrayed through photography have changed.

Official Website

interview with Todd Hido

ANALYSIS:

The image by Todd Hido is of  women in a motel room in america, she is seductively lying across the bed without trousers on. Just by stating what can initially be seen in the image we get a sense of what the narrative Hido is trying to display through his portraits. Tom Hido  has made his name internationally from photographs that are conspicuously absent of people, has spent the last year clicking nude portraits of women in shabby motel rooms around the Bay Area. The images represent a mid-career gamble for Hido. Nudes are rarely the stuff an art maven will drop $10K for, much less if they contain elements of erotica, which Hido’s do. Or, perhaps, the art world will again hail Hido’s ability to capture the dramatic tensions inherent in the body, just as he did with households. this image is an example of the erotica which has recently been shown in his images. I think that this is showing showing a new and refreshing light that hasnt really been seen over the past few decades. His work, similar to what began to emerge in the 70’s, shows the sexual side of women and how they are objects of erotica. Tom Hido portrays the women to be seductive and although not nude in every image he portrays a lot of playfullness in his images and they seem to be very suggestive.

In terms of composition, Tom Hido’s portrait shows his skill as a photographer. He has cleavily placed the model just off the middle of the photograph. As she is slightly to the bottom left of the image, this way the photograph isn’t breaking the rule of thirds and also allows for a big amount of background to create a strong frame. I do think that it is purposeful that Hido has created this portrait in this way, the huge amount of framing must have been purposely done as it is technically to much but creates a very dramatic and intriguing image, as we are left wandering why it has been taken at such a distance when image similar to this are normally captured closer up. However it leads out mind to thin what the purpose of the image may be and i think that the model is so far away to show the distance that some women feel from society. Women subject to prostitution often don’t chose that life but die to poverty and background they are forced t live this erotic life which distancing them from society. However we are unable to really understand any more about the narrative behind the image as the walls are striped bare and there is nothing on the bed. The only idea we get of what is going on is the models body position.

Furthermore the colours of the image are very interesting. deep pink tones of the image emphasize a darkness in the image and how this isn’t a happy, simple scene to look at. The lighting is also crucial in this image. Women who are living these lives don’t tend to be showing what they are in broad daylight and showing a sense of erotica is usually in a dark environment. From the image we can understand that the  direction of light is coming from a near window just out of the left side of the image. the window is not shown but we can see that the left side of the image is a lot brighter and well lit and as be move into the centre of the image the women casts a show onto the wall behind her and then on the far right of the image is really dark and underexposed. The photograph also has a depth of field. This depth in the image is created by the only three objects in the image keeping it simple and focusing out eye on the three things the photographer wants us to be considering for the narrative of this image. The include; the bed,the model and the room itself. Depth is created by the wall being in the far ground of the image, the model being just in front of the wall in the centre of the image and then the bed being in the fore ground of the image bringing layers to the image.

From analyzing Hidos work it has influenced my work by making me think about the use of natural lighting that i use in my images and how i could experiment with natural lighting but also maybe a spot lamp which would create a different sense of lighting in the images

MICHELLE SANK:

Michelle Sank was born in South Africa and has been living in the UK since 1987. Her photographs have been exhibited and published extensively in England, Europe, Australia and Mexico, South Africa and the U.S.A and are held in collections in the UK and the USA.

She has undertaken numerous commissions for prominent galleries and magazines in Europe and the USA. Her practice is concerned with the notion of encountering, collecting, and re-telling. She is interested in creating sociological landscapes, interplays of human form and location that are significant in their visual, sociological and psychological nuances. She has three published books to date: Becoming (Published by Belfast Exposed Photography and Ffotogallery,). The Water’s Edge: Women on the Waterfront (Published by Liverpool University Press,). The Submerged (Published by Schilt)

I wanted to look at the works of Michelle Sank because she came over to Jersey in 2013 and work with the Jersey Archilse project. She was a resident of the island for around 6 months and worked with the archives as well as the local citizens of jersey to created a series of photos which she continues with once she left jersey. Her project ‘In My Skin’ focused on capturing individuals who were under the age of 25 and had been challenging there body image. Although this doesn’t obviously relate to my project it relates in the way that she focused on young people challenging their freedoms to express the way they present their body and as im focusing on the second wave of feminism which looks at how women thought for the freedom to express their body and femininity there is a loose connection between the two projects.

She is also a modern day photographer which adds variety to my artist reference as i don’t only want to focus on how photographers in the seventies portrayed women, i want to developed my projected into looking at the freedoms and limitations of the modern day female. Therefore Michelle Sank’s works are hugely helpful to me as she looks at how /body image is one of the biggest limitations for individuals in the modern day. I think it is really interesting to also contrast between the different limitations that females are experiencing since the twentieth century. As limitation on the political front are less evident now days however females internal thoughts are limiting them as body confidence as social consensus in Western society today is particularly focused on physical beauty and achieving and maintaining the “perfect” face and body.  This constant pressure fed through the media has led to a growing number of young people becoming dissatisfied with themselves and trying different ways to achieve the ‘beautiful’. This desire for perfection has been largely disseminated through photographic imagery in magazines, adverts, television etc. In My Skin makes use of this image dissemination but turns it on its head showing a different side – the human stories behind the decisions of these young people to undergo the physical changes. In those transitioning it is about them achieving an inner beauty by finally freeing themselves from society’s expectations and becoming comfortable in their own skin.

Below is Sank’s Website which allows you to gain some further understanding of what her series ‘In My Skin’ is about aswell as view all the images in the series:

Official Website

The images below are ones that i selected as photographs which most link to my project. Both subjects are young females, possibly teenagers who have expressed to Michelle Sank that they have challenged their body images. I chose to analyse these images further because of the camera angles that Sank has used as well as the body position, stance and positioning of the model. The way they look at the camera is also very telling about who they are and engages the audience in the images more.

Michelle Sank seemed to state why she photographed each indivual, however i was unable to find why this particular teenager was used in her project, however she must have had some form of issue with her body which has led her to try and change it in a certain way. I chose this image because the way she is lying on the bed seems to portray that she is confident working with the camera and who she is. She is dressed up in a nice dress with her hair done and this may symbolize that she wants to present herself nicely and possibly likes the attention she receives from people when dressing in this way. The individual gives us an idea that she is uninhibited about having her image taking and that she is a confident female, this is the type of personality i want to capture in my images. I want to portray women with confidence and that they are strong as this is the freedom which i consider the suffragettes and the waves of feminism gained for women.

The image shows a young female lying across her bed in a red dress against white bed sheets, this may be to show her femininity but also her new found freedom to express her sexuality. The way she is lying is slightly suggestive and i noticed that this is similar to how a lot of females began to be photographed in the seventies. the use of colour works well in this image as the red stand out strongly against the predominately white background. The lighting that Michelle Sank uses is also notable. A lot of her images she focuses on using the natural light coming in from the individuals windows however if there is not enough bright lighting she takes a light along with her to her shoots and sets it up directing the light onto the individual she is photographing. In this image the direction of light is coming from behind and slighting the the right of Sank and is therefore illuminating the subject so we can see them in a clear, slightly harsh light, where the bed in the foreground o the image is near to being over exposed. Framing in this image is created by the whiteness of the bed sheets as it frames around the subject making her in red in the middle stand out almost dramatically and in the audience face, this may be because Sank is trying to replicate the individuals personality. She is also right in the centre of the image breaking the rule of thirds making the image a statement and putting the issue of young people challenging there body image in the audiences face.

Instagram is a mobile, desktop, and Internet-based photo-sharing application and service that allows users to share pictures and videos either publicly, or privately to pre-approved followers.

As the focus of women in the 1970’s has always been of interest to me and the women’s right movements i actually follow a few accounts on Instagram which regularly post images f women during the feminist protests in the 70’s aswell as how women where presented through images. There is also one account which posts images of females which are inspired by the 1970’s and the movements that occurred during this period. As this is extremely similar to the project which i am doing i managed to gain a huge amount of inspiration, which helped me too plan my next few shoots and give me ideas of the ways that i could present feminism and the decade i am focusing on. Below are some screenshots of my saved folder on Instagram which is where you can save certain images which you would like to revisit or have in a collection.

A lot of the photographs are head shots or face on shots of women looking into the camera with strong facial expression and expressing themselves as strong independent women who have broken away from the stereotypical idea of the ‘Stay at home mum’. There a big mix of styles of images in my inspiration collection, varying from documentary street photography to studio work, too capturing women in their natural locations such as there homes. These are all different styles which i would like to capture through my photography as i would like to show a diverse range of images which show young women in the present day as well as imitating the way women where presented in the 1970’s

The first retrospective in twenty-five years of work by Garry Winogrand (1928–1984)—the renowned photographer of New York City and of American life from the 1950s through the early 1980s—this exhibition brings together more than 175 of the artist’s most iconic images, a trove of unseen prints, and even Winogrand’s famed series of photos made at the Metropolitan Museum in 1969 when the Museum celebrated its centennial. It offers a rigorous overview of Winogrand’s complete working life and reveals for the first time the full sweep of his career.

Born in the Bronx, Winogrand did much of his best-known work in Manhattan during the 1960s, and in both the content of his photographs and his artistic style he became one of the principal voices of that eruptive decade. Known primarily as a street photographer, Winogrand, who is often associated with famed contemporaries Diane Arbus and Lee Friedlander, photographed with dazzling energy and incessant appetite, exposing some twenty thousand rolls of film in his short lifetime. He photographed business moguls, everyday women on the street, famous actors and athletes, hippies, politicians, soldiers, animals in zoos, rodeos, car culture, airports, and antiwar demonstrators and the construction workers who beat them bloody in view of the unmoved police. Daily life in postwar America—rich with new possibility and yet equally anxious, threatening to spin out of control—seemed to unfold for him in a continuous stream.

While Winogrand is widely considered one of the greatest photographers of the twentieth century, his overall body of work and influence on the field remain incompletely explored. He was enormously prolific but largely postponed the editing and printing of his work. The act of taking pictures was far more fulfilling to Winogrand than making prints or editing for books and exhibitions; he often allowed others to perform these tasks for him. Dying suddenly at the age of 56, he left behind proof sheets from his earlier years that he had marked but never printed, as well as approximately 6,600 rolls of film  that he had never seen, more than one-third of which he had never developed at all; these rolls of film were developed after his death.

Among Winogrand’s favorite subjects were women, and he described himself as being “compulsively interested in women” and having “compulsively photographed women.” A large part of Winogrand’s images in the collection of the MoCP form part of the Women are Beautiful portfolio (1981), which was initially published as a monograph in 1975. For the monograph, John Szarkowski, curator of photography at The Museum of Modern Art in New York at the time, selected eighty-five images featuring women from hundreds of photographs by Winogrand. The resulting book offers a random collection of women caught on the street, in parks, getting into cars, at parties, marching in parades, skinny-dipping in ponds, etc. The images capture not only Winogrand’s attraction to the women he photographed, but also the styles, activities, gestures, and energies pertaining to gender in the 1960s and 1970s, an era of transition during second-wave feminism and the sexual revolution. In the monograph and in the portfolio.

 “Whenever I’ve seen an attractive woman, I’ve done my best to photograph her. I don’t know if all the women in the photographs are beautiful, but I do know that the women are beautiful in the photographs.” – Windogrand

I love this image captured by Gary Windogrand, he compleatly captures the natural elegance and beauty of women in the 1970’s. His image can immediately be seen to link to the whole idea of female actresses emerging as being beautiful and subjects that are glamorous yet not highlighting women’s intelligence. However i do not think this is the purpose of Windogrand when taking this image. He loved to capture images of women, which is evident when he completed his series ‘Women are beautiful’ which is where this image is from. He shoots in a documentary style where he observes women in their day to day lives photographing there natural movements. As the images are unstaged they give us a more truthful representation of women in the 1970’s. This image does not have a caption or title as it came from the massive amount of films which were not developed until after his death, however we can make assumptions of what the image is of and the location. I think that this image was from a high end party or maybe even a movie premiere as the female protagonist is dressed very glamorously with a silk dress and pearls.  Windogrand may have been trying to capture how desirable actresses where i the 70’s by the fact that she is surrounded by many men in the image.

Furthermore, although Windogrand captures this series of images as documentary photography and on the spot images i think that he does consider the composition of the image before taking it. This is evident in this image especially as the female is placed just of the centre of the image which means that he wants to show her as the main focus of the image but follow the rule of thirds making this image aesthetically pleasing and composed correctly. He has also considered framing for this image as the focal point is surround by males in black which create a frame to the edge of the image and then in the center is the women in a white dress which further highlights her as the focal point as she is the area of the photo which your eye is immediately drawn too. This can also link into the way he has used contrast between light and dark tonal range to tell the story and portray his message. The dark suits which create the frame directly contrast with the lightness of her dress. Depth of field is also created in this image by the natural business of the situation. The men seem to be surrounding her creating framing but also adding depth of field to the image as they are slightly in front of her being the foreground of the image as well as being behind her creating the background and then the female in the middle is again shown to be the aspect Windogrand is highlighting. His clever composition is what attracted me to this image as he creates an artistically beautiful image as well as portraying the narrative of the role women began to play in the 1970’s.

Gary Windogrand series of images have widened my ideas of what i want to photograph and i am interested in maybe doing a documentary shoot where i use my film camera so i don’t know what images i have captured and just have to take one which is the right image. Documentary photography would add to my project in the way that it captures the young females of the twenty first century in a similar way to in the 1970’s where i could then compare how things have changed as well as how i subconsciously portray the role and freedoms of the modern day female in my images.

CINDY SHERMAN

Cindy Sherman is a contemporary master of socially critical photography. She is a key figure of the “Pictures Generation,” a loose circle of American artists who came to artistic maturity and critical recognition during the early 1980s, a period notable for the rapid and widespread proliferation of mass media imagery. At first painting in a super-realist style in art school during the aftermath of American Feminism, Sherman turned to photography toward the end of the 1970s in order to explore a wide range of common female social roles, or personas. Sherman sought to call into question the seductive and often oppressive influence of mass-media over our individual and collective identities. Turning the camera on herself in a game of extended role playing of fantasy Hollywood, fashion, mass advertising, and “girl-next-door” roles and poses, Sherman ultimately called her audience’s attention to the powerful machinery and make-up that lay behind the countless images circulating in an incessantly public, “plugged in” culture. Sexual desire and domination, the fashioning of self identity as mass deception, these are among the unsettling subjects lying behind Sherman’s extensive series of self-portraiture in various guises. Sherman’s work is central in the era of intense consumerism and image proliferation at the close of the 20th century.

in 1977 Cindy Sherman began capturing images of women which became one of her most world renound projects,  “Untitled Film Stills.” Over three years, the series grew to comprise a total of seventy black-and-white photographs. Taken as a whole, the this series of images resembles publicity pictures made on movie sets of stereotypical female roles inspired by 1950s and 1960s Hollywood, film noir, B movies, and European art-house films. But while the characters and scenarios may seem familiar Cindy Sherman’s “Stills” are entirely fictitious; they represent clichés (career girl, bombshell, girl on the run, vamp, housewife, and so on) that are deeply embedded in the cultural imagination. While the pictures can be appreciated individually, much of their significance comes in the endless variation of identities from one photograph to the next. As a group they explore the complexity of representation in a world saturated with images, and refer to the cultural filter of images (moving and still) through which we see the world.

FURTHER RESEARCH:

I got hold of a couple books containing Cindy Sherman’s works as well as the book below which contained an essay analyzing her works, the way she created photographs and her purpose for taking mages of women in the style that she did.

In the book above, Retrospective, different art critics look at pieces of work by Cindy Sherman attempting to discuss them from a non objective way. Amelia Jones, who writes the ‘Tracing the Subject’ essay in the book initally considers how Cindy Shermans work is ‘A feminist negotiation of the male gaze’. She considers how cindy sherman has looked a her subjects from a male point and view and then views context on the theory of ‘The Projective Eye’ which in the 1970’s was a way in which the male could be seen to be looking at the female. There are three ways in the projective eye theory that of which the victims take their place relative to it. The first being that they internalize the penislike eye (meaning the photography considers what a males viewpoint and perspective would be. The second being that they aggressively enact themselves according to the rules that have been established and then they confuse its potentially disempowering effects by throwing the gaze back at the viewer.

Performing gender

“the adoption of feminimity as a sign of the ways in which particular subjects are aloowed to experience themselves produces the subject as an object trapped within the inexorable purview of the projective gaze.” I consider what Jone’s is saying her to be that no matter whether male or female, as soon as they are stood in front of the lens they are subject to the eye of the photographer and they will be represented in the way that their projective eye sees. This links to the idea of objectification and how no photograph can really be holey authentic. However in consideration to the role of female and how females are presented during the 1970’s and 80’s they were more than not subject to the idea of the male gaze which Sherman considers a lot during her work especially when looking at her untitled film stills series which was created to resemble movies sets where women where sexualised. Jones goes on to consider the Untitled Films Still series by Sherman saying how it is obvious that she is trying to show feminimity through her images however it still contains the generic structures of the gaze. A really interesting point which i found when reading this essay was that Jones says “her entire body of work’s performance of the sexual subject as an effect of the other.”. I think that this is notable to consider when looking at other artists and photographers throughout my project that images may only ever be subjective and sexualised because of the eye of the creator.

IMAGE ANALYSIS

I chose to analyse this image because the subject that Cindy Sherman was photographing was portraying a sense of uninhibition (expressing one’s feelings or thoughts unselfconsciously and without restraint.) and this is why i was initially drawn to Shermans work. Her models in her series ‘untitled film stills do not seem to be shy in front of the camera they are focusing on strong confident women who are embracing there beauty. ‘Untitled Film Stills’ was a key series of works in showing women’s femininity and before the 1970’s women’s bodies hadn’t really been revealed in front of the camera. I also chose this image as i really liked the strong pose and the way the subjects body is positioned as well as an interesting camera angle being used.

The image is of a young women lying across white bed sheets holding her hair brush in her underwear and night robe. The image, taken in 1977, is taken in the style of the way actresses were represented. Actresses were partly negatively represented in the 1970’s as they were shown as beautiful women who were sex symbols and adored. However they were only portrayed as this, they were not shown to be intelligent or independent women and i think that this is conveyed through Sherman’s image #6. Her close of portrait of the subject breaks the rule of thirds as the subject takes up nearly the whole screen however i think that this is clever composition as it keeps her as the main focus point of the image and there is nothing taken away from the subject.  The composition complements the framing of the image as the subject reaches each edge of the image so the framing has been captured around where the subject is getting her to just film the frame. Colour tones and contrast play a key part in creating this image. The nearly pure black of the hair brush and bra stand out really strongly against the the white sheets and her skin tone. I think that this may have purposely been set up as these two items are very feminine  objects. The angles that Sherman’s uses are also key to analyse as she does not photograph from a typical eye level mid zoom shot. She has been more experimental with the perspectives that she captures of the females she focused on. Her she is above the subject looking down on them, this could be a connotation of men looking down on women or us looking into the lives of female movie stars in the 1970’s. It is hard to figure out but i think that the lighting in this image may have been coming from a big open window on a bright day which providing a lot of light into the room making the scene well lit with no shadow occurring.

The image relates closely to the context of my project which is Freedom and limitations which i have refined down to being females freedoms and limitations in the 1970’s. ‘Untitled Film Stills’ being some of the most famous feminist photographs are taken are a key starting point for me to look at the understand the status of women during the time period of the 1970’s and has given me some initial ideas of how i am going to represent the femininity of young women and how they can express it in a tasteful way.

EXPERIMENTATION:

I decided to do an initial experimentation shoot which took place during lesson time where i used the school library to experiment taking images with natural lighting. As images in the 1970’s were predominantly captured in black and white: lighting, tonal range, and contrast where very important to making a successful image. Therefore i needed to practices and get some experience in the amount of natural light i would need and the setting and clothing colours which would need to be used in shoots to create well contrasted images without them being over exposed or under exposed

I took inspiration from Cindy Sherman’s image taken in 1978,from her ‘untitled film stills’ series #13

Doing this shoot helped my understanding of the lighting needed and they angles which i wanted to focus on creating in my images. I struggled to get the right amount  of contrast and as it can be seen in the above images which i edited the tonal range was correct.  The outcome of the images was that they just looked a bit flat and from looking at the images i came to the conclusion that it was because i was photographing with the light behind the subject as well as the background being white, this meant that the white areas of the images where too white and the blacks in the images when changed to black and white where too pure black. However this shoot was helpful in understanding this and i now have a greater understanding of how to position the subject and the camera to get the portraits that i want.

THE VISUAL PLEASURE – LAURA MULVEY

In Laura Mulvey’s ‘Visual pleasure and narrative Cinema’ she explores the theory of psychoanalysis and how it can be used as a ‘political weapon’ to show how the patriachic subconscious of society shapes our cinema itself as well as the audience’s film watching experience. According to Mulvey the cinematic text is organized along lines that are corresponding to the cultural subconscious with is essentially patriarchic. Mulvey argues that the popularity of Hollywood films is determined and reinforced by preexisting social patterns which have shaped the fascinated subject. And this is why i was drawn to this piece of work to enriched my understanding of why Cindy Sherman may have created her Film stills in the way that she did.  Mulvey explores the methodology of cinematic means of expression of how the female and the male are represented as well as looking into how the formation of subjectivity is created. Mulvey helps us to understand how films produce the meaning that they did in the 1970’s. Mulvey’s main argument in “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema” is that Hollywood narrative films use women in order to provide a pleasurable visual experience for men. The narrative film structures its gaze as masculine. The woman is always the object of the reifying gaze, not the bearer of it.

The way that she deciphers the role of the female as the surrogate, highlights the role of women in the 1970’s. She discusses how women are in films purely for the sexual pleasure of the male on the screen with them as well as the audience. Men are portrayed as the hero through the cameras movement and the angles which are presented on the screens. The main subject of the first half of her essay is the theme of ‘scopophilia’ which is the sexual pleasure from watching others when they are naked. Mulvey states that this is the importance of the female in cinema. In her essay she states that ‘Freud isolated Scopophilia as one of the component instincts of sexuality which exists as drives quite independently of the erotogenic zones.’ This highlights the use of people as objects in films. Males, who play the role of the protagonist, tell the narrative of the film whilst women are simplified to objects of erotica. She further states that ‘The cinema satisfies a primordial wish for pleasurable looking’ – stating that the purpose of films were to provide satisfaction and for this to be provided women were used. The role of women in Hollywood an be seen as sexual objects where the ‘female figures is styled accordingly’. Women in cinema in the 1970’s were dehumanised and feminized compositional features to the narrative. Often, it’s women’s bodies as sexualized objects, women as problems to conquer not people to interact with. For example, Mulvey notes that many “classic” Hollywood films show women’s body parts for example a leg, but not women as whole beings–the camera literally butchers women into their most tasty, delectable cuts. Cutting up women, objectifying them, that’s what we like, aesthetically, in classic Hollywood cinema.

After reading and analysing this article, picking out key aspects which are relevant to my project, i thought that it would be useful to actually watch from films which were produced in the 1970’s to see for myself how they have been portrayed and if i can highlight key points in the film where women are shown as objects and that there role in the film has been sexualized. I have decided to pick movies which have beautiful women who at the time where huge film stars in Hollywood and were very popular with the male gender.

Still grieving over the accidental death of their daughter, Christine (Sharon Williams), John (Donald Sutherland) and Laura Baxter (Julie Christie) head to Venice, Italy, where John’s been commissioned to restore a church. There Laura meets two sisters (Hilary Mason, Clelia Matania) who claim to be in touch with the spirit of the Baxters’ daughter. Laura takes them seriously, but John scoffs until he himself catches a glimpse of what looks like Christine running through the streets of Venice. – Wikipedia

Throughout the movie, it is hard to decipher who is the protagonist of the film as both have n equal role in the movie. However it is evident who is the stronger role in the relationship. This is the male actor played by Donald Sutherland who plays the dad of the young girl that unfortunately dies right at the beginning of the film. John seems to be slightly in control of his wife, making her seem crazy when she is fascinated by the two sisters who say that they are in touch with her daughters spirit. One scene definitely catches the eye of the audience and does seem to be slightly out of place with the narrative of the film and this is were i believe that Laura Mulveys theme for her essay can be noted in this film. Around half way through there is a nude scene where John and Laura begin to role around on the bed which turn into an erotic sex scene. Her role in the film seem to immediately change and she is now playing the role of the sexualized object that Mulvey describes. Through fast movie camera angles the audience is drawn in through the ‘graze’ of this scene, and as many cinematic presentations did during the 1970’s it provides scopophila for those watching.

Furthermore, the analysis of film theory and watching an actual film has enriched my knowledge and understanding of the way females where portrayed in the seventies and eighties and provides an understanding for the need of the second wave of feminism. In my photography i am going to try and portray how women were presented during this time, through my stills which will create the sense that women are feminine and sexual however i will try to do this without exploiting them and simplifying them to sexulaized objects.

feminism - the advocacy of women's rights on the 
ground of the equality of the sexes.

• First-wave feminism – 19th and early 20th century (1910s to 1950s), focusing on women’s suffrage, property rights and political candidacy;
• Second-wave feminism – 1960s to 1980s, focusing on reducing inequalities in sexuality, family, the workplace, reproductive rights, de facto inequalities, and official legal inequalities;
• Third-wave feminism – 1990s to 2008, focusing on embracing individualism and diversity;
• Fourth-wave of feminism – 2008 to present-day, focusing on combating sexual harassment, assault and misogyny;
• Fifth-wave feminism – Journalist Caitlin Moran’s concept of future feminism

Background of the Waves of Feminism

Feminism occurred through a series of waves, where feminist focused on different aspects during each wave and as they gained the women rights, or the freedoms which they were fighting for they moved on to the next wave which would push for more rights for women. the first wave of feminism was often taken for granted, women in the late 19th to early 20th centuries, realized that they must first gain political power (including the right to vote) to bring about change was how to fuel the fire. Their political agenda expanded to issues concerning sexual, reproductive and economic matters. The seed was planted that women have the potential to contribute just as much if not more than men. As this wave was the initial emergence of the whole movement it was more about setting the scene and showing that women really where capable of as much as men are. The second wave of feminism occurred just after the second world war, during this wave equality and rights in the workplace as well as fighting for sexuality, famility and reproductive rights for women. Coming about in the 1960’s, Second wave feminism was also part of a widespread social change movement that included of course, civil rights and gay rights activism as well. Second-wave feminism spread through small consciousness-raising groups where women joined together to discuss how sexism affected their life, work, and family. Second wave projects focused on economic and social inequalities between the genders, and highlighted injustices like the glass ceiling and the wage gap in business, as well as the hyper-sexualization and commercialization of the female body. The third wave of feminism followed on from the second, the reaction from the second wave brought the mass participation of many feminists and then the third began to look not so much at the shared experience of women but acknowledges the differences of women.  Third wavers embrace a variety of feminisms, emphasizing diversity in all its forms: race, gender, class, sexual preference, political views and lifestyle. The varying feminist outlooks continue to be present today. The main issues we face today were prefaced by the work done by the previous waves of women. We are still working to vanquish the disparities in male and female pay and the reproductive rights of women. We are working to end violence against women in our nation as well as others. We are still fighting for acceptance and a true understanding of the term ‘feminism,’ it should be noted that we have made tremendous progress since the first wave. It is a term that has been unfairly associated first, with ladies in hoop skirts and ringlet curls, then followed by butch, man-hating women. Due to the range of feminist issues today, it is much harder to put a label on what a feminist looks like.

Feminism in Art and Photography

For my project i am going to focus on making images which follow the second wave of feminism as this was where it looked at sexuality and i am really interested in how women began to be presented in different ways and were presented as the beautiful actress as well as emerging portrait photography of empowering women and this is what i want to capture in my photography. The Feminist art movement emerged in the late 1960s amidst the fervor of anti-war demonstrations and civil and queer rights movements. Feminist artist focused on recreating the art world from what had previously been male dominated to recreated it to contemporary artwork which pushed the boundaries and abolished the stereotypical idea of the women in artwork. Feminist art created opportunities and spaces that previously did not exist for women and minority artists, as well as paved the path for the Identity art and Activist art of the 1980s.

Key ideas:


 - Feminist artists sought to create a dialogue between the viewer and the artwork through the inclusion of women's perspective. Art was not merely an object for aesthetic admiration, but could also incite the viewer to question the social and political landscape, and through this questioning, possibly affect the world and bring change toward equality.

 - Before feminism, the majority of women artists were invisible to the public eye. They were oftentimes denied exhibitions and gallery representation based on the sole fact of their gender. The art world was largely known, or promoted as, a boy's club, of which sects like the hard drinking, womanizing members of Abstract Expressionism were glamorized. To combat this, Feminist artists created alternative venues as well as worked to change established institutions' policies to promote women artists' visibility within the market.

 - Feminist artists often embraced alternative materials that were connected to the female gender to create their work, such as textiles, or other media previously little used by men such as performance and video, which did not have the same historically male-dominated precedent that painting and sculpture carried. By expressing themselves through these non-traditional means, women sought to expand the definition of fine art, and to incorporate a wider variety of artistic perspectives.
(http://www.theartstory.org/movement-feminist-art.htm)

Examples of Feminist artists;

• Cindy Sherman
• Joyce Wieland
• Frida Kahlo
• Artemisia Gentileschi
• Lilith Adler
• Caroline Folkenroth
• Candice Raquel Lee
• Jennifer Linton
• Martha Rosler
• Rachel Stone
• Victoria Van Dyke
• William Blake

I am planning on looking at Gender Equality, Womens Rights and Feminism in my exam in response to the freedom and limitations title. I was initially inspired by Instagram accounts that i follow which include and regularly post images of women in a 70’s style of photography which are always tasteful and express the women which are being photographed as strong women who are embracing their sexuality and femininity. I began to consider how prior the 1900’s women were extremely restricted in their rights and ability to be in the workforce and held the stereotypical ‘House mum’ role and were expected to stay at home cook, clean and look after the children. The images which inspired me showed women expressing themselves for who they are and highlights the growing power of ‘The Woman’. For my project i want to focus on how women became more open about their femininity and artist and photographers started creating pieces of work which highlighted the positives of femininity. However there were some negatives with this as actresses in the 70’s were portrayed as only being beautiful and sexy and not intelligent. I want to link these different ideas together in my project to make photographs in the style of 1970’s photographers but put a modern spin on it by using adolescence females and showing femininity and the women in a positive way through the use of strong empowering portraits.

Before just taking these images i wanted to research the feminist movement and look at how it has progressed through time, enhancing the role of the female and improving their rights to bring about gender equality. Below is a mind map of initial ideas, research, artists and ideas for my project.

From my mind map i pinpointed key themes and dates within Feminism including the Suffragist rally and will further explore who the Suffragettes were, whilst exploring the impact they had on improving the lives of women for protesting for their rights.

History of Women

Women's rights -rights that promote a position of legal and social equality of women with men.

Women’s rights were fought for worldwide and formed the basis for the women rights movement in the 19th century and feminist movement during the 20th century. The issues which are commonly associated with womens rights are extensive varying from the right to bodily integrity and autonomy, to have equal rights in family law, too fair wages and the right to education.

Ancient History

Mesopotamia- Women’s rights have always been questionable even since the earliest times periods such as the Mesopotamia. Women in ancient Sumer could buy, own, sell, and inherit property, they could also testify in court as witnesses. However their husbands could divorce them for mild infractions, and a divorced husband could easily remarry another woman, provided that his first wife had borne him no offspring.Divorce in these times left women with little to know rights in the area and power seemed to lie with the husbands.

Egypt – In ancient Egypt women enjoyed the same rights under the law as a men, however rightful entitlements depended upon social class. Landed property descended in the female line from mother to daughter, and women were entitled to administer their own property.

The Women’s Rights Movement, 1848–1920 – The beginning of the fight for women’s suffrage in the United States, which predates Jeannette Rankin’s entry into Congress by nearly 70 years, grew out of a larger women’s rights movement. That reform effort evolved during the 19th century, initially emphasizing a broad spectrum of goals before focusing solely on securing the franchise for women. Women’s suffrage leaders, moreover, often disagreed about the tactics and whether to prioritize federal or state reforms. Ultimately, the suffrage movement provided political training for some of the early women pioneers in Congress, but its internal divisions foreshadowed the persistent disagreements among women in Congress and among women’s rights activists after the passage of the 19th Amendment. The sometimes-fractious suffrage movement that grew out of the Seneca Falls meeting proceeded in successive waves. Initially, women reformers addressed social and institutional barriers that limited women’s rights, including family responsibilities, a lack of educational and economic opportunities, and the absence of a voice in political debates. During the 1880s, the two wings of the women’s rights movement struggled to maintain momentum. The AWSA was better funded and the larger of the two groups, but it had only a regional reach. The NWSA, which was based in New York, relied on its statewide network, but also drew recruits from around the nation largely on the basis of the extensive speaking circuits of Stanton and Anthony. Neither group attracted broad support from women or persuaded male politicians or voters to adopt its cause. The turning point came in the late 1880s and early 1890s, when the nation experienced a surge of volunteerism among middle-class women—activists in progressive causes, members of women’s clubs and professional societies, temperance advocates, and participants in local civic and charity organizations. The determination of these women to expand their sphere of activities further outside the home helped legitimize the suffrage movement and provided new momentum for the NWSA and the AWSA. state legislature granted women the right to vote in 1913. This marked the first such victory for women in a state east of the Mississippi River. Women in the NWSA continued to fight for rights in political terms. After this period the Suffragists movement began to be more reguarly photographed with worldwide photographers beginning to photograph their local areas, but not on the protests which the suffragettes carried out but also the evergrowing role of the woman aswell and capturing the feminimity of women became more widely excepted as photographers where pushing the boundaries of photography.

Women’s Suffrage

Women’s suffrage was the right for women to vote in election as limited voting rights were gained by women in Finland, Iceland, Sweden and some Australian colonies and western U.S. states in the late 19th century. Some of the more independent countries such as Canada and Britain interacted in the interwar era. The women’s contribution to the war effort challenged the notion of women’s physical and mental inferiority and made it more difficult to maintain that women were, both by constitution and temperament, unfit to vote. If women could work in munitions factories, it seemed both ungrateful and illogical to deny them a place in the polling booth. Nonetheless the right to vote was to the women a lot more than because of them contributing in war efforts

Womens Suffrage in the UK – Through protests for the right to vote by mass participation of women in great britain, women secured the right to vote through 2 laws which were in 1918 and 1928. The Suffragette campaigns erose when WW1 broke out and political tensions were ever growing.  Along with these suffragist movements and protests came the Feminist movement where women and men thought to establish political, social, and economic equality for women. For my project i want to more narrowly focus on the feminist movement and the rights that were gained for women due to this movement as well as explore the works of artists and photographers throughout the time period and how they portrayed women and the feminist movement through their art. Feminism has been a huge part of every females history and through this project i want to enhance my knowledge and understanding of my history and i thought there was no better time to do it than on the 100th anniversary of women receiving the right to vote.