Background:

“We Can Do It!” is an American World War II wartime poster produced by J. Howard Miller in 1943 for Westinghouse Electric as an inspirational image to boost female worker morale. It was seen little during the war and was rediscovered early 1980’s and was widely reproduced, often called “We Can Do It!” but also called “Rosie the Riveter” after the iconic figure of a strong female war production worker. The image was used to promote feminism and other political issues begining in the 1980’s, it was incorporated in 2008 into campaign materials for several American politicians. Compared to all this during the war time the image was strictly internal to Westinghouse, displayed only during February 1943, and was not for recruitment but to exhort already-hired women to work harder. People have seized upon the uplifting attitude and message to remake it into many forms including self empowerment, campaign promotion and advertising.

I am choosing to recreate this specific poster to indicate the changes in this era of the 40’s as I feel it has that showing of development and progress and is a widely known poster, it represents how woman were being treated at the time and suggests towards how they were being advertised as they now took on ‘mans work’. I feel that it is a good example to show how women began to be portrayed when men weren’t there and then that it got picked back up during a strong female movement.

Plan:

For this photoshoot I will be taking the image in the studio to give me the best lighting for recreating these AD’s I will use two different subjects one in each of the images.  I am going to be dressing the subject in clothing that is almost exact or close to what the subject in the original image is wearing.

For the second recreation seen below I will adjust the persons hair and find clothes and props best suited to the photograph. The aim of this photoshoot is to create an accurate recreation of the photograph below and try to show and explain some of my inspirations coming from Cindy Sherman.

Second Recreation:

Above shows the Poster I was recreating, for this recreation I took the photographs in the studio as this enabled me to have a plain background as to edit the image on and the poster itself also has a plain background. I dressed my subject the same or similar as the figure in the original and took the time to get her to pose in the same manner.

Above shows the contact sheet of my outcomes from the photoshoot, some of the photographs came out a little dark however I should be able to edit these images and fix that in Photoshop.

I feel I have tried to show my inspirations coming from Cindy Sherman through the work by having my subject en body the person in the original ad and begin to represent herself in that way.

Unedited Best Outcomes:

Below shows what I think to be my best outcomes before I am editing the images to enhance them more and edit them to be more like the recreation. These are the four I think are the best however I will only experiment with editing one or two of them.

Chosen Photograph:

Above shows the photograph I have chosen to edit in response to the fashion photograph I was recreating. I have chosen this image as it was one of my most clear photographs and I feel replicates the original best. I also feel that in this photograph the lighting was working well compared to some of the other outcomes I produced and the subject is standing in the most similar way to the original photograph.

My aims while editing this photograph is to not adjust the photograph too much but to adjust the light and contrast to then put a black and white filter over the top to then create an accurate final outcome.

Editing Process:

For the first step towards turning the photograph into black and white I started by adjusting the brightness and the contrast slightly so that I had the best amount of shadows and highlights that I felt would work well once in black and white.

Next I went in and only slightly adjusted the actual shadows and highlights just to enhance what I previously did with the brightness and the contrast.

For the next step I experimented with placing a cooling filter over the top of the photograph to see how this would effect the image when putting it into black and white to take away the yellow and warm tones.

Finally I placed the black and white filter over the top of the photograph to recreate the final photograph best and to enhance this photograph itself more.

Final Outcome:

This shows the final outcome for my finished edited photograph, I feel the photograph worked well. I feel it works well in the black and white tones and placing the cooling filter over the top also worked well with enhancing the photograph.

Background:

The early 1960’s featured a number of diverse trends.  It was a decade that broke many fashion traditions, mirroring social movements during the time.  During the late 60’s there was a backlash by radical feminists in America against accouterments of what they perceived to be enforced femininity within the fashion industry.  Instead these activist wore androgynous and masculine clothing such as jeans, work boots or berets.

Plan:

For this photoshoot I will be taking the images in the studio to give me the best lighting for recreating these AD’s I will use two different subjects one in each of the images.  I am going to be dressing the subject in clothing that is almost exact or close to what the subject in the original image is wearing.

For the first recreation seen below I have found someone I feel will work best to take on this photograph and I have asked them to dress in a way similar to that of the original picture for the best possible recreation I can gain.

I will be trying to show my inspiration from Cindy Sherman by the way I am having my subjects try to embody the way the original subject was standing and acting.

First recreation:

Above shows the photograph that I have chosen to recreate.  I had my subject stand against the wall and try to recreate the pose that the model was standing in herself.  What I feel could have been done better would be to find an actual wall to take the photographs against rather than in the studio however I feel the rips on the floor of the studio I feel help with the recreation.

Above shows a contact sheet of the images I produced on the day of the photoshoot.  As can be seen some of the photographs came out too dark when I began to adjust the light, however this was able to be fixed in the camera settings with some adjustments.  Taking and thinking of the inspiration from Cindy Sherman I tried to have my subject embody and look at the original image a couple of times to try and recreate and represent the woman in the original photograph.

Unedited Best Outcomes:

Below shows my 6 personal best outcomes from the photo shoots.  After selecting these I will go in and start editing my 2 favorites to be more like the original picture and to enhance them more.