Since the invention of the daguerreotype in 1839, photography has allowed the photographer to present concepts, ideas and remarks on society through a single visual image. The context and concept behind photographs has become increasingly more important as the public’s understanding of political, social and environmental struggles has improved, and photography helps to portray a deeper meaning and understanding of society’s problems. The presentation of gender roles and stereotypes has been a popular concept within art and photography throughout the history of both art forms, but it is only recently that artists have begun to directly challenge these stereotypes in their work. The deeply ingrained gender stereotypes found in society, some more subtle than others, have been present throughout history, and society’s views throughout history have developed and changed. In my personal study I wish to be able to show these changes and developments in gender stereotypes through the 20th and 21st century, and show how as we have progressed as a society into the modern world, our ideas about having strict and rigid gender stereotypes, roles and ideals has changes, and having these clear roles has become less important, yet evidence for stereotyping still remains. Out of the many artists who study gender stereotypes in their work, I have chosen to focus on photographers Cindy Sherman and Phoebe Jane Barrett, who both present gender roles in the 21st century, but with very different takes and approaches. I have chosen to study these artists, because I believe both Barrett and Sherman convey strong context and meaning through their images, while at the same time producing work that really engages the viewer, and allows for a dialogue to be opened about the way that society and the media portrays versions of both men and women, that are not true to real life, thus forcing people to adopt stereotypical behaviour in order to fit in to a social norm. Sherman specifically comments on the fact that her work is meant to represent the issues with the presentation of women in media as a whole, and therefore attempts to mask her own identity in order to allow the concept to be generalised to women more widely. Although she uses self-portraits to present her work, she believes “It’s about obscuring my identity, erasing or obliterating myself. It’s not fantasy or pretending or narcissism. It’s not about me.” (O’Hagan, S. 2019). In order to compare these two artists, I will need to find both similarities, such as the concept of drawing attention to gender stereotypes and their presentation, and differences, such as their different visual portrayals of these stereotypes and the way in which they approach their work. Both artists approach towards challenging historically rigid and strict gender roles and stereotypes can be seen as an attempt to redefine what society sees as acceptable for each gender, and bending the rules in order to allow individuals to express themselves freely without being judged. Phoebe Jane Barrett acknowledges the consequences of these strict barriers to individual expression, and her quote, “I wish that gender created less of a divide between people“…

Bibliography:

O’Hagan, S. (2019), Cindy Sherman: ‘I enjoy doing the really difficult things that people can’t buy. London: The Guardian. 06/12/2019; 15:11. <https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2019/jun/08/cindy-sherman-interview-exhibition-national-portrait-gallery>

Marili. (2019), Soft, Intimate and Emotive: Redefining Masculinity with Photographer Phoebe Jane Barrett: Germany: EyeEm. 10/12/2019; 15:16. <https://www.eyeem.com/blog/redefining-masculinity-with-photographer-phoebe-jane-barrett-2018>

Since I am looking at family and hope to portray them and my relationship to them as they would be in their daily lives without any intentional manipulation, my work can be related to the movement of Realism. Realism was a creative movement which originated in France during the 1850s. Individuals who identified as realists rejected the ideas of Romanticism and revolted against the subject matter and overemphasized emotionalism of the movement. Realism in photography portrays things as they are without any abstract or idealised factors put into to change the image. People usually think of Realism within photography as the ‘truth’, since the images haven’t been edited or manipulated to change what is going on within it. However, this may not always be the case, as an image doesn’t need editing to be untruthful. As Giles Duley said, ‘ There is no truth in photography, only honesty’, which could mean that you never really know what the truth is when it comes to images that you haven’t taken yourself, since factors such as angles and camera lenses can change the real situation, so the only thing a photographer can do is be honest about their work.

Family pictures have been around for hundreds of years, with family photos becoming common around the time the camera was invented. Before the invention of the camera, middle to high class families were able to pay for expensive family portraits to be painted for them. Family has always been a main art subject, with individuals wanting to treasure their loved ones and their family legacy by having either a painting or a photo made of them. As cameras evolved and became more popular, photographers were able to find another way of documenting their families, by taking candid images of them within their lives. The subject of family is generally a topic which is related to Realism as many photographers prefer to capture their family relations as they are within their daily lives, with as little changes as possible. My work is the same, as I am planning to document my family from both London and Jersey and portray my relationship with them as they are normally, making my work related to Realism. I am looking at two photographers who both look at family, Walker Evans and Latoya Ruby Frazier, and both their work can link to Realism as they both document the lives of families and the effects of the economic downfalls that their families are facing.

One photographer whose work is related to Realism is Dorothea Lange, a photographer who took images of farmers and migrant workers during the Great Depression and how this economic downfall affected these individuals. This image of the migrant mother and her children is one of Lange’s most famous images, and this is because it conveys a large amount emotions and stories just by looking at the mother’s facial expression. As a realist photographer, this image has not been altered or manipulated and is a clear idea of what was happening during the time of the Great Depression. Dorothea Lange is quite similar to the photographers I have chosen for my question, Latoya Ruby Frazier and Walker Evans. She looks at the oppression and suffering of people during an economic downfall, such as the Great Depression that both she and Walker Evans were looking at, and her work is documentary-like, showcasing the effects of these events.

Bibliography:

• Parkin(2018), Realism and Honesty in Photography, www.onlandscape.co.uk (https://www.onlandscape.co.uk/2018/07/realism-and-honesty-in-photography/)

Question – How does Walker Evans and Latoya Ruby Fraizer portray the importance of family in their work?

Introduction:

Once used only to document information, photography has now flourished into a huge industry, being used for multiple different reasons – for self-expression, for awareness of current events, for political grounds. As once said, “From Daguerre’s age to ours, photography has undergone a transformation, not only technologically but conceptually.”(Bright and Van Erp. 2019:18) The ways to take and portray photos are endless, with each person having an independent reason as to why and how they could utilise photography. Many use this form of expression to focus it on the ones they value the most – family. Family has a significant impact in an individual’s life. They are the first people they are familiarised with in early childhood, they are the ones who make them feel comfortable and safe, and are usually the ones who help them get through when they find themselves stuck in a tough situation.

For my personal study, I will be focusing on the importance of family, specifically my own, and hope to portray them in a way which can express their importance to me. Family has always been important in my life. As mentioned before, they are the first people who we know in our lives, and this creates a special bond from early childhood which cannot be replicated with anyone else or destroyed. Most of my family, including my parents and younger brothers, currently live in London whereas I moved to live in Jersey with my aunt and uncle over a year ago. This evidently means that I don’t see and talk to them as much as I used to, but although we may not end up talking for a week or may not see each other for a few months, we still have that strong connection. This theme relates to the previous work I have been doing on Occupation and Liberation as families were affected during the war, especially those who had family members outside of Jersey and had trouble communicating with them while the island was occupied. We were able to take a look at the Red Cross letters which were sent between people trying to communicate with their loved ones, and were able to see the limited words exchanged between family which were separated.

The two photographers I am looking at are Walker Evans and Latoya Ruby Fraizer, two individuals who both documented family life. I decided that I would be investigating these artists as their works link to the theme which I am looking at. Although Walker Evans didn’t photograph his own family, he did take a look at others and the effect that the Great Depression had on these families. Latoya Ruby is a photographer who looked at her own family and effects that the state of the community had on them. These two photographers also relate to the work I have been doing previous to this, about the Occupation in Jersey, as their photographs revolve around the oppressed and struggling people in a place which wasn’t economically or socially strong at the time, with Walker Evans looking at families who were being effected by the Great Depression and Latoya Ruby looking at her own family within a community which was struggling with racism and economic downfall. To respond to these photographers’ works and my question I will be taking images of my own family from both London and Jersey and plan to edit them in the same black and white way which both Evans and Fraizer used for their images, so there won’t be much experimentation with colour but I will be focusing on factors such as contrast, cropping and under/over exposure. I will be aiming to take these images in a documentary style within the homes of my family members as this is when they are most themselves and the most authentic, which is an important factor of my photoshoot.

Bibliography :

•  Bright, S. and Van Erp, H.(2019), Photography Decoded. London: Octopus Publishing House