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Identity is what represents you, what identifies and separates you from different people. This can be done through your appearance, the way you dress or more internal things such as mental illnesses or emotions that you are known for e.g always being happy or having a short temper.

Cultural Identity: can be represent a range of different things:Cultural identity: This is when people identify in a specific group or culture this generally refers to nationality, ethnicity, religion, social class, generation, locality or any kind of social group that has its own distinct culture. 

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Gender Identity: This relates to what gender a person identifies as either a female or male (however in some cases people can identify as non-binary or gender fluid where they prefer not to identify as any gender.)

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Social identity: This type of identity is similar to cultural Identity as its the type that makes you stand out from society such as your job or the way you dress.

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Geographical identity: This relates to what helps to represent you; which is determined by where you are in the world this could be shown through how different countries dress differently or how they look.

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Political Identity: This refers to what political party or movement that you follow and or represent.

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Lack of / loss of identity: As mentioned before Identity is what truly represents you and what makes you stand out from other people; therefore lack/loss of identity is when a person feels as though they have lost their identity. This can be due to mental illnesses such as anxiety, clinical loneliness, depression; or other things such as grief , or just loosing something which made them, them.

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I chose loss of identity for this project as I thought that it would be the best choice in terms of creativity and best fit my initial ideas on identity.

For my idea I was inspired by a range of artists which I wanted to join their ideas and create my own idea on identity.

Carole Benitah

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Here I really liked the ideas of memories from her childhood; these images clearly have sentimental value to this photographer and it shows the fact that she wants to bring that memory back to life as maybe she has suffered a loss between the time that the photo was taken and now. I also like the idea of here changing the images and adding the red and black thread to the images as it makes the images stand out and changes them.

Susannah Benjamin

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This photographer explores the ideas of an identity crisis and no longer able to identify themselves, I really like the repetition of the women’s photograph as it makes the audience question who is the real person before quickly realising it. I also really like the idea of the person burning the a picture of herself as its striking and it makes the audience question why this might be happening and what her thought processes are.

My Idea:

I decided that I wanted to combine these two images of these photographers and create my own idea. I want to get a couple of models to find a photograph which holds a memory for them, good or bad, here I will then create a copy of that image then burn it, here they will hold the burnt image to show the two worlds that that person is living in or has lived in. The past; which holds there chosen memory and the present; their true emotions towards that photo in the perspective of what they now know about life and their situation.

I thought that it would be a good idea as the audience could interpret my sets of images in different ways such as a memory that they want to go back to, a memory that they are slowly forgetting about due to age and or time passing, or even a memory which they want to get rid of.

Carolle Bénitah

Carolle Bénitah is a French-Moroccan photographer; she is known for working as a fashion designer for 10 years before switching to photography in 2001. Here her work mainly explores the ideas of memories, passage of time and family. She uses old family pictures and alters them slightly using different coloured threads and sometimes even cutting parts of the image out. She also tries to reinterpret the memories as a mother, daughter and wife. She is said to do these all these alterations to her images in order to help her understand her current identity.

Her work has been published in various magazines such as Leica World, Shots Magazine, Photos Nouvelles, Spot, Center for Photography Houston, Foto Noviny, and Lens Culture and more.

Analysis

Technical: Here the photographer has seemed to use flash lighting in this image which is shown through the highlights at the center of her face; however, it could also be outdoor lighting due to the reflection onto the wall behind her. Here there is a short depth of field onto her which is shown as that is the sharpest part of the image comparing to the background. Her image has a slightly higher sensitivity shown through the use of an old image which would have been taken with an older camera. Here the colours seem to be leaning on the warmer side due to brown wallpaper and the her skin tone. The image is 16.5 x 24 in. and is said to be an Archival Pigment Print.

Visual: Visually the colours of the photograph are quite toned down due to it be an older photo and not having the colour quality of many of today’s cameras; furthermore this highly contrasts between the rich red silk thread which has been used to alter this image. Texture is present through the use of thread and the over laying that has been creating as she used long pieces of thread, which I think gives her a unique style as I have not seen anything like this amongst other photographers which I think is quite important. Here once again due to the use of red string the image becomes 3D as the string is physically coming out of the photograph to recreate this image and show the models thought processes. The eye is first lead to the models eyes as that’s where all the thread starts and is lead down and onto the photo frame and back up to the top of the image to create a sentence.

Contextual: Here Bénitahs work is all about going back to her old memories and reinterpreting them so that they fit her current identity, it also helps her to show her memories in a more vivid format. The red thread creates a semantic field against her other photographs showing how they all once represented Carolle Bénitah and her younger life. Here every of her images are different creating a more distinct image with the addition of the thread to more clearly show her thought processes behind the image.

Conceptual: Here the Red Silk Thread vividly shows the models tears; here they lead to a phrase in french saying “il ne dit pas que je suis jolie” which reads “he doesn’t say that I am pretty”. This may well be the reason why she is crying. I love this idea as this might be her recurring thought whilst this image was taken. Here the image itself may be her trying to keep things altogether and not showing emotion however through the use of thread here emotions are now more visible and clear.

What? I will be taking multiple shoots for my Identity project. I will be using Carolle Benitahs and Susanne Benjamin’s ideas in order to create my own idea towards this Identity project.

How? With a Cannon EOS 750D and using outdoor lighting. I will be burning my images with a lighter and I use a fast shutter speed in order to be able to capture the fire in a focused way.

Who? I will taking a picture of a variety of my friends and people that I know to show that everyone has different memories and lives.

When? I will taking my photo shoots on a variety of days and times due to me using more people and I will need to work around both of our schedules.

Where? I will take my photos outside for safety reasons but I will try and use a different backgrounds for each model.

Why? I want to try and create thought provoking images to compare with my photographer and try a more creative and conceptual approach to my projects.

For my photoshoot to be able to include photographs of my models’ old memories I will photocopy their photos then place some images on card and keep others in a paper format to be able to burn the images with a slower flame (giving me more time to take the image) and a faster and more rapid flame (to create more dramatic and striking flames as they will burn quicker).

Red/ Purple: model wasn’t ready

Yellow: Over Exposed

Green: Photos I want to use

For this photo shoot I edited my images using Photoshop.

I then repeated these same processes for the rest of my images.

Edited Outcomes

I chose these as my favourite outcomes in my Identity shoot as I think they were my most successful. I think the colour splash effect worked effectively to lead the audience’s eyes onto the burning images; it keeps the audience focused and allows them to think above the image and onto the true meaning of these photographs.

I like the fact that the burning can represent a variety of different things; however, for me the burning of the images represents the fact that as we grow up, we start to grow out of friendships or lose contact with people we used to be close to, this burning represents our memories slowly fading away as soon we won’t be able to remember our memories that once meant so much to us and therefore losing that part of our identity.

Here the models have either a neutral or sad facial expression; I think this is important as it adds to the meaning of the image as the neutral face creates the ideas that they have already forgotten about the memory and therefore the image has no longer much meaning to them or something has happened to cause them to not want to go back, the tearful and sad face represents the sadness felt through loosing this memory or important time period of the models life as it could have been one of the happiest periods of their lives that they have now lost or are losing.

I also quite like the contrast with the texture of the backgrounds; here I have tried to use a different background for each photographer to show each models individuality and to further emphasis the idea of memories and that every memory is unique to that person and to further link this to idea of identity.

Overall I am quite happy with my outcomes as I have managed to merge the ideas of my two photographers and put my own spin on this topic of Identity. This photoshoot was quite important to me as I have tried a more conceptual approach to the image and a more emotional side to this photoshoot.

Here with Carolle Benitahs work I tried to merge her idea of altering old memories to help symbolise what is going on now in her current life and Identity. Here my alterations made was through the burning my the images is similar to Susannah Benjamin’s work as I am burning a picture of a younger version of my models however this version is a memory which has sentimental value to them, I feel like this creates a more meaningful photograph as it was extremely emotional for them to burn these sentimental images; however I feel as though it works as a powerful metaphor for what is happening to them in real life and the idea of them losing their identity.

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Here are my contact sheets from my photo shoots for the identity project. I have annotated the images, red (not going to use), orange (maybe going to use) and green (use)