Smith made his photography debut with ‘Artist Rifles’ a series of photos of fake war scenarios created by his own experience in the army. ‘Artist Rifles was to become the first chapter in Paul’s interrogation of the many-headed beast that is masculinity, of what it means to be a man. The most immediate subject of this enquiry was naturally to confront his own reasoning for joining the army.’ The cloning of the protagonist creates a appropriate metaphor for the army’s effect on an individuals identity and creating group identities (Brothers in Arms) This duplication of himself is a very effective method to emphasize the struggles of male identity, fitting in and belonging to a group / community.
Smith has used this technique multiple times after his Artist Rifles project with himself and others. For example his advertising campaign with Robin Williams or his second self portrait project ‘Make My Night’
‘Make My Night’ follows a group of lads on a night out consisting of good laughs, pranks, fights, drinking and, inevitably, the rough morning after. ‘ As before, he becomes the anonymous everyman but this time is more overtly the narrator as well as the protagonist of a frequently observed ritual.’ Unlike past projects where I have mimicked Smith’s repeated protagonist effect, this time I am going to use his staged ‘night out’ photos as inspiration for my images. I plan to show the stages of the night out, like Smith, from the bright eyed beginning to the sickly end. Smith uses his imagery to influence a positive view upon masculinity. I am interested in this view and what to incorporate a sense of it within my own work. Overall Smith’s work is very positive but it is likely that only the staging of the images will affect my photo book and less so with the meaning.
Smith, like Alex Webb, also used high colour saturation to emphasize the freedom and vibrance of a night out. This will be another influence for the editing process of my images as well as the production of them.
Smith uses the repeated protagonist in order to show that it does not really matter who the subject is, it is about the meaning of masculinity to respect to anyone. I am going to try and emphasize this meaning through the comparison and contrast between a lads night out and a girls night out. I hope that this contrast will convey a similar message to Smith and that the difference between these two is easily understood.
Technical – Smith’s use of all natural lighting in this shot supports its realism by not using any artificial lighting. He has create a specific colour pallet / tonal range of blue, green and beige.
Visual – Smith has raised the saturation in order to vibrantly bring out the colours within this image. This creates a lighter and more enjoyable photo which suits the ‘lads at the footie’ style. He has used the space well and even had moments where his protagonist overlaps with himself which causes a much more difficult editing process.
conceptual – Like ‘make my night’, Smith’s project with Robbie Williams enforces a strong sense of masculinity upon the viewer and provides certain scenarios that follow more of a false representation of men but a funny / fantasized one.