LOCATION: For my first 2 shoots I will be taking the images in multiple locations surrounding my Primary such as the playgrounds, the school itself, and areas around it associated with the school. For the third shoot I will go to my secondary school and repeat this process and for my final shoot I will go back to the studio in order to take images of the objects I have found.
MODEL: I will be using items from my primary/ secondary which I have collected over the years and old photos
FRAMING:I will be trying to get larger frames when focusing on the buildings themselves then closer and smaller shots when focusing on objects or photos.
LIGHTING: I will be relying on natural daylight for my lighting as the majority of my images will be taken outside. However If I decide to take pictures of the objects by themselves I will use artificial lighting indoors in order to create as crisp and clean image.
OVERALL FEELING: I want the photos to feel sentimental as this topic is about exploring my childhood and the place where many of my memories began. I want to bring up the colours in my images to look as if I’m looking at these images through my younger self’s eyes, so I want the images to look playful and fun. At the same time I want some of my images to feel dark and depressing to create an interesting contrast as I want the audience to understand that I am not that age anymore and that I am now looking back on these memories therefore there is an element of sadness that I can’t go back in to those times but that we can always revisit memories.
By contradicting flatness and space, by underscoring the importance of perspective, I hope to confuse the objective with the subjective in a larger sense. As opposed to resolving issues, I want to increase a perception of tension, to dwell in that which is uncertain.
—Richard Koenig
Richard Koenig is an American photographer born in 1960. These set of images shown above are part of his “1999 Pearl Street” collection. Koenig works on layering images on top of one another to create an optical illusion, he tends to work in private spaces or intimate moments inset within a public space. It makes you think of memories that places and building may evoke on to you as memories are not always built around people but rather the places and object we frequently used.
Previous works include photographing “construction of the railroad as a landmark industrial achievement that shaped the course of American history.” Koneig is said to covey “the expansiveness of the tracks (the Central Pacific Railroad traverses 690 miles and the Union Pacific Railroad covers 1,086 miles) by using a panoramic lens to show an epic landscape, as if from the viewpoint of a passenger, while highlighting changes made to the land to accommodate its creation.”
“Richard Koenig completed his BFA from Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, New York (1985) and his MFA from Indiana University, Bloomington (1998). Solo exhibitions of his work have been held at Riley Gallery, Notre Dame University, South Bend, IN (2018); Kansas State University, Manhattan, KS (2013); and Richmond Center for Visual Arts, Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, MI (2008); among many others. He is currently the Genevieve U. Gilmore Professor of Art at Kalamazoo College.”
Image Analysis:
This photograph follows the artist returning back to his childhood home and photographing rooms and parts of the house in which Koenig feels he has a strong connection to. I think these photos are very important as it not only helps the audience to think back to their childhood home and think of all their good and bad memories that has shaped the way we are today. I think that the emptiness of the image is also important as I am sure that when he was a child the house was filled with family and items like toys and furniture and now the emptiness helps to symbolise a piece that is missing, this could be due to the fact that a member of his household has dies or simply the fact that he has moved out and now only the memories is what remains. I think that having the image being in black and white is important as it brings up the contrast between the lights of the windows and the darks of the door frame, I helps us to focus on the patterns on the wall as they stand out as. The pattern on the wall also helps to give the image texture, which is also shown in the wooden panels on the floor. The eye is first lead to the door then around the clear image and then around to the out of focus part on the outside.
The fact that this is a image within an image allows the photograph to be more interesting as it looks 3D and makes the audience wonder why they chose to do it this way. My first thought is the similarity of the idea that he is hanging up the washing and putting the image in plain sight for the audience to see; however one might wonder if the artist is trying to hide something behind this image closest to us. It may also be down to personal preference and “contradicting flatness and space“. I think the artist works well with his aims of increasing “a perception of tension, to dwell in that which is uncertain.” as the images don’t have much context and can therefore help to leave a lot to the imagination. I think the use of two simple pins holding the image up can serve as a metaphor to show how fragile childhood memories are due to natural ageing as the older we get the more faded our childhood memories become as our brain uses the space for newer memories. The fact that the outside is out of focus also helps to symbolises this as it adds to the idea that we can’t remember all our memories or the whole memory as some parts may be forgotten about.
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.
She is mainly known for going back into her old photos and altering them through the use of red and gold thread, beads and glitter. She says that her work “leads to more open subjects such as family, desire, loss, mourning and confinement and touch on the universal.”
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.
Carolle Bénitah was originally born in Casablanca in Morocco, as a student she graduated from the Ecole de la Chambre Syndicale de la Couture Parisienne (Paris); where she was selected for an exhibit with her work titled “Photos-Souvenirs” (shown above) in FotoFest’s 2014 Discoveries of the Meeting Place showcase of past Biennial portfolio reviews.
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 expression and help the audience to be aware of how she now views these childhood memories which she presents 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; they are 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. Once again the fact that the red thread is the recurring theme helps tie all her images together showing how she is leaving her mark behind the image and allowing the audience to now see the Bénitahs inner thoughts to each and every photo.
Wanted to make photographs looking like Art and Paintings, the photographic manipulation often showed off the photographers personality and character.
Artists associated:
H P ROBINSON
CHARLES JOB
FRANK EUGENE
JMW TURNER
JULIA MARGARET CAMERON
GEORGE DAVISON
Methods/ techniques/ processes:
Vaseline Smearing on Camera Lense
Paint strokes
Purposely Manipulating Image in Darkroom – “scratching and marking their prints to imitate the texture of canvas, using soft focus, blurred and fuzzy imagery”
REALISM / STRAIGHT PHOTOGRAPHY
Key works:
Time period:
1960s
Key characteristics/ conventions :
This movement ditched the “painting like” side of photography and chose to take pictures how they were with manipulation.
Artists associated:
Alfred Stieglitz
Paul Strand
Jacob Riis
Lewis W Hine
Dorothea Lange
Walker Evans
Berenice Abbott
Methods/ techniques/ processes:
There was no main technique , just trying and getting the image to look as it does in real life o show of the beauty of the landscape or the harsh reality of the image. They focused on “crisp focus with a wide depth-of-field.”
In what way can the work of Claude Cahun and Shannon O’Donnell be considered political?
Claude Cahun is a French Photographer, best known for their controversial portraits which helped change the idea of gender as they often wore “masculine” clothing and even shaved their head in a way of rebellion against what society depicts a “women” to be. Cahun was also a writer and sculptor who changed their name from Lucy Renee Mathilde Schwob to Claude Cahun as it was more gender neutral and therefore “neither masculine nor feminine, so there is no good reason to force either of those identities onto them.”. In Cahun’s own words they describe their gender as “Masculine? Feminine? It depends on the situation. Neuter is the only gender that always suits me.”
Shannon O’Donnell is a Jersey born photographer also known for her controversial photography questioning what our society views as “gender” and why. O’Donnell focuses on bringing “to light the inequalities of social standards as well as challenging how we as a society see one another.” She has many short films and photobooks such as her work in “Shrinking Violet” where she shows her mother’s role at home as a women and she questions and almost mocks it as this is what society sees as “women’s expectation”. Her short film “The way the river flows” further questions gender norms and tries to express her feelings towards societies views on “femininity and masculinity”
Both Photographers can fall under the Identity Politics side of the debate. Identity politics focuses on aspects such as race, gender, sexuality class and more; where these topics are discussed. Here both Claude Cahun and Shannon O’Donnell focus on Gender. This can be seen controversial as not everyone agrees with the work that they put out; however, I think they would argue that this is exactly what reaction they want. They want to be outrageous and outspoken in order to get their point across that it is okay if you can not conform to your biological sex and want to explore and break those gender norms that society has put down.
I do see both Claude Cahun and Shannon O’Donnell as political as they are both Role Models in controversial and taboo subjects and furthermore encourage others to follow in their footsteps.
Here I think Shannon O’Donnell’s image clearly shows the politics side of her work as this image of her in a man’s suit which pulls on the gender side of politics as it shows her gender and body dysphoria through the non-traditional feminine clothing which I think helps highlights the struggle that many of us face in meeting the requirements to society’s expectations, as many of us feel the need to fit in and to not get teased to bullied; however O’Donnell works on breaking that barrier by photographing her thoughts and making it public. This is a bold choice as many people might judge her for it, but I think that in this moment in time she aware of the choices she made and got to the stage where Shannon doesn’t care anymore about what others think and instead used her platform to inspire others.
The other side to this image is the Society and Patriarchal side; all our lives women are told what to do and when to do it, and to grow up, find a husband and obey to the traditional housewife lifestyle. This although may not be as serious of an issue in 2020, gender inequality is still a major problem and we still live in a society run by men. And also where if people don’t conform to gender norms we get pushed and punished until we do conform, this has been seen in examples of gay conversion therapy and online negative comments where people tell others that they don’t like the way the other people are dressing. Its crazy how such an image can have so many underlying meanings and be powerful in many peoples struggle in finding their true identity and being comfortable in their own skin. The oppression that women still deal with topics such as gender pay gap, sanitary products being a “luxury” item and abortion among others are all topics that governments (generally run by middle ages white men) decide on which highly impact female lives or lives with uteruses.
Claude Cahun highlights these exact same spots, due to Shannon O’Donnell’s work being vastly inspired by Cahun’s work; however, the main difference being the timescale and century. Cahun had to deal with gender dysphoria and breaking gender norms in World War 2, where most peoples views where unheard and seen as being irrelevant as Nazi Germany began their take over and only saw Hitler’s opinion as the important opinion. Here society expectation where even higher as Hitler believed that the supreme race were blonde, blue eyed, strong non-Jewish soldiers; which made many people terrified to express a simple opinion never mind a whole battle on cross dressing and gender neutrality.
Claude Cahun (CC) began taking photos in the early 1912 and continued taking self portraits up until 1930s. In 1937 CC settled in Jersey following the occupation in France and Germany. Later on Cahun and Marbelle (CC’s stepsister) “became active as propagandists. Fervently against war, the two worked extensively in producing anti-German fliers. Many were snippets from English-to-German translations of BBC reports on the Nazis’ crimes and insolence, which were pasted together to create rhythmic poems and harsh criticism. The couple then dressed up and attended many German military events in Jersey, strategically placing them in soldier’s pockets, on their chairs, etc.”
Additionally, CC can be seen as political for again the same reasons of breaking the gender barriers and this started by her shaving her head, they wrote that when people couldn’t tell what gender CC was, it brought them joy.
To conclude, Cross dressing, which both Claude Cahun and Shannon O’Donnell explore, isn’t just about annoying elders and making people angry but rather about finding creative ways to express ones selves and show off our personality and style. When we find a way to dress that lets us feel comfortable and confident it brings a new light in our lives and allows us to live more freely, we become happier as we are proud of what we put on our bodies and stop caring about what others may or may not think. Cahun and O’Donnell I think pair together well to help give everyone confidence in not compiling to what others and society want us to and to instead do what we want which I think is incredibly important and the fact that they could express their thoughts and feelings through the medium of photography and film I think was very courageous but exceedingly important.
Ambiguous: open to more than one interpretation; not having one obvious meaning.
Our film is about how clothing isn’t something that needs to be gendered, men can wear “feminine clothing” and women can wear “masculine” clothing if they want to. In this day and age gender neutral clothing is starting to become the norm and we wanted to show off this controversial topic and encourage everyone to wear whatever they feel comfortable in wearing
Overall I think that this film was quite successful in the production and outcome as I think that our theme of cross dressing came out clearly through the use of audio video and images. I think the use of “collages” (mixture of videos and images in the same frame) worked really well in adding structure to our piece as it gave the audience a sneak preview of what the next outfit would look like but also helped to keep the audience entertained and cut down on footage time whilst still using the videos. Footage time was a problem as even after cropping images our film length was over 5 minutes long so the montages really helped to cut down on that time; the collages also allowed for more creativity and experimentation as we used different amounts of images/videos in every collage and organized them differently which I think made it interesting to watch.
I am also really pleased with the way the audio turned out as similarly with the photos and videos we had a lot of footage to go through as we had audio from interviews off youtube, audio interviews recorded by ourselves and background music/noises.
I think the warm hue used throughout the film works well in creating a “warm” and comfortable feeling to the film in a form of showing acceptance as it is okay to dress in the way you want and express yourself in any way you deem necessary as long as it doesn’t harm others. I think this also helped to give the film an aesthetically pleasing look to it as it gave it an almost old fashioned taste which I think contrasts well with the modern theme; this shows how far society has come but that there is still work to be done.
I think our main struggle we faced was going through all of our footage and cutting everything down to fit the 90 second brief; as this was the most time consuming process and made us force cut some scenes out. However I think that all our efforts really showed in the final presentation of our film as we picked the best videos that worked with the audios and photos and once we got all the videos in place the audio placement was easier as we knew where we wanted to fit everything.
I think that all our efforts and hardwork have been shown through this film and we are all happy that our message was able to come across to our audiences and we hope to have inspired people to stay open minded when it comes to clothing and try and maybe even experiment with different items of clothing to see if they can find a new found confidence; as after all clothing is just a piece of fabric that can be worn by anyone.
In order to create footage for our film we first recruited our models in order to see who we could use for our film. We ended up having 5 models; 4 boys and 1 girl.
When allocating our film time we took into consideration our frees and the models frees.
Shoot 1
This shoot was taken in the studio as we focused on having the clothes as the main attraction. Here our studio set up up was mainly simple LED lights against a white backdrop as we wanted the colours of the clothes to be clear and contrast well against the backdrop. As we only had 1 girl we decided to use 3 “masculine” outfits. The first a Mens suit that fit her well and that she loves wearing we thought this was a great idea as traditionally women at formal events will wear dressed or other feminine alternatives and yet yet she is wearing a Mans suit which I think is quite powerful. The other two outfits is a combination of mens clothes such as mens jeans and mens cardigan which fit a masculine body yet here our model is wearing it well and with confidence.
Shoot 2
For our second shoot we couldn’t access the studio so we chose the Drama studio as a a secondary location, we chose this due to it having a mirror and table space which helped minic a home environment. For this shoot the main focus although was primarily on the models clothing choice; we thought we’d stretch those gender barriers further by having him put on makeup and feminine perfume and jewelry. This helped us to add something new to the shoot which helped to add to that rebellion side of our project as it is a controversial topic but that many people do and feel confident in wearing makeup and dressing in the opposite gendered clothing to a gsn break down that “gender barrier”
Shoot 3
For this shoot we moved back to the studio to take images and videos of the boys, here we picked out outfits for them and or let them pick what they were comfortable in wearing before taking these images. I think this shoot in particular went well us we had 3 people putting out our same message on cross dressing and breaking gender boundaries
Shoot 4
For the last shoot we decided to go outside and have the model pose in a more natural way; we thought that this could be a good idea as it was something different and we had really good lighting for this shoot.
We ended up changing a lot compared to our original plan; which at first was worrying but we realised that this ewass the easiest way to get through all the footage and make most the components in the footage we took work together, although this was a tough decision at first we were happy as we knew that this could arise in better outcomes
Soundsthat we usedin our film:
Interviews and reports
The Get Down interview – Jaden Smith talk about working with Louis Vuitton. (From 4:16 – 4:41)
We chose to use Lightroom and Photoshop to edit our photos and audio recorders to crop audios; we placed everything together and created our film on Premier Pro
This is an example of a montage we created with a combination of videos and photos; here I started them at different times so that they could come on screen one by one.
Here is another example of a collage we created however this follows a different layout and these videos start and play all at the same time.
In this image it shows a lot of the behind the scenes process showing the different audios on top of videos/photographs such as background music on top of interviews on top of videos; this I think worked well as we didn’t want to keep the video simple but instead experimented with layering video and audio on top of each other. We also used effects at the start and end of the videos such as an “Exponential Fade” as this gave that cinematic effect to our piece and I think the fade of the logo alongside the fade in of the background music worked well together to ease the audience in to the film.
” Jaden Smith (son of Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith to Gen X-ers; Insta-generation icon to the Gen-Z set) wearing a pleated skirt”
” Yes, a boy in women’s clothes in a womenswear campaign.”
“What sets the Vuitton ads apart is that they feature Mr. Smith as himself, but in women’s clothing.”
Specifically, in pieces straight off the runway from the last women’s show: a black leather jacket (look No. 2, originally worn by Lily Stewart), a white cotton and metal embroidered top (look No. 24) and a metal embroidered kilt (look No. 3).”
“or a man wearing clothing that looks as if it could be worn by either gender. Nor is he a man wearing woman-inspired men’s wear,”
“He is a man who happens to be wearing obviously female clothes. And while he doesn’t look like a girl in them, he actually looks pretty good. “
““I like wearing super drapey things so I can feel as though I’m a super hero” (in an interview in GQ) “
““represents a generation that has assimilated the codes of true freedom, one that is free of manifestoes and questions about gender,” Mr. Ghesquière stated. “Wearing a skirt comes as naturally to him as it would to a woman who, long ago, granted herself permission to wear a man’s trench or a tuxedo.””
” “Thank You So Much @louisvuitton And @nicolasghesquiere For The Opportunity To Impact This World.””
4.00-4.40
Cross Dressing
0.46-0.49 , 2.06-3.10
“I would wear full makeup every day in school eyelashes leggings with Doc Martens and huge fur coats for two and a half years” – Sam Smith
“
“the only opinion that really affects me is my own opinion of myself because I determined the way I am not anyone else”
“the possible outcome still in some ways forces us to hide the secret “- cross Dressing
“I consider this to be my hobby and when I say that people that could be as if I’m very strange … but me putting on a dress or doing makeup is considered in some ways to be not normal and that’s an argument that I was find interesting”
“I find that cross-dressing for one of a better expression allows me the opportunity to express myself in a different way that I couldn’t do as a guy I spend 95% of my time as a guy”
” I’m 100 percent heterosexual I love women so much so there are times I just like to project a very positive image of them”
“gender is just a construct two people should just be free to dress how they want to”
“I think clothes really do have a power”
“I think in doing that they’re saying that these clothes don’t need to be for women”
“is there a need to place a gender binary on clothing removing that from fashion will allow like a space for people to explore themselves even further”
“it’s really strange how there’s like women’s wear menswear people should just be free to dress how they want to because it just feels so good”
“I would say embrace every single part of yourself and realize your worth”
David
Bowie
“My whole life, I didn’t understand my own gender and my own sexuality,” -miley cyrus
