Family identity can be defined as the following: Habits, rituals, and traditions your family takes part in. Family legacy and history passed down via word of mouth or ancestor research. Values your family subscribes to.

My definition: How your family ties/ roots affect aspects of your life such as your culture and upbringing. This means that if this is included in my project there are lots of initial ideas, as I can explore my whole family tree, through generations.

Here I have created a mood board to demonstrate my first ideas when it comes to my photoshoot to illustrate cultural identity. These photographs above consist of juxtaposition pieces people wearing clothing relating to their culture, objects relating to their culture and flags across a lady’s face. I think these images will influence my photoshoot as I can recreate images such as the middle one of the last row as I can create juxtaposition work on photoshop.

Yoshikatsu Fujii

Yoshikatsu Fujii, born and raised in Hiroshima City. He began photography work in Tokyo in 2006. His photographic works often deal with historical themes and memory lingering on in contemporary events. His works were exhibited at the several festivals.

Futhermore, Fujii is a photo based visual storyteller on long-form projects about, memory, family, contemporary events and history. His main medium is a hand-made limited edition photobook. Fujii’s project “Red String,” was highly inspired by his parents’ divorce, produced a hand-made limited edition photobook. Nominated for several awards, including the Paris Photo-Aperture Foundation Photobook Awards.

The main reason why I like his work is because it is relatable to myself, as I can use my own images of family to recreate Fujii’s pieces of work. Furthermore, the message behind is work one that is relevant to many people’s family situations. The fourth image in this gallery is composed of 1/3 colour and 2/3 is a monochromatic image, this would good to recreate in photoshop and apart of my project where I used older materials.

Role in my project: I really like how Fujii’s work is displayed and represented as it tells a deeper story with a deeper meaning behind his work. In addition, I am going to recreate part of ‘Red String’ project in the exam using an old photograph from my grandparents wedding, cropping their heads off in Lightroom, getting it printed in good quality, sticking in onto foam board and threading red string all around the white boarder.

Photo Montage- Zed Nelson

Born in East Africa, Nelson graduated from Westminster University, London, with a degree in photography and filmmaking. Having gained international recognition and numerous awards as a documentary photographer, Nelson’s recent work adopts an increasingly considered, in-depth approach to reflect on contemporary social issues through long-term personal projects.

Love Me, Nelson’s most recent book, reflects on the cultural and commercial forces that drive a global obsession with youth and beauty. The project spanned five years, involved photography in 18 countries across five continents, and was recently nominated for the Deutsche Börse Photography Prize.

Nelson’s seminal first book, Gun Nation, was a ground-breaking reflection on America’s love affair with the gun. Gun Nation has been exhibited internationally and awarded five major photography prizes (including First Prize in World Press Photo Competition, the Visa d’Or, France, and the Alfred Eisenstaedt Award, USA).

Nelson’s work has been exhibited at the National Portrait Gallery, the Tate Britain, the Institute for Contemporary Arts (ICA), and is in the permanent collection of the Victoria & Albert Museum, London. Nelson has had solo shows in New York, Stockholm, Copenghagen and London.

Role in my project: I have some old family images that I am going to recreate, I am planning to use the same style as these but with my own family photos. Furthermore, I like how these images are composed of somewhat serous family photos, which match perfectly with what I am. I think the similarities and juxtaposition with his work and mine will make for a substantial artist reference and I like how they feel like they are deadpan family photos.

Identity is the qualities, beliefs, personality and looks that make a person. A psychological identity relates to self-image, self-esteem, and individuality. Some aspects of peoples personal identity includes their skin colour, ethnicity, religion, which all play an important part in that person’s life because it’s how they view the world around them and themselves.

Claude Cahun

Claude Cahun was a Surrealist photographer whose work explored gender identity and the subconscious mind. The artist’s self-portrait from 1928 epitomizes her attitude and style, as she stares defiantly at the camera in an outfit that looks neither conventionally masculine nor feminine. “Under this mask, another mask,” the artist famously said. “I will never be finished removing all these faces.”

Her first recorded self-portraits are dated as early as 1912 when the artist was about 18. In the early 1920s, she would change her name to the gender-neutral Claude Cahun, which would be the third and last time the artist changed her name. Along with step-sister and lover Marcel Moor, she moved to Paris and fell into the milieu of the Surrealist art scene. 

In the late 1930s, Moore and Cahun moved to Jersey, an island off the coast of Normandy, where they, disguised as non-Jews, produced and distributed anti-Nazi propaganda. After being caught, imprisoned, and sentenced to death, they successfully escaped such a fate when Jersey was liberated by allies in 1945.

Cahun is considered to be a ground-breaking artist who fully embraced her gender fluidity long before the term came into use. Tragically, she never fully recovered from her maltreatment in prison and passed away on December 8, 1954, in Jersey, United Kingdom. Her work left a huge impression on photography and directly influenced contemporary photographers Cindy Sherman, Gillian Wearing and Nan Goldin. 

Gender Identity

Gender identity is your deeply-held inner feelings of whether you’re female or male, both, or neither. Gender identity may be the same as the sex you were assigned at birth (cisgender) or not (transgender). This concept is intimately related to the concept of gender role, which is defined as the outward manifestations of personality that reflect the gender identity.

What

I will be photographing my grandads old belongings. He died before I was born, but his life was interesting as he was captured in the war by the Japanese while he was living in the Philippines.

Where

I will be photographing his belongings on a plain background at home

How

I will use sun lighting if I can and work with his belongings to make collages

When

Over the course of this week

MOODBOARD

For my project I am inspired by visual artists who give meaning through their models and their identity portrayed through a storyboard or setting/pose, for example Jim Goldberg – who centers his pieces around the individuals he photographs. I wanted to portray youth culture in my eyes which is through music and the way people idolize musicians even though in reality the music scene that is highly glamorized was built on money and violence.

My moodboard is a mix of visual and conceptual artists – for example Jenny Holzer, a neo-conceptual artist. The main focus of her work is the delivery of words and ideas in public spaces, for example on billboards or buildings.

JIM GOLDBERG

Jim Goldberg is an American artist and photographer, whose work reflects long-term, in-depth collaborations with neglected, ignored, or otherwise outside-the-mainstream populations. His work looks into the identity of ‘outcasts’ illustrated with writing usually from the individual he is photographing. Goldberg is best known for his photographic books, multi-media exhibits, and video installations, among them: Rich and Poor (1985), Nursing Home, Raised by Wolves (1995), Hospice, and Open See (2009).

In 1995, Goldberg published his project ‘Raised by Wolves’ as a photobook where he explored the lives of a troubled youth living on the streets of California – a work spanning over ten years (1985-1995). Unveiling their realities filled with addiction, abuse and violence, Goldberg put into spotlight those who exist on fringes and often remain invisible to the mainstream society.

I am inspired by Goldberg’s work because of his unique take on identity and his use of writing on his photos to give the viewer a better understanding of who he’s photographing and why.

BOB GRUEN

Bob Gruen is an American author and photographer known for his rock ‘n’ roll photographs. By the mid 1970s Gruen was already regarded as one of the foremost photographers in music working with major artist such as John Lennon, Tina Turner, The Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, Elton John, and Kiss.

Shortly after John Lennon moved to New York in 1971, Gruen became John and Yoko’s personal photographer and friend, making photos of their working life as well as private moments. In 1974 he created the iconic images of John Lennon wearing a New York City t-shirt and, standing in front of the Statue of Liberty making the peace sign – two of the most popular of Lennon’s images.

I am inspired by Gruen’s work not only because of the iconic celebrities he photographed but also the way he captured them – both photos I’ve used in this post represent identity in two different ways, for example the photo of The Clash in the moving car could represent the fast lifestyle most musicians lived by the way the photo was taken, as opposed to the headshot photos of John Lennon that appears to capture different sides of his personality.

Claude Cahun was a French surrealist photographer, sculptor, and writer. Cahun is best known as a writer and self-portraitist, who assumed a variety of performative personae. Cahun’s work is both political and personal.

Claude Cahun created some of the most startlingly original and enigmatic photographic images of the twentieth century. Prefiguring by over seventy years many of the concerns explored by contemporary artists today, the importance of her work is increasingly recognised.

Since her “rediscovery” over a decade ago, Claude Cahun has attracted what amounts to a cult following among art historians and critics working from postmodern, feminist, and queer theoretical perspectives. In 1986, Hal Foster dubbed Cahun “a Cindy Sherman avant la lettre.” Since then, photographs of Cahun posing in the 1920s and 30s in various dramatic settings and guises have been displayed alongside contemporary works.

The Jersey Heritage Trust collection represents the largest repository of the artistic work of Cahun who moved to the Jersey in 1937 with her stepsister and lover Marcel Moore, was imprisoned for activities in the resistance during the Occupation, and remained here after the war.

Francesca Woodman

This is one of my images that was inspired by Francesca Woodman’s work. I think my work is similar to hers because I managed to take them in black and white, and used a slow shutter speed in order to get the blurry effect. Woodman’s work is dark and simple as she usually just stands or sits in frame and then just moves to the point where it’s hard to see her. I did the same thing by sitting, putting my head down then quickly moving it up when the camera started taking the picture to make it blurry and hard to see. To improve I would probably have to take full body pictures and have different poses because that’s what Woodman usually does.

Brno Del Zou:

Brno Del Zou is a musician, photographer, sculptor, videographer, software designer, creator of video / sound / interactive installations.

Brno Del Zou has a beautiful series of photography based portraits. In these works, he explores many different perspectives while displaying them all on one plane of vision. He sees his work as an exploration of cubism. The result is a complex “collage” displaying the many facets of an individual.

He creates this images by distorting them with many layers, all taken in different scales and angles to represent the ‘chaotic side of our minds’.