I have images from various museums which I am going to use in the photobook, I also am planning to paint or draw images directly into the book to add a more texturally rich look to the book.
My main inspiration for page design of my book will be Sam Harris- the drawings and pull outs created a texturally interesting book which played into an idea of a personalised book which was made for an intimate eye. When the book is finished I am going to put pressed flowers in it.
MOODBOARD
My images themselves I would like to be nature-orientated with a strong perspective of feminine aesthetic (stereotypically soft and delicate images.
Question: In what way does being Portuguese in Jersey affect the sense of belonging?___________________________________________________________________
Jersey to me acts like a tutorial level in a video game; a safe, closed off area that allows me to learn and develop skills before I move on to the real world when I am ready. I value this idea as it is quite comforting at times to know that I have a place to explore with all kinds of people, however, I often find myself feeling quite insignificant due to the isolation that being on an island brings which is sometimes exaggerated due to the fact that I am Portuguese living on an English island. The disconnection from both the Portuguese culture and Jersey’s culture leave me in an awkward position as I find that I am too Portuguese for the English people and too English for the Portuguese people. I would like to explore the Portuguese experience in Jersey as it is something I have first-hand experience in and feel as though I could fully delve into, including both the positive and negatives rather than sugar-coating it. I’d like to specifically explore being Portuguese in Jersey whilst touching on the topic of mental health due to how isolating it can be at times.
I’d like to begin by exploring the word ‘belonging’ both what it means and its implications. Belonging is often described as a feeling of security and acceptance, comfortably being able to exist within a space without fearing social rejection or being outcasted which I believe links into postmodernist photography due to how the definition of ‘the sense of belonging’ is subjective. Various individuals can have different ideas/interpretations of the phrase which can include both positive and negative connotations, making it an interesting feeling to explore, especially photographically as it has no limits. Postmodernism came about in the 1900’s and was considered controversial at the time. The style itself was created as a response to modernism, allowing room for references outside of the piece itself [i.e: context from the political world at the time] and combining previous movements [such as surrealism and expressionism] together to create, moving away from traditional rules in favour of new concepts rather than making pieces to be taken at face value, rejecting previous movements like the modernist movement did.
For this project, I’ll be referencing postmodern photography within my work alongside the use of documentary photography as I believe in order for me to successfully create a project that represents ‘the sense of belonging’ in regard to culture, I’ll need to explore the realistic aspect of my project, capturing images of how life is for Portuguese people – such as my family and I – before being able to delve deeper, adding more postmodern aspects to my work later on as I attempt to capture more complex/creative images after fully delving into my work. I’ll be using a digital camera throughout my project along with a mix of older images from my parents in order to create a point of comparison whilst also experimenting with their images.
How does Carolle Benitah and Birthe Piontek explore the concept of family through their work?
“Those moments, fixed on paper, represented me, spoke about me and my family told things about my identity, my place in the world, my family history and its secrets, the fears that constructed me, and many other things that contributed to who I am today”. – Carolle Benitah
The quote from Carolle Benitah is a representation of how photographs that have been taken and passed down through generations can give us a deeper insight into our senior generations as well as providing us with a wider knowledge of our identity. Focusing mainly on family I want to explore the meaning of islandness and how living on island can disconnect people from their extended family, interlacing the two will be interesting as they are not topics that would usually be put together because of their vastly different factors. Exploring the two themes made me think how we make our own ‘Jersey Family’ through our friends and our parents. I feel that this is very prominent in Jersey, especially with teenagers, as our parents moved to the island leaving family behind. This led to friends slowly turning into family figures as they provide the support systems that a ‘normal’ family would. One of the photographers that I have chosen is Carolle Benitah as her project ‘Photos Souvenirs’ connects to my work as I was inspired into using images from family albums. One thing I found interesting about this piece was how Benitah chose to manipulate and reshape her archival photos. Embroidery was a big feature in her work as well as the use of needle, thread and beads. I will also be looking closely at her ‘Jamais je ne t’oublirai’ work as I was moved by the way she uses gold paint the cover parts of the images and the message behind this specific project. She wanted to rebuild the image of her family before her parents’ marriage as there were only a few images. I have also chosen to investigate Birthe Piontek as well as her project ‘Mimesis’ as her editing and manipulation style inspired me a lot as these techniques helped to produce aesthetic photographs which held a clear story. Piontek collected most of her images from flea markets, so with the lack of knowledge about the individual she used different materials such as mirror and cutting the images into different formats to create her own fiction for them. Piontek stated that this style of manipulation is a “very physical, almost sculptural process” (Piontek, B; Humble Arts Foundaton, December 2014) but it was something she enjoyed as she was able to create something new. I intend to use a similar creative style of manipulation as Benitah and Piotek in my own work to produce engaging photographs of my family, I also plan to have each image designed differently to help portray their individual stories.
Birthe PiontekCarolle Benitah
Family identity has always been a big part of art and photography with family portraiture becoming popular in the 1820s and still being a big part of photography today. It has changed greatly over the years developing from expensive art into more affordable and evolved photography. As photography has advanced art portraiture has been left behind, as the 1840s phototropic skills had improved leading to studios being set up meaning family portraiture become more accessible to less wealthy people. One of the main reasons this type of photography became so popular was the influence from Queen Victoria as she was very fond of photography, documenting parts of her life which guided the middle class to “have their lives and families immortalised in a photograph” (Venture Studios, July 2021). As cameras started to become more efficient and available, families started to take their own photographs and making archival images of their family. The invention of the Kodak in 1888 by George Eastman as well as further advancements in this technology helped family portraiture shift from formal, staged artwork to more relaxed and candid images of special events. This genre of photography has grown with time, adapting to the different concepts of family as in the 21st century many photographers focus more on the social bonds rather than the biological ones.
18202020
Family photography is one of the many ways of looking back on who we once were and having that stage in our lives permanently documented, it’s also a way of having physical memories of those we have lost. We decorate our walls, nightstands, desks and shelves with these photos that capture key moments in our lives, including the people we value most, these images help to create the idea of family and how these individuals belong together. Many have stopped displaying showing these photographs on walls and around our homes as we now carry our memories in an archive that is constantly on us, mobiles phones allow to us to have access to these images all the time making it easier to see our friends and families anytime we want. Furthermore, I think my personal study relates a lot to modernism as it includes experimentation with images, this is shown in both my artists as they make alterations to the original images that they have chosen. They make these edits through different methods and the use of different materials, for example with Piontek she includes mirrors, frames as well as using scissors to make physical alterations.
Carolle Benitah ‘Photo Souveniers’ Carolle Benitah ‘Jamais je ne t’oublirai’
Carolle Benitah is a French Moroccan photographer, she started as a fashion designer and pursued this career for 10 years, in 2001 when she took a sabbatical year and wanted to use this time to investigate other creative pathways outside of her profession, this led her to photography as she stated, “there was something that seemed easy to me in this apprenticeship: press the button for the magic to happen.” (9 lives magazine, October 2020).After a few years in the industry, she started to use her personal archival photographs in 2009 which she used embroidery, beading, as well as coloured pens as a way of manipulation. Benitah used these materials to change the story of her images as she didn’t feel that she owned her past being from a family that used the narrative of only girls from ‘good families’ could embroider. In Carolle Benitahs more recent pieces of work she explores the themes of memory, family and time. In her ‘Jamais je ne t’oublirai’ project Benitah started to build this imaginary family album through collecting photographs from flea markets which she states she felt‘magnetised’ (Benitah. C, 2017) to, she wanted to do this as older generations didn’t keep many images of their lives. I found this extremely interesting as she was trying to recreate a whole new family to her preference but while still having the memories that were completely different to how she chose to portray her constructed family. Carolle Benitah wanted to transform old photographs into art pieces that hold a story which she has physical made, this changes societies perception on what a ‘normal’ or ‘perfect’ family looks like. “I’m building a fantasy album like a crossing of appearances where I enjoy demolishing the myth of the ideal family to let emerge a more nuanced picture”. (Benitah. C; 2017).
Carolle Benitah ‘Photo Souvenirs’
This adapted image in Carolle Benitah’s ‘Photo Souvenirs’ collection was published in 2016, it’s what seems to be a family photo of 6 children. In Benitah’s manipulation she has completely covered one with her eminent red string as well as cutting two of the children out of the photographs and placing them onto the background making it appear like they have fallen out of the original image. Benitah has even cut one of the heads off the young child while also scribbling the face of the other. Carolle Benitah has made a clear advancement towards which emotion she is trying to display through this single image, the anger and betrayal that is conveyed in the photograph is clear by the lengths Benitah has gone to make this type of adaptation. Through Carolle Benitah’s ‘Photo Souvnirs’ project it has shown how a family, which is seen to be as ‘normal’ can also have underlying issues which aren’t always seen by the rest of the world, it demolishes the ‘perfect family’ front that many are trying to portray, much like Benitah’s family and their stereotypical traits. By adding the white background onto the image Benitah can disconnect from the two girls which have been removed from the untouched photograph. This helps to change the narrative in her book as well as the image itself, there is a clear difference between the three people who have be edited to show Carolle Benitah’s feelings. The first being the individual blocked out through the red string, in many interview Benitah’s has stated that the concept of the needle and thread is “a putting to death of my demons” (Benitah C. Lensculture). I find this interesting as it could hold more meaning than the other reconstruction of people placed on the background, being sliced out of the image holds very strong emotions but Benitah has made clear that the puncturing of the paper means something personal as it connects her to her past and her families’ values. Carolle Benitah wanted to explore her childhood as she thought it would be to get a deeper understanding of her identity and how it affected her adult life, I think this is a key image which represents that as there is clearly memories which Benitah doesn’t resonate with, by cutting off the head and scribbling out the face shows the powerful feelings towards the two people.
Birthe Pionteck was born and raised in Germany but moved to Canada in 2005 after graduating from Folkwang University of the Arts. She is now a Vancouver based photographer who specialises in narrative-driven portraiture, one of the projects that I took the most inspiration from was ‘Mimesis’ where she uses different materials as a way of manipulating her images into telling her own story. Piontek based many of her projects around investigating human identity and how we perceive ourselves as well as how others see us. ‘Mimesis” was centred around photographs which Piontek found on Ebay or in flea markets, these were mainly portraits with the subject looking directly in the camera, this is so that their history can be shown through the image. “The moment where it is all about the person and not so much about capturing a situation or event, so that the image becomes a representation of that person.” (Piontek B: Humble Arts Foundation, December 2014). Once Piontek has found these photographs, she transforms them by cutting out pieces and putting them together with others that she thinks will create a capturing narrative. She also uses different unique materials we wouldn’t normally see being incorporated into photography like glass, foil, mirrors and paint. Another project of Piontek’s that I found fascinating was ‘Her Story’, this piece was personal for her as it was looking into her mother and Grandmothers fight with dementia and Alzheimer’s, she wanted to display the theme of memory loss through her interest in collaging and manipulation of images. Her deeper connection to this piece of work is what made it so moving as was able to convey her fear of potentially carrying either one of the diseases as well as her feelings towards both generations. Furthermore, Piontek also wanted to explore the way in which humans connect with their memories and they can change us but also shape us into the people we are. Birthe states “our identities are shaped by our memories, to a point where I almost want to say: we are our memories” (Piontek B: Der Greif, September 2016).
Birthe Piontek ‘Mimesis’
Above is one of Birthe Pionteks images form her collection ‘Mimesis’, before she made adaptations, they were originally school photographs from different years of the young girls education. To change the narrative of these images Piontek has connected them together with a long piece of fabric which seems to be the same one as the background in both images. As Piontek based this project around identity, I think that the message which is trying to reveal itself is that we are always connected to our past selves no matter how much we change our appearance or behaviour, there will also be the memories of our ‘old selves’ which has left an impression of the society we live in. By using the same material throughout the whole manipulation is a creative way of linking each feature together, it tells a story of how each part of our lives are connected, past, present and future no matter how hard we try to detach from them. Even though Piontek doesn’t know this girl she is able to convey a deeper connection to her by creating her own fiction and telling a different story of this girls life. Birthe Piontek got her photographs for ‘Mimesis’ through flea markets and thrift shop meaning she has no background on the individuals she decides to reconstruct but she is still able to use different materials and skills to recreate this persons whole identity. Piontek states “I usually spend quite a bit of time with the image, looking at it and familiarizing myself with it” (Piontek B: Humble Arts Foundation, 2014), I think this is the main reason why Piontek is able to convey such a powerful message through many of her collections, she gets to know these individuals bringing them into her family so that she is able to reconstruct them the best she can creating whole new narrative for them which are completely different to their actual lives.
Birthe Piontek ‘Her Story’
The image above displays another one of Birthe Piontaks photographs, it is from a different collection hers named ‘Her Story’. This project is very moving as it investigates the theme of memory loss, which connects back to Pionteks mother and grandmother who suffer from dementia and Alzheimer’s. I think with this specific image Piontek is trying to communicate how people with these diseases endure the feeling of losing themselves, with it getting with each day that comes. In this adaptation four cut outs of the same image have been placed on a black background, the alternating photographs faces have been cut out leaving only the frame of the face as well as the hair and shoulders, the other cut outs have been places towards the back on the right side with one filling in the empty space that was once there. Each face is a representation of the same person, but by cutting out the identifying features it represents what has been forgotten and what has replaced these memories. Piontek states “the more we remember something and look at it with our minds eyes, the more we alter and change a memory” (Der Greif, 2016), I think this is interesting as it has been scientifically proven that with the recall of memories they alter and we lose sense of what the original once was. I think that Piontek wanted to add this matter into her collection as it is something similar to what her older generations go through on a daily. I believe that with this project it was able to help Piontek feel more connected with her mother and grandmother as she was able to explore their history as well as their present, she can rework these photos into something she wants to see and believe while also spreading awareness of this diseases.
Overall, through the manipulation of archival images as well as photographs found at flea markets, Birthe Piontek and Carolle Benitah are able to get a deeper understanding of their identity and also their families, they recreate their own families into something they wish they had in their past. They use these projects as an outlet and a way of connecting to who they use to be and exploring how they have change over years. The theme of identity and family has been interlaced throughout their whole careers making their collects even more powerful, as people can go back and look at the development as well as how they have demolished the stereotype of having a ‘perfect’ family. Carolle Benitah did this through her manipulations with thread which emphasised on the fact that she was brought up with the narrative that girls from ‘good’ families could embroider and sew. Birthe Piontek did something similar with the materials that she used but for her it was rebuilding the family and the identity of the individuals she found in images. Above this is one of my adaptations to an archival image, with this specific photograph I have taken inspiration from mainly Carolle Benitah by incorporating the red a gold, I think that these colours compliment each other as well as symbolising something deeper.
Opening quote: “It’s imperative we tell our own stories, controlling the framework, content and narrative” (LaToya Ruby Frazier, 2018)
Introduction (250-500 words): What is your area of study? Which artists will you be analysing and why? How will you be responding to their work and essay questions?
Pg 1 (500 words): Historical/ theoretical context within art, photography and visual culture relevant to your study area. Make links to art movements/ isms and some of the methods employed by critics and historians.
Pg 2 (500 words): Analyse the first artist/photographer about your essay question. Present and evaluate your images and responses.
Conclusion (250-500 words): Draw parallels, and explore differences/ similarities between artists/photographers and the work that you have produced
Bibliography: List all relevant sources used
In what ways has LaToya Ruby Frazier represented identity between generations of women?
‘Grandma Ruby and J.C in her kitchen’, 2006.
In this essay, I will discuss how photograph LaToya Ruby Frazier has represented generational identity between women. I have chosen this female artist as they explore the topic of female identity through generations in unique ways. For example, research into their work has enabled me to gain different perspectives on the role of feminism in photography, the influence of female role models through generations, and how women are represented in photography. These elements have formed the central points of this essay. Growing up with a single mother and solely women in my upbringing have influenced my interest in my essay topic and led to my research in historical portrayals of women, historical family roles and subsequently the choice of Ruby LaToya Frazier as my critical artist. Her photobook “The Nation of Family” has had a significant influence on the development of my project. In this photo book, Frazier uses poignant images of multiple generations of women in her family. These images highlight the history of her family and the plight they have faced as working-class African American women in an Ex – mining town in rural America. The intimate, deeply personal portraits in this photobook create thought-provoking sentiments about the ideas of womanhood, the modern of women in the family and female identity throughout multiple generations. She considers her work a “conceptual documentary”,(Harris, 2014), and she uses her work not only to show that of familial relationships, but “as a vehicle for both social change and aesthetic possibility: beauty, in her work, does not preclude protest any more than education presumes awareness.”. These techniques further influenced my interest in Frazier’s work – I have a personal interest in documentary photography and journalism, and this is something that I like to use in my work. Frazier’s documentarian approach creates more insightful images, with heavily contextual images detailing the struggles of those whose voices often go unheard: not only women but working-class, African American women.
To respond to my selected artists, I am using archival images as well as new images of myself, my mother and my grandmother, drawing inspiration from archival material: I plan to compare feeling, pose and appearance between new and archive images (taken from photo albums), to produce a thoughtful commentary on how female identity changes through three generations. I will explore this mainly through photomontage and collage, a method that I have used successfully in the past and want to develop in this project. Subsequently, in this essay, I will discuss the historical representation of women: in art, photography, and families and reference my key artist and her work in relation to female identity and generations of women.
“Woman with a parasol – Madame Monet and Her Son.” Claude Monet, 1875. From the collection of The National Gallery of Art, Washington DC.
Throughout many periods of history, both in society, culture and art, the portrayal of women, the ‘role of a woman’ and family structures are presented in many different ways. Throughout historical western society, women have been consistently presented as the primary caregivers, both for their children, for the home and their husbands. This can be seen in sculpture and art dating back to as early as the 1500s. Women in art around his period and up until the late 20th century were presented as fragile and soft and as a “passive object, and the receiver of an active male gaze” (Kaufman, A: “Undoing the Patriarchy in Art” 2005.) For example, in the Italian renaissance, women were, like women of the middle ages, denied all political rights and considered legally bound to their husbands. Women were considered merely housewives, and if not married were not allowed to live independently. During this period, women were presented in art as vain, and self-obsessed figures were presented only for the pleasure of the male onlooker. For example, in Giovanni Bellini’s 1515 painting “Young Woman at her Toilette”, the nude female subject is presented as a symbol of wealth, with Bellini using rich green tones and the feature of a Venetian landscape to her left. This painting connotes a sense of calm and softness, which further highlights the way women were represented during the renaissance period.
“Young Woman at her Toilette” Giovanni Bellini, 1515, From the collection of Kusthistorisches Museum Wien.
With the invention of photography in the early 19th century, the representations of women were seemingly unchanged. Male photographers dominated the art, with the majority of images extremely serious and posed. Family portraits at this time were the same: mothers were pictured holding their children, with the father standing above with a stern look on his face. Even this layout highlights the place women had in society in the time in victorian society, at the time of the invention of photography. The identity of women represented in these early images was that of a mother, a housewife, and an inferior figure to her husband, who loomed above her, somewhat threateningly, demonstrating power and control. Another sub-genre of these early portraits was the so-called “Hidden Mother Photography”, which was a genre that included portraits of young children, with their mother present, but hidden in the photograph. This genre grew more popular due to the long exposure times of early cameras, and the need for mothers to hold their children still for long periods. These images are somewhat chilling – despite their seemingly innocent nature, they show how mothers were seen as objects and merely useful for parenting – the concealment of the mothers’ bodies and faces creates a sense that “The mothers seem to have been aiming to create an intimate bond between the child and the viewer, rather than between themselves and the child.” (Nagler, Early victorian family portraits and the disappearing mother, 2013). This subscribes to the mother wanting to please the viewer, creating a perfect picture of her child for those looking at the image, a polished ideal of the relationship and identity that exists between a mother and child. This manipulation shows the early presence of the male gaze and its influence on representations of female identity in photography.
The 1800s ‘hidden mother image’
Moving into the 20th century, as women had more and more freedom and a louder voice within society, many female photographers began to document their identity in their own words – not in the words of men who have controlled the media and the role of women within the media for decades. The male gaze has become more and more redundant in recent years, with developments in all of the areas of the visual arts that lean towards more of the female gaze – images that do not solely exist for the visual pleasure of the male onlooker – “Woman as image, man as bearer of the look”. Instead, as the influence of feminism has become more visible in photography, many female photographers have produced images and series that depict their own identity, for themselves, or the viewing of other women – these can be powerful, as they depict female voices within the arts that have been silenced and altered for centuries. For example, Carrie Mae Weems created an iconic photograph which represents an intimate portrait of motherhood, through an understated kitchen depiction of a mother and daughter with makeup. This depiction of a mother-daughter relationship contrasts violently with the silenced mothers in the “Hidden Mother” portraits of Victorian mothers, whose relationships with their children were censored and removed from the images. The image below highlights the struggle that women in visual art, especially photography, have experienced to create work that represents them as the women they are today.
Carrie Mae Weems, “Untitled (Woman and daughter with makeup)” (1990)
African – American photographer LaToya Ruby Frazier’s images are crucial pieces in the development of the modern media’s representations of women. She considers her work closely related to sociology, documenting the struggles of working-class African American American women. The media and its’ representations are central to frazier’s work. The fact that Frazier considers her work sociological is important to the context of her images – her work is not journalistic, as she seeks to separate her narratives from that of the media, drawing a line between her personal experiences, and the media’s representation of such: “If I were a journalist, I would not be able to edit and frame my photographs. I look for a narrative or context that will amplify the voices of the marginalised…and the current issues we face.” (Frazier, 2018). This quote of Frazier’s signifies how taking a sociological approach to her subjects allows her to tell her own story, without bias and as she wishes – not as society wishes, for a journalist. In her work, Frazier not only documents social issues, but the generations of women in her family. In her highly acclaimed project, “The Notion of Family”, she creates unique documentary images in which she features herself, her mother and her grandmother. Through her work, Frazier herself documents her own family and their surrounding stories. She seeks to dismantle discriminatory ideas of women and disadvantaged communities like her own in Braddock, Pennsylvania and creates unfiltered and stark images of her female relatives, which create an eye-opening reality of her family’s experiences. Frazier’s work subsequently has strong links to feminism – as a woman she uses her work as a tool of resistance against stereotypical representations of black women. Her images are heavily contextualised, each subject with their own stories and experiences told within the project, dismissing the female stereotype of vanity, and shallowness, as projected by the male gaze: “An endlessly reproductive imitation of surface” (Phelan, 1993). Instead, Frazier’s imagery appeals to the female gaze, rejecting surface level depictions of women, and creating her own narrative. Her modern depictions of female identity and marginalization are completely opposite to the historical depictions mentioned above – Frazier disproves the historical preconceptions of women, and creates a modern display of female power and experience in her work.
LaToya Ruby Frazier, 2005
This image of Frazier’s is from “The Notion of Family”project. The photograph is black and white, which creates stark contrast – for example, the middle has a large concentration of black tones. This creates a clear division between the two parts of the composition this could signify a dividing factor in the family which drives the two subjects apart. This could be a reason as to why Frazier chose this composition. This black-toned area of the photograph matches the black of the t-shirt of the subject to the left, creating a link between these two areas of the photograph. This image uses the rule of thirds which can be seen in all parts: in the left the start of the black doorframe, creating the first third, the whole of the doorframe creating the centre third, and the rest of the image to the right creating the last. The focal point in this image is the door, which creates a high contrast with the different tones of the white towel. It could be said that the inclusion of separation in this image, with the door, could reference separation between generations – it may signify turbulence within their relationship. This separation is intriguing, as it could have many different meanings. It is possible that the photographer composed her image in this way to force the viewer to question what they think about the photograph, and what they think the work relates to. The composition raises the questions of the posing of the image, and the context, something personal to Frazier and her mother. Additionally, The exclusion of faces and the body language of the two subjects could signify tension between the two characters or unsettled feelings. The inclusion of dark spaces in this photograph suggests trouble or problems within the family – in this context the plight of Frazier’s family as former steel miners, suffering the consequences of a failed industry. Within the image, there is a sense of nostalgia, helped by the presentation of the two subjects but also the aesthetic qualities: it was shot on film and in black and white which creates a more sentimental image of family. As seen throughout “The Notion of Family”, Frazier’s use of a film camera and “20th Century documentary aesthetic” (Frazier, 2014) is used to document the lives of three generations of women, whose lives “parallel the rise and fall of the steel mill industry”. Frazier uses film and ‘old-fashioned’ methods to relate her work to the time in which the steel-milling industry began to fail, the late 20th century. The collapse of this industry had a direct effect on its workers, leaving them without income and subsequently developing severe health problems. By using photographic processes popular at the time, Frazier creates a link between the surface-level elements of her photograph the technical processes), with the plight of her subjects.
CONCLUSION
Overall, Latoya Ruby Frazier’s project “The Notion of Family” is a powerful display of female identity, documenting the plight of African American women in modern America. Her work represents generational identity with unfiltered images of her family, unravelling the stereotypes of women seen throughout historically: through art, racism, the media, and sexism. This influences Frazier’s sociological approach to her work, examining the contextual problems behind her work instead of purely aesthetics. Frazier’s unique approach to her work has therefore influenced my own project: rather than looking purely at technical things such as composition and framing in my image, although still important, I have began to arrange and compose my images in a way that creates a narrative – creating intimate images of myself and my family. These images tell a story of lineage, generational change and identity. In my project, like Frazier, I have sought to create meaningful portraits of women, delving below surface level stereotypes.
Examples of my own work from my project.
Bibliography
Phelan, P (1993)Unmarked: the politics of performance, Routledge, Oxfordshire.
Hirsch, M, (1997) Family Frames: Photography, Narrative and Postmemory. Harvard University Press, Massechusets.
Jansen, C (2017) Girl on Girl: Art and Photography in the Age of the Female Gaze, Laurence King Publishing, London.
Mulvey, L (1973) Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema in Screen, 1975.
Monet, C (1875) Camille Monet and a Child in the Garden in Argenteuil,[digital image of painting], www.arthistoryproject.com, accessed 31st January 2023
On his career: I began capturing images round the end of ’98. At that point, I’d gotten a boyfriend. I started photographing him a lot and then my group of friends, outside of art school. People I had close relationships with or met: skaters, graffiti writers, gay people. I was recreating a family. I come from this big family, but it’s like I got the opportunity to create this new one that I just love so much. I started photographing them on a daily basis.
Ryan McGinley is an American photographer living in New York City. McGinley began taking photographs in 1998 at age 20, creating his first photobook ‘The Kids were Alright’ a collection of 1600 shots made between 1998 and 2003, taken mainly of himself and his friends. Using a Yashica T4s and a film Leica R8s, McGinley captured what is inherent in abandonment, sex, use of drugs and parties in New York amongst youth. His subjects are young and adolescent who embody a sense of freedom from the “wild” attitude. McGinley’s work is cinematic and has been influenced by Terrence Malick’s film, Days of Heaven and has rewritten the imagery of advertising campaigns for brands such as Levi’s and Wrangler. Reoccuring themes in McGinleys work are hedonism and liberation, the life that is celebrated in its intensity, where even the scenes of sex and drugs are immortalized without censorship and prejudice and describe a youth in an underground environment without rules.
Image taken from his collection ‘The Kids were Alright’
McGinley spent the majority of his time around his subjects, particularly graffiti artists, between 1998-2003. Whilst working on his collection, he would follow them to places such as subway tunnels, roofs, bridges and underpasses to give an accurate day-to-day life account of youth growing up in New York, capturing the hedonistic and reckless lifestyle they lived. Later on in his career, after the release of The Kids were Alright, McGinley’s photographing style wou;ld take a different route as he began to recruit models and photograph his subjects in nature such as in forests or sea, capturing his images with an ethereal, almost dreamlike style. His photobook titled ‘Way Far’ represents this in a collection of images taken at dawn in wide, open spaces captured with colourful, vibrant lighting and subjects that embody the same freedom and atmosphere as in The Kids were Alright.
Image taken from his collection ‘Way Far’
McGinley’s work inspires me because much like Jim Goldberg, he portrays youth culture through a collection of stills yet his images have so much movement and narrative behind them that you feel personally connected with the subjects in his photographs. Unlike Goldberg, whose images are for the most part candid, McGinley makes his subjects pose but there is an element of freedom behind it, he controls the camera but ultimately his subjects control the outcome and express emotion through a variety of headshots, close ups and images combining the elements of human and nature which i feel makes a photo more special and interesting to look at. I am also inspired by his use of lighting and viewpoint in his work e.g the image above.
IMAGE ANALYSIS
This image is taken from McGinley’s 2004 photobook, Whistle for the Wind and features his friend, Dakota, drinking out of a cup in a moving car. The wind is blowing her hair forward as she leans over her drink. The colours in this photo are vibrant, much like the others in this collection – the natural lighting rests primarily on her face and body, gradually becoming shadows as the image progresses. The landscape in the background is blurred from use of a low shutter speed, and the subject is positioned directly in the middle of the image, therefore setting her as the viewpoint and focus for the photo. I think this image represents the freedom and liberation McGinley aims to convey in his work, as the image has a main focus and doesn’t feature any surroundings that draw your eye. The focus is on Dakota and her freedom within the moment.
My only aim for this photoshoot was to take some portraits of me and my friend. I decided to go to the studio and use a dark background for the shoot because white can be quite distracting and I wanted us to be the main focus of the images. I experimented with different shutter speeds, which is why some images are blurrier that some and look like the camera has moved. I used a low shutter speed for my Identity Project and found it very interesting and enjoyed it, which is why I wanted to try it out again.
Overall, I wouldn’t call the shoot successful as it was hard photographing without a plan and any props, but I did manage to get some images that I think will be helpful when creating my photobook. I also enjoyed using the setup in the studio as I haven’t been able to use it for a few months and I am now more confident in using it.
