For this photoshoot, I aimed to create a series of images that focused on the more feminine side of the gender experience. I wanted to make sure that I spent time exploring femininity as I think it’s usually lost or dulled down within media, often changing the idea of femininity from women having fun to revolving around men [i.e: talking about or wanting to be with men]. Due to this, I wanted to create a photoshoot that would embrace the bright and fun aspect of femininity whilst avoiding the stereotypes often pushed upon women during this photoshoot.
Contact Sheets:
When I began the photoshoot, I was inspired by the idea of sailors and flight attendants and the fun colours/patterns that they reminded me of and tried recreating some of these ideas in order to help me to create a scene for my performative images. Then, as the shoot went on I began adding my own style as I saw fit [i.e: adding pink eyeshadow, a red heart etc] which helped me visualise where my project could go.
Later on, I decided to look at femininity through a different lens and decided to give myself a moustache/beard using make-up and dress more femininely, creating a contrast in the societal idea of femininity as my face was still covered in makeup despite being paired with a moustache and beard. I decided to do this in order to explore how femininity can be embraced by anyone despite being predominantly linked to women historically.
Some contact sheets:
Best Images:
Overall, I think this photoshoot was successful as I managed to create a variety of images with different perspectives, poses and compositions that I have started to form what my project will become whilst inspiring new ideas for future photoshoots.
Reflecting back on this photoshoot, I feel like I could try and focus on the lighting in my shots as some of my images feel dark or underexposed even after editing. Alongside that, I feel as though I could try and use more props throughout my photoshoots as I feel like they could create more interesting images that help to convey the topic of gender and gender roles – similar to some of Claude Cahun’s work – adding more meaning to each image. Ultimately, however, I feel as though this is more of a personal preference that I’d like to explore in a future photoshoot in order to improve the quality of my images. and maybe make the link to gender and gender roles a little less subtle.
Comparing my work to Sharn O’Donnell’s:
This photoshoot was heavily inspired by O’Donnell’s short film ‘Upstream’ where they use different items of clothing within their performative work to portray the masculine vs the feminine side of gender. I reconstructed this idea through the use of hair and makeup, drawing a fake moustache/unibrow to portray the more masculine side of gender alongside having my hair tied further back. I decided on this rather than clothing as I knew I wanted to explore feminine items of clothing even whilst presenting as a masculine figure which I tried to exaggerate further by keeping the heavy pink/red makeup.
My work differs from O’Donnell’s visually/aesthetically as I decided to use colour within my images whereas as they tend to keep their images & short films black and white. I wanted to use pops of colour to help distort the lines between the gender binary as I felt that using ‘feminine’ colours/looks with both the masculine and feminine characters would help to bring the two together as being similar yet different.. O’Donnell’s lack of colour helps to portray a sense of mourning towards what they are and what they could of been, the monochrome footage/stills taking away all distractions from the message they are trying to portray.
