Why did I chose femininity for this project?

I chose to do this project based off of Justine Kurland’s ‘Girl Pictures’ as most of the photos within the book go against the stereotypes of femininity. And although in today society it is not uncommon to break stereotypes, back when these photos were taken (1997 – 2002) it was quite rare to see, and Kurland manages to capture this perfectly with the perfect balance of empowering women and also belittling men at the same time. However with my final photoshoot, I decided to feed into the typical stereotype of femininity.

How did I plan this shoot?

In order to get the best possible outcomes for this photoshoot, I planned to do this shoot on a day where the weather was good with a couple clouds, by having clouds in the sky i believe it adds more texture. When taking photos for this project I got the girls featured in the shoot to wear similar outfits (white top & blue jeans) as white symbols purity and i was wanting to feed into the ideology of teenage girls.

Photoshoot & Editing:

The photoshoot was taken in a field and a lake in St Saviours. I decided upon this field as it had long grass and no buildings in the background which could suggest it is in a secluded area like Kurland’s images. The lake was a perfect place to take some of these images as a number of Kurland’s photos were taken near water.

Evaluation of the whole project:

I believe I have done well in this project, and my skills and knowledge with cameras have improved a lot as I now how to navigate myself around the different camera settings. I am very happy with the outcomes of my images and think I have managed to keep roughly on theme for each shoot. However I do need to work on sticking to my artist references a bit more and need to improve my blog posts by adding more context and information to each one.

Doing studio lighting portraiture was interesting for me as there were many things to do and I enjoyed figuring out the different ways lighting can affect your face. I believe that this was quite a simple shoot to do as the studio within school is very accessible therefore i was able to go down most studios and try to improve my skills.

I really enjoyed doing environmental portraiture as it is very social and each image holds a photo. When doing this shoot, I walked into other peoples environments and every photo was able to show someone’s character, lifestyle and personality. However, not all of my outcomes for this project came out as well as I hoped and I believe this is due to me not experimenting with lighting outside of a studio.