WHO IS CLARE RAE?

Clare Rae is a photographer which explores feminism through women’s bodies. In her photography she represents women how society views them, and creates art through shapes and shadows that are created.

‘In her photographic practice Clare explores ideas of performance and gesture to interrogate and subvert dominant modes of representation. Her work is informed by feminist theory, and presents an alternate and often awkward experience of subjectivity and the female body, usually the artists’ own.’

https://clarerae.com/Info

MOODBOARD OF HER PHOTOGRAPHY:

RAE PHOTO ANALYSIS:

 

Rae uses the female body to create messages and art through the way these women present themselves. In this image the women is seen in the centre third, the rule of thirds is defined as a composition guideline that places your subject in the left or right third of an image, leaving the other two thirds more open, however is also slightly leaning to the right due to her balancing on the chair.

Emotional Response:

This image is a creative way to explore the views of femininity and uses all the objects in the frame in order to creates this distorted images. In this image you are able to see a woman is a slightly distorted position, yet she still looks delicate and careful, which reinforces the female stereotype that women are weaker then men.

Visual – what we can see in the image

This image shows that women can be careless and reckless, this is connoted by the threatening position on the chair and how se is using the wall to help balance herself and avoid injury. The natural lighting is shining on the women through the window, which gives a direct light onto her which makes her the focal point of the image, furthermore the dark colours contrast against the white background which lead your eyes through the stance of her body.

Contextual – who, when, where etc…the story, background, impact:

Climbing the Walls and Other Actions is a photographic series primarily concerned with visually representing my experience of femininity, whilst also exploring aspects of representation that relate to feminism. This project by Rae was a way to explore the relationship between body and space and how to use every element within the photograph she is taking. She promotes and takes awkward pictures, in order to create discomfort to obstruct the traditional view of feminisms; this could be a connotation in which how Rae feels about the dominant ideology of feminism and expresses this through her photography.

THEORY:

Gender-as-Performance-Judith-Butler

According to Butler, gender is by no means tied to material bodily facts but is solely and completely a social construction. Judith Butler is an American philosopher and gender studies writer, she is also the author of Gender Trouble.

‘Butler critiques the notion that gender – whatever it is – is stored within the body as if it were something akin to the soul’. Rae supports this idea by showing women defying their stereotypes, and showing them in dangerous and reckless positions. In her project ‘never standing on two feet’ shows that women are adventurous and can do reckless activities, and have qualities are stereotypically found in men.

‘Our genders are not stable but are constructed through repeated actions. Rituals and performative actions constantly reinforce our identities’. Rae shows this through photography that women and men should not have a definite way they should act. However due to change in gender identity, society may feel uncomfortable with this due to the fact that the certain ideas that were put in place are being replaced, and the more people defying the stereotypes the more society will feel the dominant ideology is being challenged.

RESPONSE TO HER IMAGES:

 

Who

A few friends

What

People posing with fruits

Where

In the studio, so I have good lighting

When

Available times i.e., study periods, lunch

How

I will bring in some fruits and then get friends to pose with a fruit of their choosing

Why

I will be doing this as part of my identity portraiture project.

These are photographs from a self-portraiture photoshoot I did in the studio.

Selecting images in Lightroom

Self portraiture outcomes

For this photoshoot, I chose to go for the evading side of portraying identity. I have done this in a variety of ways as portrayed below.

The location of the photoshoot will be outside and it depends where I go with my friends on their bikes.
what I will taking a photo of is my friends with there bikes and maybe a group photo.
I am taking inspiration from Danny Lyons from his bike riders book his photos have natural feeling where the scene weren’t set up it almost like documentary photography.

Why I am taking inspiration from Danny Lyons and talking photo of my friends on there bikes is because I like Danny Lyons photos and
how will I take the photos I will be using a camera and maybe my phone depends if I have the camera on me or not.

This is a montages of Danny Lyons bike rides photos with the Chicago outlaws, I like these photos because they look like documentary photos not staged or set up photos gives the photo a organic feel and since there taken in black and white it gives the photos a old feel when I do take the photos they will probably not have the same effect but I try when taking the photos and in editing them.

First flagged the images that I wanted to use. Then I started developing all of my images on Lightroom

These are my final images below

The more feminine shoot is inspired by Anna Gaskell

A mood board of Anna Gaskells work

A mood board of my work

For my sets of images I wanted to create a contrast between the femininity shoot and the masculinity shoot. One of my ways of doing this is by giving my femininity shoot a warm tone by taking the pictures mid day while the sun is out and in contrast turning my masculinity pictures black and white by shadowing the background to the main visual point is on the figures.

I am happy with how my two shoots turned out as I feel that I have captured modern day femininity for teenage girls and the modern day standards for men to be muscular.

The definition of femininity, femininity is a set of attributes, behaviours, and roles generally associated with women. Femininity can be understood as socially constructed, and there is also some evidence that some behaviours considered feminine are influenced by both cultural factors and biological factors. some feminine traits are nurturance, sensitivity, sweetness, supportiveness, gentleness, warmth, passivity, cooperativeness, expressiveness, modesty, humility, empathy, affection. sometimes colours are related to femininity such as pink, purple, green, red, and white.

The definition of masculinity, Masculinity is a set of attributes, behaviours, and roles associated with men. Masculinity can be theoretically understood as socially constructed, and there is also evidence that some behaviours considered masculine are influenced by both cultural factors and biological factors. some masculine traits are strength, courage, independence, leadership, and assertiveness. sometimes colours can be related to masculinity such as red, orange, brown, black and blue.

Photographs

Edits

For this image, I created more of a contrast by increasing the shadows on the image. I also increased the saturation to make the greenery and flowers stand out.

For this image, I again increased the contrast and decreased the highlights slightly. I also slightly increased the saturation and vibrancy to make the image pop more.

With this image I took a lighter approach, increasing the highlights and white tones while still increasing the contrast slightly to give the image more depth.

I took a similar approach with this image, making the image brighter and increasing the contrast.

With this picture, the models features feel sad, so I tried to make the image seem more dramatic. I did this by increasing the shadows and contrast while adding some vignette around the outside to make the viewer focus in more on the model.

I turned the image to black and white here, creating a contrast between the bottom of the picture and the sky. I also increased the shadows and contrast to make the sky and model stand out more.

Once again, I changed the image to be in black and white however I made the image brighter by increasing the exposure and white tones which ended up highlighted the flowers more.

For this picture, I made the image brighter, making the flower field stand out more. This did however, take the view point away from being the model due to the brighter colours surrounding her.

Here, I made the purple tones in the picture stand out more as well as increasing the saturation of the whole picture.

For this picture I changed the hue of the image to make the photo feel more like autumn rather than summer. I also increased the contrast and highlights.

With this image, I lowered the exposure and increased the contrast of the image to make the sky stand out more and give the photo a more summery feel to it. I enhanced this by increasing the saturation.

With this picture, I again decreased the exposure of the image which increasing the saturation and white tones.

I turned this image to black and white while increasing the contrast, and shadows and lowering the exposure.

Similarly to the other images, I lowered the exposure and increased the saturation and contrast to make the sky more prominent.

Here I increased the contrast and saturation of the image as well as the shadows to make the image appear more clean and clear.

Similar to the previous photo, I increased the contrast and saturation while also increasing the shadows.

I increased the contrast and lowered the exposure slightly before adding vignette to the edges of the image to focus it on the model.

I turned the image to black and white while and increased the contrast slightly.

Here I lowered the exposure while increasing the saturation and contrast.

BEST IMAGES FROM THE SHOOT:

COMPARING MY WORK TO KURLANDS ‘GIRL PICTURES’:

In comparison to my images I believe that there a similarities in both the images. In these images you are able to see how both image shows the stereotypes of women and reinforces them instead of discouraging them.

Visual – what we can see in the image

In both images you are able to see that the setting is in a similar place. Kurland’s image perhaps is taken in urban surrounding and the colour palette is slightly different; as you can see hers is slightly more earthy, and muted colour palette whereas my image has more vibrant and powerful colours. Both images the females are wearing white colours which connotes purity, innocence and, simplicity, these can also be seen as connotations in the images as most have a minimalistic aesthetic. The main difference seen in the image is that no females in Kurland’s image is giving direct eye contact, which suggests that they are frightened to look into the audience; however in my image one female is looking directly towards the camera whereas the other is looking away this is significant as it connotes that some females are able to stand up to the stereotypes whereas some prefer to stay submissive.

Contextual – who, when, where etc…the story, background, impact:

https://nmwa.org/art/artists/justine-kurland/

‘While her earlier photographs of schoolgirls were inspired by her own experience as a runaway, the birth of her son Casper in 2004 shifted her focus to pregnant women and mothers’.

Her images are now perhaps influential for women now that society is now shifting the stereotypes of women and men. Her photography show how women are seen in society and for the male gaze. Laura Mulvey states that women are sexualised for the male gaze; to pleasure the male sex, perhaps this is what Kurland is supporting by reinforcing these views created by men.

THE STUDY OF LAURA MULVEY – THE MALE GAZE:

https://study.com/learn/lesson/what-is-the-male-gaze-by-laura-mulvey-the-male-gaze-examples-theory-art-movies.html#:~:text=The%20%22male%20gaze%22%20is%20apparent,%2C%20literature%2C%20and%20other%20media.

I started off by selecting my favourite images id like to put into the print folder. To do this I rated and categorised my images on Lightroom so it was easier to asses each of them. I had 15 I liked, however, still needed to narrow them down:

After narrowing down to 12 final images I had these:

Initially I had my mock – ups presented on this post but then went back into it to show my recreations and how my final images were presented in comparison to my initial plan:

First mock-up/recreation:

After going back into the blog post and editing it I can show my recreation and how I exactly did this whilst framing my images:

Second mock up/ recreation:

Third mock – up/ recreation:

Remaining images were window mounted individually.

These are the images I found were most effective and suited the themes the most. I showed that I can use a range of techniques and related to my chosen artists.

Environmental Portrait

Headshots

Femininity and Identity Portraits