Justine Kurland – ‘female utopia’

My main inspiration is from her book called ‘girl pictures’ its exactly what I wanted to base my photoshoot on and how id like to represent femininity. It shows girls coming together and the simplistic caring traits that are shown.

About Justine’s book/photography:

Kurland started this project in 1997 when she was a graduate student at Yale. In an essay at the back of the book, she crowns Alyssum as “the first girl” to be photographed. It started as a kind of make-believe. At fifteen Alyssum had been sent to live with her dad, whom Kurland was dating at the time. While he was at work, the two women bonded and began a collaboration, merging imaginations to plot out a narrative of a teenage runaway. Kurland went on to find more make-believe runaways, but one of the images from this time seems to hold a special importance; a portrait of Alyssum takes up a full spread towards the end of the book. Perched in a cherry tree between the Hudson river and a highway, Alyssum looks back over her shoulder. The river seems to flow away, while the headlights of cars on the road seem to be approaching. With her body in profile, Alyssum doesn’t seem to follow either direction.

Analysing some of Justine’s images:

Adventure stories were a source of inspiration for this project. The girls in Girl Pictures plagiarize these myths until they become their own, until the original myth is hardly relevant anymore. What’s left after all this repetition of runaway legends and costumes are the common themes: rebellion, self-sufficiency, confidence. A kind of inverse of the American Dream, but with the same carrot on a string: freedom. Perhaps this is why we love runaways so much.

We see worn out overalls holding onto a girl’s body by one strap. The girl at the centre of this image guides the others, looking past the camera as if it doesn’t even matter, as if the thing worth examining is actually behind us.

But of course with freedom comes the threat of danger. So many of the images in Girl Pictures were taken outside in locations that feel desolate or easy to overlook. They are often staged under bridges or beyond fences or on the sides of highways; places that feel synonymous with warnings.

The focal point of the image is the back of a young girl who is raising her shirt. Instead of her face, we see the eyes of all the girls surrounding her, watching the big reveal. There’s one boy in the group, but his eyes are covered. A girl has wrapped her arms around him from behind and places her fingers over each of his eyes. It’s funny to see such an obvious removal of the male gaze, especially as it’s still present – and yet the delicate hands of a teenage girl prove capable of obstructing it. As viewers we look from his covered eyes to her watchful ones.

Yet it feels beside the point to spend too much time considering a male perspective when looking at this project. The subjects move on, and do more interesting things. They collapse in the snow in ‘Snow Angels, 2000’, and roast marshmallows over a garbage fire in ‘Puppy Love, Fire, 1999’. It starts to feel as if they exist in their own reality, just removed enough. This is especially strong in the photographs that appear to capture two parallel worlds.

There are other things uniting all the girls in these photographs. The deeper you get into the book, the more difficult it becomes to see each girl as a distinct character. The camera stays just far enough away to keep the subjects slightly anonymous. Or perhaps it’s because they are mostly long haired, or wearing similar clothing, or belonging to that vague age range that captures adolescence. Whatever it is, they begin to blend together into one visually unified group of girls. 

Kurland’s focus is less on individual girls, and more on what happens when they band together.

I found this text on a website and i agree with how i perceive the book and the idea of how girls specifically teenage girls are represented:

‘I don’t know any of the girls in Justine Kurland’s Girl Pictures, but it really feels like I do. Or at least, I must have seen them. Maybe they were there on the side of the highway, or in some public restroom, or just standing on a sidewalk as I passed by. The girls in their baggy jeans and bare feet. The girls in their leather boots and used sweaters. There’s something about them that feels like so many teenage girls. The images in this book weigh me down with a sense of nostalgia, and it’s not just the late nineties fashion. It’s the fact that the girls seem to be disappearing. Like catching a wild animal in a trap, it feels like by the time you look at each image of these girls you’ve already missed them. They’ve run off to someplace better or just some place that isn’t here.’

Using this book as a reference I’ve found that it creates an emotional connection and deeper meaning.

About Carolle Bénitah

She was born in 1965 and is aged 58 years old. Bénitah lives in Marseille, France. She is a French Moroccan photographer, who worked for ten years as a fashion designer before turning to photography in 2001, and now explores memory, family and the passage of time.  Often pairing old family snapshots with handmade accents, such as embroidery, beading and ink drawings, Bénitah seeks to reinterpret her own history as daughter, wife, and mother.

She began to become interested in her family photographs when flipping through an album of her childhood. She felt overwhelmed by an emotion that she did not understand. The photographs taken 40 years ago awakened a fear of something that was familiar yet also so unknown, causing her to feeling the need to add meaning to the photos. She wanted to explore her identity in this way, to help her define and understand herself more.

Her Work

She uses achieve photographs that she reprints and manipulates them using embroidery and sometimes even cut outs bits of the photo. The pictures are simple snapshots, purely taken for memories, memories which clearly mean a lot to Bénitah, in both a negative and positive way. In my project, I want to embroider on both new and old photos, using the thread as a representation of my grandmother.

Carolle Bénitah: Photos Souvenirs

“To embroider my photograph, I make holes in the paper. With each stitch, I stick the needle through the paper. Each hole is a putting to death of my demons. It is like an exorcism. I stab the paper until I don’t hurt anymore”

-Carolle Bénitah

Her most popular series, Photos Souvenirs, is an exploration of her memories from her childhood in Morocco and was worked on between 2009 and 2014. This series is made up of old family achieves, which she manipulates by threading beads and embroidering designs relating to her feelings towards each photographic memories. She calls the photos she finds “excavations”, and she starts by transposing them onto new paper. She mostly uses red thread and beads, but some of her pieces also include gold and black coloured material. They add a shine to her photos, and each design holds significance. She sometimes even manipulates the photos in a more destructive way, cutting out individuals and placing them elsewhere. Photos Souvenirs was exhibited at Rose Gallery, Santa Monica, in 2015.

Growing up in a traditional Moroccan household, Bénitah was expected to do many typically- feminine tasks. The embroidery she adds to the achieves hold a lot of significance, portraying how she was taught to sew as a girl, and was expected to continue the activity for her entire life. She uses this to portray her distaste of being a good girl, a good wife and a loving mother. Embroidery in itself is a calm activity, however, Bénitah uses it to show her anger and other strong emotions.

Image Analysis

In this photograph, Bénitah is about six years old and holding hands with her smiling brother, but an army of cockroaches surrounds the children, and their hands are bound together in a ball of red wool. Bénitah used a red wool to create the wool and black, for the surrounding cockroaches.

The photo itself is a simple, staged photograph, with natural lighting illuminating the young children’s faces. It is taken from an eye level view, however slightly above the children, indicating an adult took the photo. The area of focus is the bright red wool and it leads the viewers attention to the centre of the piece. The bright white outfits further bring the audience’s attention to the centre, as the white contrasts against the dull grey background. The photo has a shallow depth of field, further promoting the idea that it is an amateur photo, a family snapshot. Furthermore, the photo has a simple composition, the children simply being in the centre of the photo, the subject of the image. The cockroaches add a repetitive look to the photo, creating a representation of Bénitah’s feelings towards that moment. The bugs could be a portrayal of a threat, the wool signifying that her and her brother helped each other through everything. The innocent look on the children’s faces contrasts with the bold colours and shapes of the embroidery. The red wool could be a representation of love, the love she had for her brother which is what made them so close. Or it could be a portrayal of violence or even blood, perhaps suggesting that they were simply close due to a problem in the world or because they are family (the idea of being connected by blood). It’s interesting how Bénitah in cooperates such strong emotions into simple photographs, softening these harsh emotions by creating beautiful embroidery with her needle. At the time, (mid-1900s) society was based on very traditional values. Growing up in a traditional, catholic, Moroccan household clearly positioned Bénitah to grow up and become your typical women. Her pieces are a representation of how she disagreed with this concept, and shows her anger through the manipulation of photos from her childhood.

“It’s like an exorcism. I pierce the paper until I have no more evil”

-Carolle Bénitah

This is one of Carolle Bénitah’s most significant quotes, since it portrays the thought that goes into her work. She uses the needle to embroider her anger into the work, instead of keeping it bottled up inside. This is very inspiring, and I like the idea of conveying emotions through embroidery, both on new and old photos.

Carolle Bénitah’s link to Nostalgia

“I selected snapshots because they are linked to memory and loss”

-Carolle Bénitah

I think Carolle Bénitah’s work has a big link to nostalgia, however she shows both the negative and positive aspects of it through her art. She uses the embroidery as a healing ritual and calm her inner child. She also feels a mix of emotions when looking at the photos, which I think represents nostalgia perfectly, as I don’t think nostalgic feelings have to be completely positive.

Out of everything I have studied and responded to throughout this photography course femininity is the one I’m very passionate about and will continue to develop/expand my knowledge around this theme which will then allow me to interpret it in a creative way which I can then reflect that creativity into a photobook which ill design as my final project. When studying this theme in year 12 the aim was to find an artist that presented femininity as ‘innocent, young, caring, healthy’, Justine Kurland had produced some really good images which demonstrated those ideologies. However, to now develop this I will be producing images which will portray the opposite of those stereotypes, it will show how as girls specifically change (being older, meeting new people, understanding themselves, temporary happiness over long term happiness) focusing on all the problems/phases most teenage girls face. My photobook will have a nostalgic yet deep emotional feeling to it as it will show femininity in the past and what girls used to do when they were younger (nostalgic) and then compare that to how lifestyles change and how femininity is now interpreted, for me personally, and how things have changed (good and bad). I have already began forming a collection of pictures which ill use, mainly trying to get candid, random, raw images whenever I get a chance. I haven’t got a strict plan for where I will take my pictures, however, I know it will include a mix of candid and staged images… specifically documenting my friendship group and juxtaposing ‘girl pictures’ by Justine Kurland as her pictures had very bright colourful tones and majority of them where taken outside on fields, by lakes. Whereas my images will have more dark tones to create emotion and that sense of nostalgia from the past, its meant to demonstrate how girls change from what they used to do for fun in the past to what they now do for fun the difference is, is that the activities for young people to do in jersey are extremely limited now. My photobook will show what my friends and I do in our spare time and what its like to be a 17/18 year old girl in Jersey, juxtaposing with Justine Kurland’s images and story. Julia Margaret Cameron along side Justine Kurland is an artist I will also be including in my essay, Julia was the first photographer to capture femininity in 1868, this links to pictorialism.

Jim Goldberg is an American photographer who likes to focus a lot of his work on the neglected and ignored populations he takes time on these projects collecting thousands of photographs to make sure that the photos he choses represents his thoughts and views on the subject/ mater he is trying to get across, Goldberg uses film and digital cameras to create his book Raised By Wolves which shows a neglected and hurt population, his work is moving to his audiences as his work has been personalised by the people who he has included in it from people writing notes, drawings and dialog, this shows he is a photographer who wants to make an impact on people and wants to get people to speak up about where and who they come from.

Jim Shows his photos in many ways from scanning film and including the film negatives, peculiar layouts to full bleeds he includes multiple ways to show a story behind his work. Raised By Wolves is classed by some people as a novel with pictures whilst others see it as photographs which tell a story accompanied by text. For me personally I see it as both what you see tells you a story which you interpret and the righting tells you another story.

Jim Goldberg has inspired me in they way he layouts his images and presents them, they way he does it has meaning behind they stories they tell they are eye-catching and appealing o the audience, i also love the way Goldberg includes hand writing from the people he photographs i see it as a really good way to personalise work and create a mood around the work.

Meaning behind his work

Raised By Wolves is about probes the gap between dreams and reality in the lives of teenage runaways living on the streets of San Francisco and Los Angeles, and bout a neglected community which people don’t think about, and the youth which are getting lost in addiction and substance abuse, this project let the people be heard and seen when they hadn’t been before. Jim Goldbergs work always shows a divide in society predominantly focusing on the side which most people don’t see and making people see it this aspect of his work is truly moving n the sense he gives people voices and allows them to tell their story’s when no one else would listen.

Theo Gosselin

Theo Gosselin is a French photographer who was born in Normandy France, who only uses a 35mm and 55mm film camera. He likes to focus his photographs on freedom within his friends and family and does not like to stage any photos he likes to capture them in the moment and when they happen. “My friends and our lives became my principal subject, not as a photographer, but as a teenager who wants to capture memories just like everyone else.”

Gosselin grew up in a household surrounded by cameras as his parents were always taking photographs he first picked up a camera around the age of 14 where he didn’t fully understand the concept of taking a great photo but by him experimenting opened himself this incredible door to improve and explore his skills to improve his work and get him to the point he is now at creating and capturing these incredible inspiring and eye-catching images which hook the audience in.

Theo spent lots of time traveling mainly in America where he published his first book called  Avec le Coeur, meaning “with the heart.” which consists of photos of “everything he loves”, this is inspiring as many photographers fall into loopholes of taking and creating photos which other people will enjoy to see but not what they enjoy taking and what interests them. With Gosselins photos he waited till he got back home to develop them which built up the anticipation and excitement to see what his film reveals.

This image the rule of thirds as the main focal point is not in the centre third this creates a dynamic view on the landscape and the main subject being the female on the lower part of the image, leaving space for us to be able to see the landscape without distracting the audience from the main part of the image being the female she can be seen almost like a frame to the landscape as she almost colds around the frame of the image. The lighting makes this image in my opinion due to the way it highlights her hair and sculpts her facial features and highlights them. The depth of colour goes from dark to light creating a tunnel like affect.

Raymond Meeks is a photographer who is much more well known than Gosselin, his book Halflife reminds me of Gosselin’s work as they both photograph people around the water focusing on the youth of where they are, his work on the book was based around a lake near New York where is was a predominantly white lower class teenage boys, who wasted to show their dominance by jumping off 60ft cliffs whilst doing trick which allowed Raymond to get incredible unique shots, like Gosselin he also uses film to capture these incredible moments allowing a one shot wonder photographs, however Meeks work is taken in black and white film i think this really adds definition to his photographs as it shows the highlights, shadows and texture in his work. Raymond Meeks spent 3 years photographing at this lake as he found when he sat down in winter to edit them he would go from 80 strong photos down to 12 and found himself kept going back to get more to finish his book, where he let his son develop the layout of it as he created links between each images when laying them out. Meeks did not just observe the children at the lake but the energy which the lake held its self and how it became full of joy and excitement as soon as summer came around filling up with sunshine and warm air and how it bought people together from the same background and other backgrounds.

I like how both photographers capture a moment so simplistically and make it look so elegant, the images are freeing as they capture what youthful people should be doing living there life in an environment where they enjoy and are careless around.