In the world today there are many forms of identity which each ones form almost an alliance with each other, it forms sections in society of people who identify in specific areas, and you can be in multiple. Some of these forms of identity can be things such as: religion, culture, race, social background, class.
These types of identity affects society and always have. It shows a place for a person and what type of person they are, as it allows them to connect and relate to other who have the similar identity. For example things such as religion, there are many different religions, and each of them used to battle about who was right, and it would cause riots, disagreements and hate towards people. Although now it is more widely accepted to identify as what ever religion you may, because its taught that people should have their own place in life, and to be accepted no matter what. This is similar with culture, race, and social background. Some of these identity’s mix at times, but that doesn’t always mean there are arguments between them, more understanding and mature people accept and move on with what identity people stand for. In todays world there is a significantly less amount of hate towards different identity’s and people can be more accepting, although there are still areas in the world where because of a lack of different identity’s it would be strange for them to encounter one outside of their own.
In a place like jersey there is not as much identity groups or areas in comparison to a bigger country like England. And Jersey is although a small area it is seen as more of a collective island, where people are more collective, as in different places in the world there are more extreme types for people and identity, although in jersey there is a lot of different identity’s everywhere, for example a recent event which was a Portuguese festival playing their cultural and famous songs, and everyone was allowed in, but it shows a cultural/identity celebration.
Identity impacts society majorly, without a concept of identity, everyone would be in unison, but identity creates this separation from other people in a type of way, it doesn’t mean they can’t interact or be with people outside of their own identity, it is more of a deeper connection for themselves and maybe with people who are the same. In society every identity interacts with each other without any problems mostly/all the time.
A good example of identity through religion which has gone on for a long time and still goes on to this day is in Iraq, between a cultural group called ISIS, and fights against its own people and people from outside of the country as well, where they used to be in a war between the US, it caused lots and lots of deaths, and a lot of corruption only because a country had a cultural identity crisis with people in its own land fighting against the country.
femininity is defined as the quality or nature of the female sex. which over the years during old tradition was challenged by men and masculinity, and sometimes even now.
Femininity years ago used to be shown through obeying men and looking after the house and kids, but as the years went on, it evolved into the individuality of women and how they don’t need men to survive and live, and even the quality and freedom of woman’s life’s broadened into what they could do.
This influenced women’s identity and strengthened it. But it didn’t just come to women, they had top prove and fight for the right to be viewed as self sufficient and capable of similar things.
Masculinity
Masculinity is defined as qualities or attributes regarded as characteristic of men or boys.
Masculinity years ago was challenged to what made you a man, especially towards younger boys, they had to prove to become and man and to be strong with little emotion, with its main component being power.
Although it was easier during this time for a man in comparison to women it still had its struggles. Now masculinity is more flexible and is in a similar state to women’s, for example self worth, pride in who and what you are, but it definitely still has a difference, and still includes aspects of what it means to be a man years ago. It can be complicating but it all comes down to the identity that you give yourself.
Identity
Identity is a big mix of things now compared to many years ago, and has changed drastically in the last 20 years. Identity is the fact of being who or what you are, and can come in many ideal ways especially now. Identity is formed through many things, one of them being your upbringing, and who you where surrounded by as a child, which is when your first identity starts to form. Child influences are a baseline ingrained into their identity for example looking up to a certain person, which would inspire them to be like them.
The identity is then challenged as a teenager which is when you are a person starts to form, and who/what you really want to be, It is especially grown through friends and pier groups, with some people wanting to be accepted into being something/someone, so a persona is put on to fit in or to get along with people in general, which then after time becomes this persons identity, as least temporarily. Other influences like where you where born, for example a tribe, where you where taught how to hunt and had rituals, which would create an identity to that tribe, and a feel of belonging. This concept links with being born in a certain country and even area, especially in jersey where it is a small area people identify as being from jersey.
Some forms of identity is formed negatively though, for example through a persons loss of a family member, especially a mother or father if they where at a young age, which would cause them to have an altered identity because of the lack of both sides which is normally needed. Another way is through a trauma, identity can be caused and altered though a bad experience which is held on by them and is never really let go, which causes them to have their identity changed through it, as if you where to learn a bad lesson and never do it again or learn form it.
One other form of identity is through gender, which especially now is very flexible. People can be identified as inanimate things, or without either gender towards them, as they identify as neither male or female.
Henry Mullins experimented with using diamond cameo which would show 4 images in the shape of a diamond which would also present them in 4 different sequences.
I used the same method just with some different camera angles and different expressions which convey different situations. And mine was not in black and white.
Another idea was to experiment with long exposure times, between 5 seconds and 15 seconds. The images where their face wasn’t far from them was the 5 second exposure time, and the ones with multiple faces surrounding one face in the middle was a 15 second exposure time.
In the studio I had experimented with various methods for headshots:
I used a blue and red lighting in the coloured images to give the portrait an affect and edited the images to how I liked it. For example where I wanted the lighting to be, how bright and shading. I then duplicated the image and created a black and white version of the image to create a 1900’s look.
I then done the same but used different lighting which would contrast each other, like the opposite colour to yellow is pink. this gave a colourful affect but also a newer look.
I had done the same but with a different person with different looks, and overall after editing they look very nice, clean, almost as if they where posing for a magazine but also a portrait.
During this I had used different lighting positions for a different look of the image, and still edited all the images the way I wanted them with a contrast of a black and white version.
Camera Obscura was a very smart and useful technique used especially for artists, and was a method used since early 500BC to create complex real life structures mainly at the time but anything else they could do with the technique. This was a way in which they would place themselves in a completely pitch black room, and cut a small or even large (possibly) hole in a wall in which the building or what ever they wanted to capture would be facing, and after a while depending on the light intensity, it would reflect the image onto the wall from the light rays upside down, as if it was a natural projector.
although the method was not commonly used during this era, not until the 19th century where it would start to fully start to transform into photography. This leads onto the pinhole photography used near 1856, talked about in a book, this affectively used the same method of camera obscura, but almost built into a camera.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camera_obscura AND https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinhole_camera)
Nicephore Niepce & Heliography
Nicephore was a key person in the invention of photography, where he would later use similar methods of camera obscura to create a working machine which could create images. His idea was to use camera obscura and light to create a printed image onto a sheet of paper. This look him a long time and even for him to quite but to come back a year later. The first accomplishment he had made was in 1822, where he had successfully printed an image of Pope Pius VII on glass. However the first proper image ever taken of a landscape was in 1824 which required a very long exposure time. Using polished silver as a base and letting iodine vapours react with the bitumen image, he obtained genuine photographs in black and white on a metal plate. The preciseness of these images was amazing for the time although it was taken over days.
Heliography was the similar process which he had used by dissolving light sensitivity on glass or metal which would create a rough image, and was tested by Nicephore a lot.
(https://artsandculture.google.com/)
Louis Daguerre & Daguerreotype
Louis was a French photographer recognized for his invention of the “eponymous daguerreotype process” of photography. His method was linked closely and carried of through different methods from Nicephors methods where he would exposed a thin silver-plated copper sheet to the vapour given off by iodine crystals producing a coating of light-sensitive silver iodine on the surface. which would initially after a long exposure time create a distinct image, but Louis discovered that with more chemical reactions on-top of that distinct image it could be formed into a full clear one. This daguerreotype process was mainly used for portraits during the 1840’s, and very rarely landscapes, almost no landscapes. This was because they had to have very long exposure times reaching up to 10mins with lightly lit areas in order to create a full image. Millions of these daguerreotypes where produced over the years.
With the invention of the daguerreotype became the first image made.
(https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/dagu/hd_dagu)
Henry Fox Talbot & Calotype
Henry fox was an English scientist, inventor, and photographic pioneer who had created the salt paper and Calotype. Talbot was very famously known for his creation of light-fast permanent photographs, which was available to the public, although not being the first person to do this his Calotype was different to the daguerreotype because it was the first invention of negative-to-positive process, introduced in 1841. Not only that but it wasn’t on glass or any type of metal in this case it was used on paper which was soaked in chemicals.
his images where much nicer to look and and gave almost a reverse image of something, giving it a different feel and a softer look.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Fox_Talbot AND https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calotype)
Robert Cornelius & self-portraiture
It was during the 18th century where the invention and ideas of photography spiked, and the advanced ability to capture a moment or even use methods to create photography. For example the first person to ever create a self-portrait was Robert Cornelius in 1839:
He worked in photography studios, creating lamps, and even worked to reduce the exposure time of an image, but also created the plates for the images to be placed on. Robert Cornelius was invested in the daguerreotype and aimed for it to advance and become greater.
Cornelius was only noted to be some what famous until 1876 when he was interviewed for the history of photography to be noted down correctly, and Cornelius had claimed to be taking portraits during 1839 but had no evidence to back up the claim until the famous first portrait was discovered and was dated to be 1839. Cornelius was a very important figure for the advancements of portraits because of his ideas of using reflectors and different coloured stained glass to allow stronger light to his the daguerreotype, which meant people only had to stay still for a maximum of 1 minute to create a full image.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Cornelius AND https://blogs.loc.gov/loc/2022/07/robert-cornelius-and-the-first-selfie/)
Julia Margaret Cameron & Pictorialism
Julia was a British photographer, who was considered one of the most important portraitists of the 19th century. she had been introduced to photography late into her life, with her being 48 years old, and was given a camera by her own daughter. With this she captured portraits of the Victorians, showing the innocents, beauty and genius of men and women. She was important to photography because of her ability to create a scene in her images. for example she would find people walking around and talk to them into consenting into a photo shoot. She would present these people into historical or literal, or even biblical scenes in her images. These images created a sensitive, and moving feel.
This is Sir John Herschel, who was a renowned scientist, and mathematician, but to Julia was a teacher and a high priest. She asked him to wash his hair and to making it messier, and covered him in black clothing to create an affect of him appearing out of the darkness. He stared straight into the camera and it created an image of innocents and personality.
Julia’s ability to perform different tones and angles of lighting created perfect settings for images and to capture a scene that Julia wanted to portray.
Henry Mullins was a professional photographer who was patronised by Queen Victoria, and he had set up a business in 1848 for photography at 7 royal square. He was a well known and as you would guess a wealthy photographer, who would take pictures for many influential people in jersey, where they would have up to 16 photographs taken in one sitting, which during this period was a lot of money and time. He was so famous and well known he had grown close to the royal family taking images of Queen Victoria, taking many images of/for her and the royal family.
Mullins made a good name for himself and for his business especially for his cheap and public photographs which he had advertised to the public, growing his business, and him creating up to 9600 images, and possibly even more.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gustav_Mullins#:~:text=Gustav%20William%20Henry%20Mullins%20(1854,photographer%2C%20patronised%20by%20Queen%20Victoria AND https://www.theislandwiki.org/index.php/Henry_Mullins)
I’m going to be comparing David Goldblatt’s image of a boy who was working at a shop in 1972 Africa. He uses good lining of the shops items, lighting from the left side of the person, and the positioning of the camera looks like its just behind or on the desk where u pay for items. This is a good picture as you can guess almost instantly where he is and what he does from just the simple yet obvious things in the image. The boy doesn’t use any facial expressions either.
Now in comparison using my image and to compare: I had used a slight bit of lining through the bottles and the mirror in the background. The Depth of field is well done due to the obvious items on the table, with the flowers in the background on a different table. Even more the eye contact used was very well done personally, as Conor who is in the image sitting on the chair is giving serious but relaxed eye contact, and even the people in the background on the TV are making eye contact. The lighting personally could possibly of been adjusted and better if I played around with it, but the lighting used here works.
While at a place called Ikeys, I was taking images of the person who owned the establishment, for an environmental image, until a man outside asked if I would like to take a picture of him outside. There was a use of natural and artificial lighting, which was a bit much so I edited the image to reduce the intensity of the lighting. The guy was good because he gave instant eye contact, in a very content position.
Another Portrait I had taken was of my friend Conor, where he was in a perfect setting for the environment a lot of people would like to be in, which was a party except this picture taken was at the end of the chaos. It shows the Tv in the background with songs playing and the aftermath on the table. I had asked him to position comfortably and look “normal ish”. I had used artificial lighting which was the lights inside, and positioned myself in a way which would suit the setting. Although I have no idea what settings my camera was in as it was a joke at first, the end result was good, so I decided to play around which filters and editing to create some outcomes.
These where some images I had taken during and inside of school with Angus, doing our best to create an environmental portrait, scavenging round school to find a good spot for a picture, was fun for a photography lesson. We attempted with different positions, lighting and angles of the camera. And the results where these, including some adjusting in lightroom.
David Goldblatt was popular in taking images in South Africa, mainly portraying the period of apartheid. Which was where he was taking portraits of people during this period of political war pretty much.
His history goes back to when his father gave him a camera which was found after WWII as a teenager. After that his love for photography grew, attempting to be one of those wedding photographers working for someone else at this time because he wasn’t yet ready. Eventually he sold a clothing shop that his dad gave to him after he passed, and he became a full time photographer, at first documenting South Africa’s apartheid period.
David took an image of a sales assistant in his work environment, this could be intriguing to some because it captures where this person is working and the facial expressions show the seriousness of what might be happening, you don’t see any smiles.
David Goldblatt wasn’t only famous for his environmental portraiture, he was well known for his photography skills in general by also showing his landscaping abilities, and photography of buildings, which he says that the buildings and how they look and are designed tell a lot about the person who built them.
Environmental Portraits are photographers portraits of peoples natural surroundings whilst including the person in the image, instead of being in a studio or with artificial areas.
For me personally I could go out and take images of people in their natural working condition / their natural habitat you could say. I know some people who I personally know and who would be willing to have their picture taken in their working condition. Not only that but even talking to people I know, and asking their favourite activity or hobby etc.
Why do We use These Types of Images?
They seem to show a lot about the person being imaged, and their specific skill they might be “mastered in”. Not only that, but these images show a type of section in life. For example the latest image shown above, it shows a labour worker, who works with metal and possibly electrics, so that links to his personal life but also to everyone else who works in electrics/metals.
