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.
What: My friends wore feminine clothing and I took pictures of around my garden e.g Them around my pond, on my bench, with some flowers and on my swing.
How: Using time priority on the camera.
Why: To respond to the theme of femininity
Photoshoot 2
Where: Jersey, in my garage
When: mid day
What: I took pictures of my brother and his friend lifting weights and working out in my shed.
How: Using time priority on the camera and experimenting with the flash.
Anna Gaskell is an american artist who is known for her photography, video, and film work. She is inspired by fairy tales, myths, and other stories, and often surreal and dreamlike, and she has been compared to artists like Lewis Carroll and the brothers Grimm.
Anna Gaskell (born October 22, 1969) is an American art photographer and artist from Des Moines, Iowa. She is best known for her photographic series that she calls “elliptical narratives” which are similar to the works produced by Cindy Sherman. Like Sherman, Gaskell’s works are influenced by film and painting, rather than the typical conventions of photography. She lives and works in New York.
Career Gaskell stages all of her scenes, using the style of “narrative photography,” wherein each scene exists only to be photographed. Gaskell pioneers a new discourse of contemporary photography where within each of her series, the narrative of her photographs is disrupted, “its fragments functioning like film stills excised from their context but suggesting a missing whole. “There are gaps of space and time left between each photograph, evoking a “vivid and dreamlike world. “In a 2002 interview with curator Matthew Drutt of the Menil Collection, Gaskell describes her creative process and the inspiration she draws from other sources in the following way: “The stories and events that I choose to use as jumping-off points are simply that. They are only a part of what goes into the work, and perhaps a useful reference for viewers. […] Trying to combine fiction, fact, and my own personal mishmash of life into something new is how I make my work. Into all of this, I try to insert a degree of mystery that ensures that the dots may not connect in the same way every time.”
Anna Gaskell Is another photographer that inspires me due to her using multiple people to create a utopian reality by exploring imagination and creativity. For one of my photoshoots I am going to take similar photos to her with my friend group. This links to the theme of identity as its looking into different people imagination and their different perspectives on how they view the world. I might also take her idea of fantasy and turn it dystopian to look at the reality of the world, This would help create contrasting images which I can join together to create one single image
Claude cahun was a French artist, photographer, and writer who lived in the early 20th century. She was known for her self portraits and her exploration of gender identity and sexuality. she was also a member of the French Resistance during WW1 wand was imprisoned for her activities. Her work has been celebrated for its feminist and queer themes. She was born Lucy Sxhwob but kater changed her name to Claude Cahun. She lived most of her life in jersey where she created her most famous works. Her art mainly explored themes of gender identity, sexuality and self expression.
Throughout Cahuns life she challenged the stereotypes surrounding the ideas of masculinity and femininity by shaving her head and dressing in male attire to defy the traditional ideology about femininity and beauty in women. One of the main ways she portrayed her ambiguity was by choosing the name Claude, that in French could refer to either a man or a woman. She took the last name from her grandmother Mathilda Cahun. In some photos she portrayed herself as a woman, in some a man, and in other a bit of both.
My opinion
She is one of the main photographers that I am inspired by for my project about identity due to her ignoring the tyipical stereotypes of beauty and looking more at the meaning behind the photo and her intent behind it. Her work also gives more of an eary look which I am drawn to as it is unique compared to other photographers that I have looked at.
Erwin Blumenfeld (American/German, 1897–1969) was an influential photographer, best known for his work in the fashion industry in the 1940s and 1950s. Born in Berlin, Blumenfeld began photographing at an early age, and in 1913, got an apprenticeship with Sclochauer and Moses.
In 1932 he began photographing his female customers, which were exhibited at a local gallery, and were later featured in the French journal Photographie .He spent three years at the magazine, before becoming a freelancer for American Vogue. Over the next 15 years, his work was published on the covers of renowned publications, such as Life, Flair, and Look. At the same time, he did photography for a Minneapolis-based department store Dayton’s. He also photographed ad campaigns for cosmetic companies, including Helena Rubinstein, L’Oreal, and Elizabeth Arden. By the 1950s, he was thought to be the highest paid photographer in the world. His work has been shown around the world, in the Witkin Gallery in New York, the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris, the Israel Museum in Jerusalem and the Rachel Adler Gallery in New York.
My Images
The images below are old ones that I took in school while experimenting with double exposure. I felt that these images go well with Erwin Blumenfeld due to both of pour pictures masking their identity with objects.
IDENTITY POLITICS is a term that describes a political approach wherein people of a particular religion, race, social background, class or other identifying factor form exclusive socio-political alliances, moving away from broad-based, coalitional politics to support and follow political movements that share a particular identifying quality with them. Its aim is to support and centre the concerns, agendas, and projects of particular groups, in accord with specific social and political changes.
The term was coined by the Combahee River Collective in 1977. It took on widespread usage in the early 1980s, and in the ensuing decades has been employed in myriad cases with radically different connotations dependent upon the term’s context. It has gained currency with the emergence of social activism, manifesting in various dialogues within the feminist, American civil rights, and LGBT movements, disabled groups, as well as multiple nationalist and postcolonial organizations, for example: Black Lives Matter movement.
It’s true that there are problems with accounts of racism, sexism, homophobia or transphobia that locate blame for oppression in racist, sexist, homophobic and transphobic individuals rather than in social structures – just as there were with the consumerist politics of that Noughties environmentalism. In focussing blame on the individual, this kind of approach can alienate potential allies, without moving powerful organisations to actually deliver change. But in reality, most activists and movements work hard to channel blame up to institutions such as the police, corporations and governments – which is exactly why the likes of the Common Sense Group hate them so much.
Is also true that modern capitalist corporations can use the imagery of liberation politics to improve their own brands. They tend to be rhetorically opposed to racism, sexism and homophobia, with their deep yearning to make everyone a consumer.
Culture Wars
Cultural wars are conflicts between different groups in society over issues related to culture, values and identity. These conflicts can arise over a wide range of issues such as religion, race, gender and sexuality. Cultural wars arte often characterized by heated debates, protests and social movements, as different groups seek to promote their own cultural values and beliefs, and challenges those of others. In some case4s cultural wars can lead to social division, discrimination and even violence, as different groups struggle to assert their own cultural identity and influence over society. However, they can also be an opportunity for dialog, understanding and mutual respect as different groups learn to appreciate and celebrate their differences and find common ground in their shared humanity.
Traits such as nurturance, sensitivity, sweetness, supportiveness, gentleness, warmth, passivity, cooperativeness, expressiveness, modesty, humility, empathy, affection, tenderness, and being emotional, kind, helpful, devoted, and understanding have been cited as stereotypically feminine.
Masculinity is
qualities and attributes regarded as characteristic of men. When we talk about masculinity, we’re talking about a person’s gender. Gender is a social construct, and is one of many ways we as humans make meaning and create social structures.
Binary opposites
Binary opposites are a pair of concepts that are opposite to each other. These concepts are usually thought of as a mutually exclusive which means you can only be one or the other. The idea was popularized in the 20th century by structuralist thinkers like Claude Levi-Strauss, who argued that binary oppositions are fundamental to human thought and culture.
Maria Svarbova is an acclaimed international photographer born in 1988 and based in Slovakia. After studying restoration and archaeology, she chose and flourished in a photography career. Her distinctive style departs from traditional portraiture and focuses on experimentation with space, colour, and atmosphere.
While looking back at my Environmental photoshoot, I can see some similarities between my set of images and Maria Svarbova’s images. We both took pictures of people in athletics while using similar colour pallets.
Soft lighting is a type of light with few hard shadows that’s bright and balanced. In soft lighting, the transition between the light and the shadows is more of a gradient and much smoother. Soft light is light that tends to “wrap” around objects, projecting diffused shadows with soft edges, When your subject is bathed in soft light, there will be little to no shadows on their face. An example of soft lighting is a cloudy day.
Hard Lighting
Hard light is a focused, often bright light that casts harsh shadows and draws attention to a specific part of a photo. The transition between the light and the shadows is very harsh and defined. Hard light is high contrast lighting. There’s often bright highlights and dark shadows in the same image. This type of light is known for being edgy and dramatic. Hard light is often used for portraits of athletes. An example of hard light is a sunny day.
For all of my images below I used the honey comb attachment on the light and placed different coloured gels.
First of all I edited the exposure and brightness of the images on Lightroom and turned one of the images black and white to create more of a contrast between the pair. Then on Photoshop I layered these two images together to create a double exposure by changing the opacity.
My final image
For my next Image I repeated the same steps But I duplicated one of the images and then flipped it so they mirror each other.
My final image
For my last two sets of images I played around with the exposure and colours on Lightroom
