I attempted to create a distinct contrast between the whites and blacks in these edits. I did this by upping the exposure and highlights and lowering the blacks and shadows. I also added vignette and dehaze.

I struggled to create a strong focus on my subject in these images as there is distraction from the shadows.

These photos were easier to edit as the background was less complicated, so she was more defined.

I really like the backdrop from the sun in these photos. I specifically used it to light up her hair and create this effect.

I flagged the images I waned to keep and edit:

The artists that have inspired my ideas are Clare Rae and Francesca Woodman.

Where? I’m going to shoot in the woods. I’ve chosen this because I wanted to involve nature in my shoot, but the light shines through the trees and creates dramatic lighting.

When? I’ll go before sunset so there is still light, but so I can also experiment with the changing light and colours.

Settings? I will use shutter priority to control the motion and blur of the subject. I will also try some still images with abstract body shapes like Rae’s using aperture priority to control the light. I will need to use a tripod to keep the images sharp and make sure the subject is the only part of the image in movement.

Main photo inspiration:

Francesca Woodman is known best for her non-traditional self portrait images. There is a regular pattern of semi-nudity that is half hidden and obscured. She uses furniture, or hides herself through a long exposure to blur her body. She was born in Colorado in 1958, and began shooting in her early teenage years whilst at boarding school. During this she managed to shoot around 800 photos. Due to the fact her father was a printer and photographer meant she was brought up in an environment where making and talking about art were part of everyday life. She was influenced by European culture and had a significant impact on her artistic development. Surrealist art and Claud Cahun are also seen through her work as an influence. Woodman later took her life at the young age of twenty-two.

Her images hold a delicate sense due to their small scale, and convey an underlying sense of human fragility. It creates a personal sense to her work. Most of her images are shot in the ARTIST ROOMS COLLECTION from her previous boyfriend. On the images that she produced, she wrote messages to him and these became part of her work.

Woodman challenged the idea that the camera fixes time and space, and she explored what she could create with her camera. She would manipulate light and how movement created photographic effects.

I like Woodman’s work because her identity isn’t shown but the image still shows emotion and presents her thoughts. I would like to take her idea of using a slow shutter to obscure her body and create an effect where time is frozen in an image. It shows movement stuck in time, and I think this links well to the idea that stereotypes are stuck in place. If I used her technique I would probably use nature as a surrounding instead of her typical moody and worn backgrounds.

Analysis

Clare Rae

‘I am an artist working in Naarm, on the lands of the eastern Kulin Nations also known as Melbourne, Australia. I  acknowledge the people of the Woi wurrung and Boon wurrung language groups on whose unceded lands I live and work. I respectfully acknowledge their Ancestors and Elders, past and present.’

Clare explores ideas or performance and gesture to interrogate and subvert dominant modes of representation. Feminist theory is a big part of her work to present an alternate and often awkward experience of subjectivity and the female body which is typically hers. She has a main focus in her photography to explore performance documentation, especially with how the camera acts as a collaborator, and not a mute witness, to the performer.

She received first class Honours in Fine Art in 2009 at RMIT University, completed a Master of Arts by research in 2014 at Monash University and in 2020 she began a PhD at the Victorian College of the Arts, University of Melbourne.

On a visit to Jersey in 2017 as part of the Archisle international artist-in-residence programme, she ran workshops and researched Claud Cahun’s archives. Her series inspired by Cahun was called Never standing on two feet and she considered Claud’s engagement with the physical and cultural landscapes of Jersey.

Rae said: ‘Like Cahun’s, my photographs depict my body in relation to place‘… Cahun used self-portraiture to subvert the dominance of the male gaze in photographic depictions of the female body in the landscape... My practice is invested in the feminist act of self-representation and I draw parallels between my performances of an expanding vocabulary of gesture and Cahun’s overtly performative images of the body expressing a multiplicity of identity‘.

I think Rae’s work links well to the idea of feminism, the representation of the female body and its movement and shape, but destabilising the common stereotypes of the male gaze. I think the abstract forms she creates with her body creates dominance in her image whilst being placed in simple settings. The fact that the colours and backgrounds are minimalistic and basic emphasise the impact of her body. Her face is often hidden in her images which also presents the female body as powerful, even without identity.

• Claud Cahun
• Cindy Sherman
• Walter Pfeiffer
• Clare Rae
• Lissa Rivera
• Francesca Woodman

What is femininity? qualities or attributes regarded as characteristic of women or girls.

What is masculinity? qualities or attributes regarded as characteristic of men or boys.

The stereotypical thoughts about women are generalised into a category that portrays beauty and elegance. Although we are currently in a time of equality and opposition to sexism, as a society we have set ideas about what each gender is. The common idea of a woman is expected to have small body features, natural beauty, long hair and to be seen as subordinate to men. This stereotype is easily found on the internet and presents society’s set perceptions.

However woman have the possibility to be the complete opposite of what they are ‘meant’ to be. Claude Cahun shows this in their work where they test the stereotypical gender roles through photography with their partner Marcel Moore. With their shaven head and male attire defying conventical ideals of beauty and femininity, and their direct resistance of the occupying forces, Claud showed how genders were able to experiment. Expressing a gender-nonconforming identity, this was not in popular use at the time and caused difficulty for them. Moving to Jersey in 1937 with their partner (and stepsister), they lived in St Brelade and enjoyed a quieter life. However, when the Germans invaded in 1940s they were disrupted. Claud and Moore decided to create a two-person resistance campaign bent on inciting rebellion and dissension amongst German troops. They would place messages in cigarette packets and in car windows of German soldiers with messages on in hope to inspire rebellion from within the army. They were caught four years later and given a sentence of six years in prison and a death sentence, however the death sentences were commuted and they were both let out when Jersey was liberated in 1945.

Gender and identity can be influenced by place, upbringing, geography and more. I have chosen to focus on femininity as there is a loss of identity for women across the world. An example is in Kabul, Afghanistan. Since the Taliban took over in 1996 women in Afghanistan have been under strict rule and prosecuted for simple things such as walking alone in public. Part of the Taliban’s rule is for women to wear full burquas, covering their body and face. This shows how geography and religion can take away identity.

Winston Churchill stated ‘We shape our buildings; thereafter they shape us’.  In 2017, surveys undertaken by scientists at the University of Surrey for the National Trust revealed that ‘meaningful places’ played a key role in shaping people’s identity, across all ages; 67% of younger people said their meaningful place has shaped who they are. This clearly shows that ‘place’ is a key aspect to a persons identity. I might investigate this in my photoshoot by using household items and rooms. The idea that our surroundings can effect our feelings and behaviours as well as identify has been recognised for a long time, but was formally recognised with the rise of the field of environmental psychology in the 1970s. Since then, the interrelation between place and society has been explored by many writers and thinkers.

There are many other things that san affect identity such as cultural identity, social identity, political identity, loss of identity, stereotypes and more. However in my work, where I will focus on femininity, I want to show the loss of identity through women in todays society.

Camera settings: Shutter speed 6″ – Aperture f/8 – ISO 100

Contact Sheet

I flagged my final selection of images I want to edit

Editing

Non-long exposure photos

• I also took photos with a fast shutter as I wanted some basic images with the colour gels and lighting.

Contact sheet 1 – I didn’t get as many images as I would like so I will take more in my next shoot.

I also took some normal images in the studio:

In photography, a snoot is a tube that fits over a studio light and allows the photographer to control the direction and radius of the light beam.

In the studio I am going to experiment with a snoot and colour gels to light up from behind and in front of my subject with different colours.

I want to create something like these images, also using mirrors and different shapes of cardboard to create different shadows. I will have one light in front with a colour gel sheet and the snoot behind with a different colour gel. I will switch them around and experiment with different angles.

Double Exposure

Double exposure is where the shutter speed is slowed down so that movement is caught in the image, and the subject is out of focus. I want to use this technique in the studio so that I can create double exposure portraits. The images will turn out darker than normal as only a small amount of light will be let in, so I will need to have a large aperture and a higher ISO. I will also need to use a tripod so the camera stays still and only the subject is moving.

Split Shadow