My photo shoot is going to be inspired by Claude Cahun and the image she created below i am going to do my own interpretation on this photo by using myself and my twin sister as a reflection of ourself’s as this will tie in with the idea of identity as some people see twins as one person not two separate individuals, especially when they are identical, the images will show even though two individuals are similar in may ways we are equally different in many ways as well.

Claude Cahun created this photo by using two separate photos (a collage) i am going to create mine by using one photo and also will take separate photos and edit them using photoshop to create one separate image.

I am going to do this photoshoot at home to show where we have grown up, i am also going to take photos of both of our rooms to show the differences and different styles we both have which will show a lot about our individual differences.

I am going to take the photos by using a tripod and the timer setting on the camera allowing us both to be in the frame at once.

Cynthia Morris Sherman is an American artist whose work consists primarily of photographic self-portraits, depicting herself in many different contexts and as various imagined characters.

Sherman went to Buffalo State College to study art in 1972. She soon found painting too restrictive and couldn’t see herself enjoying such an overly-traditional technique. Instead, she tried new methods. In 1977, she switched to photography and published her first series Untitled A-E. These black and white photographs were a series of self-portraits critiquing the American way of life. In them, Sherman disguised herself according to different stereotypes of American women (the businesswoman, housewife and seductress).

Cindy Sherman works play with female stereotypes. Masquerading as a myriad of characters, Cindy Sherman (American, born 1954) invents personas and tableaus that examine the construction of identity, the nature of representation, and the artifice of photography. To create her images, she assumes the multiple roles of photographer, model, makeup artist, hairdresser, and stylist. Whether portraying a career girl, a blond bombshell, a fashion victim, a clown, or a society lady of a certain age, for over thirty-five years this relentlessly adventurous artist has created an eloquent and provocative body of work that resonates deeply in our visual culture.

Sherman did many collaborations with big makeup and clothes brands from MAC makeup Balenciaga to Marc Jacobs these brands wanted to do collaborations with Sherman to to her unique eye for her unconventional ways of capturing brands and going against the gender normalities within advertising, she did this by going against the stereotypes of the typical model she used herself and portrayed it as a parody by doing exagurated makeup which can be seen as clown like by audiences.

Claude Cahun was a Surrealist photographer whose work explored gender identity and the subconscious mind. The artist’s self-portrait from 1928 epitomizes her attitude and style, as she stares defiantly at the camera in an outfit that looks neither conventionally masculine nor feminine. “Under this mask, another mask,” the artist famously said. “I will never be finished removing all these faces.” Born Lucy Schwob in Nantes, France on October 25, 1894 to a prominent Jewish family, she would later attend the University of Paris, Sorbonne. Her first recorded self-portraits are dated as early as 1912, when the artist was about 18. In the early 1920s, she would change her name to the gender neutral Claude Cahun, which would be the third and last time the artist changed her name. Along with step-sister and lover Marcel Moor, she moved to Paris and fell into the milieu of the Surrealist art scene. The artist went on to collaborate with Man Ray, as well as founding the left-wing group Contre Attaque alongside André Breton and Georges Bataille. In the late 1930s, Moore and Cahun moved to Jersey, an island off the coast of Normandy, where they, disguised as non-Jews, they produced and distributed anti-Nazi propaganda. After being caught, imprisoned, and sentenced to death, they successfully escaped such a fate when Jersey was liberated by allies in 1945. Cahun is considered to be a ground-breaking artist who fully embraced her gender fluidity long before the term came into use. Tragically, she never fully recovered from her maltreatment in prison and passed away on December 8, 1954 in Jersey, United Kingdom. Her work left a huge impression on photography and directly influenced contemporary photographers Cindy Sherman, Gillian Wearing, and Nan Goldin.

Cahun shares an interest in certain motifs such as hair, hands, and animal familiars with other female Surrealists, and similarly uses techniques of doubling and reflection to call into question fixed notions of gender and identity.

Cahuns Work

Due to Cahun being non-binary this influenced a lot of their photos due to them featuring some oppositional characteristics of the stereotypical traits of their biological gender, such as shaven hair on a biological female like the image below, due to this it shows that Cahun wanted and did challenge gender performativity.

Cahun inspired may other artists with her work for example in 2017  Gillian Wearing  was inspired by her work and almost identically recreated her work, there for Cahun was very influential even after 70 years.

Cahuns photographs she has created throughout her time can be seen as ab-normal and strange as they aren’t your stereotypical portrait photos from that time, they can be seen as scary due to the reflections she uses of a mirror to create two versions of the person in the photo, in many of Cahuns photos the models are wearing what is deemed as odd outfits which adds character and mystery to there photographs.

Identity politics is how peoples views, values, gender, sexual orientation, race, social background and class has separated and divided people in a negative way, even though people should be living in unison and acceptance of others.

Peoples views are always different which can be seen as a good thing that everyone has their on opinion and ability to speak up but when there opinion is negative and impacts people in a negative way it begins to create a negative association

Culture Wars

A culture war is a cultural conflict between social groups and the struggle for dominance of their values, beliefs, and practices. It commonly refers to topics on which there is general societal disagreement and polarization in societal values.

The term is commonly used to describe contemporary politics in western democracies  with issues such as abortion, homosexuality, transgender rights, pornography, multiculturalism, racial viewpoints and other cultural conflicts based on values, morality, and lifestyle being described as the major political cleavage.

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.

Femininity vs Masculinity

The themes of ‘FEMININITY and MASCULINITY’ are a binary opposite – a pair of related terms or concepts that are opposite in meaning.

Masculinities and femininities refer to the social roles, behaviours, and meanings prescribed for men and women in any society at any time. Such normative gender ideologies must be distinguished from biological ‘sex,’ and must be understood to be plural as there is no single definition for all men and all women.

In my opinion as new generations are born the views, opinions and ideas of femininity and masculinity are being challenged and changed as people are being given and allowed more freedom to discover who they are and how they like to present themselves. Creating different visions on the views on femininity and masculinity.

Masculinity describes the degree to which society focus on assertiveness and achievement. When in contrary, femininity describes the focus of society to quality-of-life issues, such as caring for others, group solidarity and helping the less fortunate are valued. In other words, society still recognizes a gap between male and female values. This dimension is frequently viewed as taboo in highly masculine societies.

Masculinity

• Masculinity: Strong egos – feelings of pride and importance are attributed to status. Money and achievement are important. Examples of masculinity cultures are Slovakia, Japan, Hungary, Austria, Venezuela.

Femininity

• Femininity: Relationship oriented, more focus on quality of life. Examples of femininity culture are Sweden, Norway, Netherlands and Denmark.

Identity can be influenced with many factors one of the main factors is your environment for example if you grew up in a patriarchal place or family men are going to show more dominant attributes and females are going be seen as more submissive.

I have decided to do a photomontage as one of my topics of edits because it like the creativity side of it, i like how i was able to get different photos cut certain parts out and layer them on top of an initial photo to create one abstract photo.

I created these photos by placing a continuous light behind the model in a dark setting to create a outline around the outskirts of his face, i’m happy with the outcome of the photos however if i was to do this again i would get a larger and brighter light highlight the whole upper body as on the first image you cant se the whole head as the light isn’t powerful enough.

Henry Mullins started working at 230 Regent Street in London in the 1840s and moved to Jersey in July 1848, setting up a studio known as the Royal Saloon, at 7 Royal Square. Here he would photograph Jersey political elite (The Bailiff, Lt Governor, Jurats, Deputies etc), mercantile families (Robin, Janvrin, Hemery, Nicolle ect.) military officers and professional classes (advocates, bankers, clergy, doctors etc).

His portrait were printed on a carte de visite as a small albumen print, (the first commercial photographic print produced using egg whites to bind the photographic chemicals to the paper) which was a thin paper photograph mounted on a thicker paper card. The size of a carte de visite is 54.0 × 89 mm normally mounted on a card sized 64 × 100 mm. 

This diamond cameo was inspired by Henry Mullins who created diamond cameos of Jersey citizens in 1848.

To create these photos i created them using the exposure settings on the camera and by also using photoshop, i enjoyed creating them more using the camera settings and using the different lighting in the studio.

Butterfly lighting

The examples below show a lighting technique called butterfly lighting it is when there is a shadow formed at the bottom of the nose on the cupids bow which forms a shape of a butterfly.