W. Eugene Smith was an American photojournalist and was perhaps the most famous documentary photographer of all time. Arguably Smiths most famous work is his Country Doctor magazine which he produced in 1948. For this project Smith spent 23 days Kremmling where he photographer the day-to-day activities carried out by general practitioner. I will be studying Smiths work as I will be following and documenting the day-to-day activities carried out by my sister as she prepares for the upcoming European Championship Juniors 2024.

Smith was intrigued in the aviation industry which is why he started off by taking images of planes at local airfields. Smiths passion for photography started to grow and by the age of 15 his images were being published in newspapers. After attending the University of Notre Dame for a year, where he was granted a scholarship for photography, he dropped out and mover to New York City. Smith briefly worked for Newsweek before shortly being fired for refusing to abandon the 35mm Contax camera he enjoyed working with. In 1939 Smith began to work with Life magazine which he later became a war correspondent for in 1943. During his time as a war correspondent Smith took images on the front line of the battles of the Pacific which shaped his photographic career as he wanted his images to “carry a message against the greed, the stupidity and the intolerances that cause these wars and the breaking of many bodies.” In 1945, Smith was seriously injured by mortar fire while photographing the Battle of Okinawa.

During his time at Life magazine Smith produced one of the most well known photojournalism pieces the Country Doctor. The Country Doctor showcased the day-to-day challenges faced by general practitioner Dr. Ernest Ceriani. Many of the images produced were unsettling as they demonstrated the challenges GP’s faced on a day-to-day basis, giving the world an insight on what it was like to be a general practitioner at this time.

The Country Doctor consists of 11 page spreads with a range of different images such as; establishing shots, detailed shots, environmental portraits, formal portraits, observed portraits, relationship shots and person at work shots. Smith has also included a caption under each image, narrating what is happening in each image.

I have decided to that I am going to take documentary style photographs of my sisters surfing journey. I will be taking images that demonstrate ‘a day in the life’ of a teenager surfer, looking at the work of W. Eugene Smith specifically ‘The Country Doctor.’ as well as Alec Soth and surf photographer Thomas Lodin

Artists:

W. Eugene Smith, Thomas Lodin, Alec Soth

Alec Soth

W. Eugene Smith

Thomas Lodin

What is the photographic gaze?

“The idea of a photographic ‘gaze’ relates to a specific way of looking, and being looked at through the camera, and implies a certain psychological relationship of power and control.
The camera lens is another demonstration of a powerful gaze, referred to as the photographic gaze, simulating the gaze of the naked eye. Indeed, the former could even be more powerful than the gaze of the naked eye due to photographic permanence. Janina Struk defines a photograph as: “a two-dimensional object, a fraction of a second framed and frozen in time” (4). Susan Sontag in On Photography notes that “photographs are a neat slice of time, not a flow” (17). It is the stillness of a photograph that gives it power and makes it more effective than television broadcasting or film.

Types of gazes

• the spectator’s gaze: the gaze of the viewer at an image of a person (or animal, or object) in the text; 
• the intra-diegetic gaze: a gaze of one depicted person at another (or at an animal or an object) within the world of the text (typically depicted in filmic and televisual media by a subjective ‘point-of-view shot’); 
• the direct [or extra-diegetic] address to the viewer: the gaze of a person (or quasi-human being) depicted in the text looking ‘out of the frame’ as if at the viewer, with associated gestures and postures (in some genres, direct address is studiously avoided); 
• the look of the camera – the way that the camera itself appears to look at the people (or animals or objects) depicted; less metaphorically, the gaze of the film-maker or photographer.

How it links to my artist references

The gaze links to both my artist references regarding the male gaze, In feminist theory, the male gaze is the act of depicting women and the world in the visual arts and in literature from a masculine, heterosexual perspective that presents and represents women as sexual objects for the pleasure of the heterosexual male viewer.

Although both my artists are female they capture photos of women and girls in a way which would be desirable to a male audience, they capture true beauty of the females and show them in an explicit way, which typically men want to see as they look desirable in many of the images and the models have these strong feminine features, which make them stand out.

For my third photo shoot this is going to be inspired by Nancy Honey and my mood board, i am going to focus on lighting and photographing images in the male gaze, taking photos of collar bones, neck and side profile, the photos are going to be taken in the bath, my sister being the model wearing a bikini, i am going to light up the room using lamps i have placing them in places which will emphasis shadows .

For my second photoshoot I am going to go to florists and take photos of flowers in links to Tara Lichtenstein as the photos will be used to layer on photos to create a double exposed photo, the photos of the flowers will be close up focusing on the details of the flowers, they will be taken in daylight using natural lighting.

For my first shoot i am going to go down to St. Ounes beach and photograph my friend in a flowy dress in response to Tamara Lichtenstein, i am going to get the model to pose freely near the edge of the water the view of the sea in the background, i am going to make the photos darker by letting less light into the camera this is because i am going to try layer photos together similar to Lichtenstein this will allow this shoots photos to stand out more prominently. I am going to take the photos in the late afternoon as it isn’t too bright yet there is still enough light to create clear images.

All these images are unedited as my second photoshoot is going to be based on flowers which i am going to use to layer them on top of these images to make them more intriguing and similar to Lichtenstein’s images.

Mood board

About

Claude Cahun, also known as Lucy Schwob, was born October 25th 1894, in Nantes, France. She would later pass on December 8, 1954, in St. Helier, Jersey. Cahun was a French writer, photographer, Surrealist, and performance artist who was largely written out of art history until the late 1980s due to her being an activist during the second world war.

It is thought that Cahun took her first self-portrait at around 1913, a year later publishing her first collaboration with Malherbe under the pseudonyms Claude Corlis and Marcel Moore. They contributed a piece titled “Vues et visions”, or “Views and Visions”, to the literary journal ‘Mercure de France’ with Cahun doing the writing and Moore doing the illistations. Although she had tried out other names, by 1917 she settled on and adopted the pen name Claude Cahun. Moore’s mother and Cahun’s father married in 1917, and the two young women moved in together later becoming lovers.

She is known for her self-portraits that portray her as ambiguously gendered. In taking the gender-neutral forename Claude and by shaving her head, Cahun actively and outwardly rejected social constructions of gender and sexual identity. To Cahun, identity was changeable, or unstable as shown in her self-portraits as she presented herself as a man, a woman and majority of the time androgynously. By fusing several gender stereotypes into a single character, she obfuscated her identity. It is not entirely clear whether Moore was the photographer of Cahun’s “self-portraits” or had some other role in their production. Moore did, in fact, photograph Cahun later on, and those pictures are attributed to her.

Why I chose the artist

While my project isn’t focusing on gender or stereotypes, I do plan to take inspiration from Cahun’s costumes and photography style in order to display a connection between the game and the person i’m photographing. To do this, I would likely have the subject of my photo dress up in a way that represents a certain piece from a game, such as a queen from chess or a joker from cards, and have them side by side.

I am especially fond of Cahun’s mirror photographs as it symbolizes many different things, like how we see ourselves in comparison to how others do. I would also like to try recreating some photos with the idea of reflection in a similar way to Cahun’s photographs.

Cahun links into the the theme of observe, seek and challenge mainly due to her photographs challenging gender stereotypes all while seeking to help spread awareness to the gender inequality many people suffer from. We, as the viewer, are able to observe Cahun’s work and understand the message behind her images.

Image analysis

In my opinion, this is a powerful image that displays an important message. By looking at the clothes, we are able to see a cloak that is embellished in masquerade styled masks, which are typically associated with hiding ones identity. This produces the idea that since there are so many masks that the subject is struggling with their own identity. The cloak itself also helps to strengthen this idea since cloaks are often used to symbolize a disguise of sorts, with the definition literally meaning to cover or conceal.

The photograph itself is also very strong with the patterned curtain behind the subject helping them to stand out and making them the main focus of the image. Additionally, I think that the photo being in black and white helps to enhance the overall aesthetic of the image as we are able to draw out a lot more detail without being distracted by the colour.

Links

https://www.jerseyheritage.org/history/claude-cahun-and-jersey/

For my own interpretation of observe seek and challenge I am wanting to explore femininity and the photographic gaze, more specifically the male and female gaze. I will gaining inspiration from Nancy honey who presents her work through a documentary and portraiture style through the observation of typical female stereotypes. And also Cindy Sherman who uses her work to explore and embody the vulnerability of females and how her work could be feeding into the male gaze.

The definition of female gazes is “a feminist theory term referring to the gaze of the female spectator, character or director of an artistic work, but more than the gender it is an issue of representing women as subjects having agency. As such all genders can create films with a female gaze.” I chose this topic of the male gaze as it fits in with the exam theme of ‘Observe, Seek & Challenge’ as ‘the gaze’ is a form of seeking, and can be a very personal topic to many people.

For this final project, I would like to present my study in a photo book form. As a result of this, I intend to produce many photoshoots so that I will have a large variety of images that I can pick from. This means that, I would roughly need a minimum of 30 final images to create my book. I have plans to begin my study for this project as soon as possible to allow me the most amount of time to compete it.

Below are some mood boars from my two artist references; Nancy Honey and Cindy Sherman of whom I am gaining inspiration from:

PLAN

For this photoshoot I wanted to focus mainly in the kitchen: looking at food, drink, etc. I wanted to try find interesting angles, colours, or shapes to capture and give ordinary things a new look. I first started off looking at different drinks/cups and food/plates before then looking around for other objects in my kitchen. I liked the idea of exploring a range of places and things that we observe each day but take for granted, the small fine details most don’t notice with interesting shapes, colours and textures. I wanted to take in the sounds, sights, and smells of the kitchen, and translate them all into the photo to make them differ from an average photo.

CONTACT SHEET

For this photoshoot, I visited St Catharine’s woods in the evening to shoot the natural scenery at golden hour, focusing on both smaller details and the bigger picture within each photograph I took, showing the structures of different plants and aspects of the ecosystem.

After editing through each image, removing the compositions I didn’t like or felt weren’t interesting enough, I was left with a small collection of photographs that I could further adjust.

For this shoot, I wanted to focus on capturing the earthier, more natural tones in my images, and developing on this in the editing, primarily increasing the saturation of the reds and greens.

For this image, I wanted to bring out the natural blue hues of the light reflecting on the stream without taking away from the scenery around it.

I experimented with the tone curves, increasing the output for the blacks, and slightly adjusting both the temperature and red channels until the stream had a nice blue hue to it, and the rest of the composition had a natural-looking warmth.

When colour grading, I wanted to develop further on what I’d already done, using oranges and blues to strengthen the colour palette, adjusting the vibrance as to not oversaturate the image. After, I calibrated the primary colours within the composition, being careful not to overdo it as to make it look unnatural but not leaving the image too dull.

To add the finishing touches, I used the linear gradient tool to increase the strength of the light source within the image, and to further darken the darker sides, to create a better contrast that wasn’t too obvious. Lastly, I added a slight vignette to bring a stronger focus to the centre of the image.