What are Culture Wars?

Culture wars are conflict’s between social groups, that have different cultural ideas, beliefs and philosophies. Commonly found where there is an overall disagreement on societal values, it is usually occurring in western countries where their democratic systems can generate issues and discussions with topics such as Abortion, multiculturalism, Sexuality or even values such as morality or lifestyle.

With the US having a vast geographical size, historical background and variation of demographics of different religions, cultures, morals etc it isn’t uncommon to see how it is the breeding grounds for culture wars to emerge from. The USA has seen numerous examples of them such as the prohibition era from 1920 to 1933, where many people campaigned and had the selling and consumption of alcohol banned. As a result however many states protested against it and eventually had the law revoked allowing alcohol to be unbanned. Another can be seen with the protests against the Vietnam war from 1955 – 1975 where many people saw it as an unnecessary war against communism to prove democratic supremacy and political power, which eventually ended after the loss of life was to high and political unrest back home in the US made it unpopular.

(Anti-booze campaigns held by pro-prohibition activists and campaigners)

(Anti-prohibitionists rallying to demand the laws removal)

(Anti-war protests in Washington DC, demonstrators displaying the iconic piece symbol and flag)

(Peaceful protestors placed flowers in the barrels of the rifles of national Guard soldiers outside the Pentagon)

(Soldiers in the conflict displayed their own acts of protest with slogans and art on their helmet covers)

Culture wars pose a real discussion about ethics and morality in society today, with the most recent example being over the choice to have an abortion in The US. At the start of the year, The US congress made the decision for abortion to be illegal in states that desired it. As a result since then, 24 states have made the decision to ban abortion. With pro-life events prior, many religious and anti-abortionist groups declared it was murder and held protests outside of abortion clinics. This however sparked outrage among other groups who opposed the idea of being forced into keeping the child as it meant in some cases rape victims or accidental pregnancies couldn’t have a right over their own body in deciding if they wanted to commit to having a baby.

An example of a culture war in Jersey can seen with the modern usage of the English language. Prior to Jersey becoming a crown dependency, the population spoke the language of Jèrriais, a Norman-French dialect that had evolved into its own dialect. Since the Victorian era, more and more British traveler’s settled in Jersey, establishing schools such as Victoria college, however with them came the english language which soon became increasingly the more common language. In schools, Students who spoke Jèrriais were punished for it, only speaking it at home to their parents and other relatives. Additionally many locations names were changed to make them more understandable for people who spoke english. With such examples being the parishes. St Jean’s became St John’s, St Pierre became St Peter and mainly the town centre St Hélyi became St Helier.

(Victoria College)

However with the modern day, more recognition of Jersey’s history and langauge is being fought for and represented by organisations such as Jersey heritage and the Jèrriais Organisation who educate through museums or in schools.

Recent examples of this fight can been with the states of Jersey installing their Jèrriais name and translations to their building and website, as well as Liberty Bus including the Jèrriais parish names on the side of its Buses.

(The governments name translated)

(Below the windows of the upper deck, the Jèrriais Parish names can be seen in a multi coloured line)

Culture wars, pose both positive and negative outcomes depending upon the cause. This is evident with campaigns to remove something negative upon society like laws against the rights of other groups of people, like slavery for example. When it can become negative however is when the decision is being forced upon the government to make decision for example with the case of abortion, it can result in unpopularity on both sides as one cultural group may not agree on it whilst the other one might.

MY SETUP:

I took these headshots in the lighting studio with two different models. I wanted them to be comfortable and embrace themselves, this helps to make the photos I took to be natural and portray whatever mood they are feeling at the current time. I also then categorized these photos I took into different groups with colours separating them. I chose to take around 250 photos which is definitely larger than the photoshoots I have done in the past. I chose to do this amount of photos to have a larger region of choice when it comes to taking photos and choosing photos to edit in my different cameos in my headshots topic. I had 3 people help whilst taking my photos, I first had one person moving around my flash head in order to get different angles of lighting through the flash. I then had a person moving and manoeuvring a reflector in order to reposition lighting on my models face. I also then had myself taking the photos of my model with the best angles possible. I then finally had my model posing with multiple poses in order to create an array of photos.

I chose my low quality images with a low shutter speed or blurriness to be RED – Here is a few examples of some red images…

I then chose my ‘good’ photos to be YELLOW ,these photos are okay but not my best work – Here is a few examples of some yellow images…

I then picked my photos that are high quality and good enough to use for display in GREEN – Here is a few examples of some green images…

I then used BLUE to show my absolute best images I took in this photoshoot.

My BEST Images

These are my best images and also my ‘blue’ images which are classed as my most highest quality images in this photoshoot and the photos I could get the highest marks from whilst using lighting techniques.

These photos that I marked with the colour blue, truly capture the effect I was going for, for my first headshots photoshoot. I really like how I attempted to have my models use their hands slightly but not too much. Whilst editing the photos I only slightly changed the contrast, increased the clarity and the sharpness to help my photos look more professional and efficient. I also think the most effective method whilst editing these photos was to cut and resize them, I really think this helped with the more professional and ‘headshot’ look I was aiming for. By cutting out the parts of the images that are plain or had a white or black background.

Diamond Cameo

Here is how I made my diamond cameos…

I first opened Adobe Photoshop and imported 4 images of my first model from Adobe Lightroom.

I then clicked and dragged these photos into a diamond formation with my model looking at angles where it looks like she is looking up, looking left and looking forwards.

I then selected the rectangular marquee tool and pressed the elliptical marquee tool in order to create an oval shape around my photo.

This diamond shape then cut my image into a diamond shape with no background, I did this by deleting the layer by dragging it into the bin.

I then clicked the free transform button to arrange these oval shaped images into a diamond shape, this helped to create a ‘diamond cameo’. This is in inspiration of Henry Mullins’ work of diamond cameos.

I also created another diamond cameo with my other model Lexi, for this I compiled an array of images where Lexi was looking at some other angles and doing other poses whilst I photographed her. These are the four photos I included in my cameo.

I chose these 4 images for my diamond cameo, after choosing these, I then edited them in Adobe Lightroom…

However, after careful consideration, I decided to use the unedited images to use in my diamond cameo, I did this because I wanted my photos to be more raw and less digitalised in care I wanted to take my diamond cameos further with editing in Photoshop.

To present the entirety of my headshots project together I have collated my best three outcomes of each project and put them together in a virtual gallery. I chose not to mis the projects and present all the same editing style images together so it doesn’t look too busy as the portraits are already bright, colourful and high in detail with interesting things to look at with each one. I added frames on the grid photos to make the photos feel finished and add a bold outline to the grid.

Final Project Evaluation

Overall I really enjoyed this project, it allowed me to try using different studio lighting and then go onto edit creatively using new photoshop techniques while drawing inspiration from prominent photographers. My outcomes are solid and well executed leaving me with lots of new editing tricks and ideas and it helped spark a further interest in studio portraiture.