In this photo the model is raising her arm to clean the window. I chose to use this pose as it signifies the stereotypical view that women are meant to clean however with the models arm raised in that way it gives a sense of power as it looks like she is putting her fist in the air.
In this photo the model is demonstrating changing a lightbulb which can be viewed as a more manly task to do. I chose this pose to challenge those views and show women can also do the same things as a man.
Here the model is shaking a cloth outside of the window which suggests she has just been cleaning. I like the window in this photo as it creates interesting shapes and details.
In this photo the model is making the bed, again demonstrating stereotypical women jobs such as taking care of the house.
I took this photo at an angle to create the look that it had been taken without the models knowledge or as if it was from a film rather than just a photo. This fits in which my artists work ‘untitled film stills’. I chose this pose to demonstrate cleaning again.
The model is cooking in this photo which shows the old views that women are meant to be the ones who cook and stay at home.
I again took this photo at an angle similarly to the other angled photo. I did this to create an interesting viewpoint rather than just a regular angled photo.
I specifically chose this pose due to the flowers being shown and the female model. I did this because flowers are often linked to femininity and women due to their beauty.
During this photoshoot I took photos of my model doing daily house tasks as well as stereotypical feminine things such as putting makeup on. My aim was to create similar photos to Cindy Sherman’s, to make them even more alike I will adjust them to make them black and white by using Lightroom. I took these photos using artificial lighting.
I used labelled my photos using black (bad) and white (good) flags in order to make the editing and selecting process easier.
Best unedited photos:
Editing
First edit:
Original photo:
I began by decreasing the exposure as the original photo was slightly over exposed. Next I changed the vibrancy to -100 to remove the colour from the photo, I chose to use the vibrancy tool rather than the saturation tool as it looked better. Then I used the effects to add a grainy texture to the photo similar to Cindy Sherman’s photos. I chose to then experiment by adding back the red coloured lipstick to the photograph and decided I liked it better with the pop of colour rather than the plain black and white version.
Final outcome:
Photoshoot 2
For my second photoshoot I chose to take photographs in natural lighting. I also used a different model and photographed different tasks. I labelled each photograph with either a white (good) or black (bad) flag.
Best photos:
Editing:
Edit 1:
Original photo:
Final outcome:
I used photoshop to further edit the photo. (overlay)
Edit 2:
Original photo before editing:
I wanted to create a grainy texture in this photo therefore I increased the texture and sharpness. I did this as Sherman’s photos often have a grainy look to them making them look older.
Using the settings I then made a pre-set so that I am able to edit my other photos in the same way to create a similar set of images inspired by Cindy Sherman’s ‘untitled film stills’.
Final outcome:
In this photo the model is shaking a cloth out of the window which implies she has just done some cleaning. The flower tattoo on the models arm gives a look of femininity, due to flowers being largely associated with women, as well as masculinity as people believe that it is often men that get larger tattoos rather than women. The fact that the model is looking away from the camera gives the impression that she is unaware of the camera being there or as if it is taken from a film, which is just like Sherman’s work. The panels of the window not only add detail to the photo but they also create interesting shapes by altering the view that you see through the glass.
Taking inspiration from Eugene Smith’s ‘Country Doctor’, My photoshoot consists of a documentative series of images. I wanted to edit my images to look in the same way, to achieve the same composition.
First edits:
Overall, I like how this image came out. How I framed the shot is good, as it provides a clear shot of the subject and allows the viewer to create assumptions on the type of role my nan plays in the farm. In addition to this, the arrangement of items on the work desk in front of her creates an interesting Mise-en-scene which leads the eye around the images content. What I would improve however is trying to get a clearer quality of image, by having a higher aperture next time, it wont create as much of a motion blur on parts of her face and hands.
Like the previous image. I am fond on the outcome for this photograph. Using a mid-body shot, I think I created an interesting Mise-en-scene of my subject performing his task in a documentative style. With the arrangement of him handling the packaged meat and dressed in his work apron I think these combined to make the Mise-en-scene standout more. How I would improve is by having a lower exposure as the brightness behind him supresses more of the environment of the butchers kitchen.
By altering the temperature as well as some other elements like texture and dehazing, I think I was able to improve on this image, making it seem more contrasted then it did before. Like the other images, I have lowered the saturation to create the old uncoloured-film effect photographers had before its invention. To improve, I will use a larger aperture like F11 or F16 to reduce the motion blur. To me, this image provides a good example of identity for my aunt, as through her facial expressions, a viewer can connote she finds joy in her work.
I like how this image came out as, to me, it captures what I was hoping for in comparison to the ‘Country Doctor’ by Eugene Smith. by editing it, I made it more brighter as it was a low exposure. With the use of the components of the environment: such as the hose, pig and the trees in the background. These all combine to create an interesting composition of a day in the life on the farm. Additionally this goes to show my cousins portrait of one of her roles on the farm, furthermore it can be said to challenge the traditional roles given to men and women on a farm as usually the dirty work of feeding the pigs and etc is a ‘Mans job’.
For this image, I believe it already had a nice amount of light. Working of that I played around with the texture and clarity as well as shadows and white to black balance to make it stand out a lot more once I had lowered the saturation. I find that this image connotes a lot of Identity about the farm as the butcher statues weathered appearance shows how long they’ve spent as a local business.
Taken together, these pictures go to show another part of the process of working on a butchers farm, captured in a documentative style. With a large view into the environment we can see the type of activities the business gets up. With the arrangement of utensils on the table as well as the meat it helps to provide that aesthetic needed to produce an interesting composition. This can also go onto provide information on how masculinity is shown. Being very hands on with the job, it represents a traditional sense of a masculine role. When combined, with other images of my aunt and cousin, for example it creates a diverse image of a workplace not overly male-dominated, which is stereotypically expected when one thinks of a butchers farm.
Conclusion:
In conclusion I like the outcomes of these images and will make further edits to them soon in my practice exam. Taken together, and some other a companying photos, I find that these images can be seen to take inspiration from my artist reference, Eugene smith and his gallery of images in ‘Country Doctor’.
Identity politics are politics based on a certain identity for example:
Nationality
Race
Culture
Religion
Gender
Social background
Social class
Its aim is to support and centre the concerns, agendas and projects of particular groups in accord with specific social and political changes.
Culture wars
Culture wars are cultural conflicts between social groups and the struggle for dominance of their values, beliefs and practises. It commonly refers to topics on which their is societal disagreement and polarisation in societal values is seen.
The term is commonly used to describe contemporary politics in the western democracies with issues such as abortion, homosexuality, transgender rights, pornography, multiculturalism, racial viewpoints and other cultural conflicts based on views, morality and lifestyle being described and the major political cleavage.
For this shoot I wanted to create the classical Hollywood female lead sort of feel, they often look like they glow and this creates an ethereal resemblance and in many ways they have influenced todays beauty standards.
To create this effect I focused on the beauty the area we shot in and how the model was dressed and situated herself. I had her dress in a dress that complimented her skin tone and hair colour. We walked around for a bit then came across this beautiful little place with a stream going around an island type piece of earth which had trees and bushes growing all around.
These where my camera settings through out the shoot.
The photos are not 100% clear. I wanted blurred lines in some aspects to help display that beauty does not equal perfect. the lack of clarity also creates a sense for intrigue as it is not revealing the whole truth. This is a problem that some people meet when they grow up as they either have their trust broken or don’t know who to trust as others may have lied to them about something in the past. This is a serious problem especially with the popularity of social media where you don’t know who is on the other side of some social media accounts.
I ended up with 69 photos and selected them down 4. I then made different versions of them and colour coded them according to the which were the best in my opinion.
Purple symbolises the photos which I don’t think are the best, where as yellows represents ones are particularly my favourites.
With some I tried to make to model stand out more from the background.
My final selection
This is one of my favourites. the way the models face is obscured creates a mystery in which viewer does not know what the model looks like or who she is. Visually her body follows a 3X3 grid drawing attention to her and not so much the background. The larger depth of field give the photo an ethereal feeling.
This was a fun shoot to do but if I could go back I would create more variety on my photos as a lot of them where very similar. I would also bring some props and carry out all the ideas that we came up with whilst at the soot sight.
Here is my Top 3 best photos that resemble Masculinity
These photos resemble masculinity because they are mainly photos of muscles and a very traditional ‘masculine’ man, holding ‘masculine’ objects or poses.
These are my final photos after I have edited them.
For this photo, I used black and white because I personally think the b/w affect adds a very ‘masculine’ almost ‘strong’ image to the photo.
For this photo I made my model more tanned, increased the texture to show more detail and definition in the muscles and physique.
Finally, for this photo I increased the texture so my skin was more defined and you could see the stretch marks and skin texture and all of the muscles and veins in the arm, shoulder and forearm to show masculinity.
Here are my Top 3 photos that resemble femininity.
The first photo resembles femininity because it is of a male with makeup on around their eye which shows femininity even though it is a male. The second photo shows a necklace which is particularly a feminine object which a lot of women wear, also the long hair each side helps the audience tell it is a female, but could also be a male with long hair. Finally, the last picture shows my model using makeup (concealer) on her face with a tote bag around her arm which is all feminine things.
Cindy Sherman, born 1954, is an American whose work consists primarily of self-portraits, depicting herself in many different contexts and as various imagined characters. Her breakthrough of work is often considered as her collection of ‘untitled film stills’. This collection consisted of 70 black and white photographs of Sherman depicting herself as typical female roles in performance media. I have chosen Sherman as a case study as she demonstrates the stereotypical views that most people have on women and this is shown in her photos.
Untitled Film Stills
In her series of ‘Untitled Film Stills’ Cindy Sherman herself poses as various different stereotypical women based on the 1950s and 1960s Hollywood, Film noir, B movies, and European art-house films. These photos represent clichés of stereotypical females, these included the typical office girl, bombshell, girl on the run, house wife and more. In each of these photos the woman is facing away from the camera and outside of the frame which adds a sense that it is from a movie which fits in with the name of this collection ‘Untitled Film Stills’. Sherman is not only the photographer but she is also the subject of these photos which allows her to be able to portray herself in a way which sends the correct message to the viewer.
Sherman named all her photos as ‘untitled’ as she wanted to allow the viewer to be able to interpret their own meaning rather than each photo having one singular meaning. In December 1995, the Museum Of Modern Art acquired Cindy Sherman’s entire collection of Untitled Film Stills (sixty-nine). Later on Sherman decided to add one final image to this collection bringing it to 70 photos in total. This photo was her final photo in her collection of ‘untitled film stills’.
“I wish I could treat every day as Halloween, and get dressed up and go out into the world as some eccentric character.” Cindy Sherman
Analysis
In Cindy Sherman’s collection of self-portraits named ‘untitled film stills’ she presents herself as typical female roles within performance industry. This photo shows Sherman herself acting as a female in a movie stood over a sink whilst holding her stomach. This photo can be used to show the stereotypical views of how women meant to act and what they were meant to do back in that era. This can be implied by the apron that she is dressed in as women were meant to stay home to cook and clean whilst the man went to work, the blurred pot in the foreground of the photo can also show this stereotypical view on women back then. The way that Sherman is holding her stomach and looking over her shoulder could suggest that she is pregnant and fearful of what is to come. It could also suggest she is in a toxic situation as scared for the child. The haircut in this photo, as well as it being black and white, implies that the photo is meant to have an older look as this hairstyle was popular during the early 20th century. There is a slight grain texture to the photo which adds an older look as well.
Planning a response
In order to respond to Cindy Sherman I will have to take my photos outside of school in a home environment. I will take photos of my model doing tasks that used to be widely associated with women back in the 20th century such as cleaning and cooking. I aim to create two photoshoots based on Sherman’s work.
Multiple exposures are photographs in which two or more images are superimposed in a single frame, and they’re super easy to create using your analogue camera. Set an image of a train against a field of flowers, or prop your friend’s face against an image of a city skyline to create enchanting and surreal images.
