I think that overall, my outcomes show inspiration from my case studies, (Claude Cahun and Shannon O’Donnell).
One of the outcomes that I particularly felt like, showed an inspiration from my case studies was final outcome 2. This outcome was massively influenced by Cahun’s work as it has that illusion that one of her most famous photoshoot had. She created that image by emerging two ‘loading’ pictures together and I created mine using the selection tool in Photoshop. I think that the tone on the photo is quite similar to the original picture she created and I think that it is evident what I was trying to replicate.
However, the pictures tone could have been more darker and I could’ve added texture to the picture. I could’ve also added a different background when I was taking the pictures as it would ensure that the picture would look a little more accurate.
Another picture that was motivated by Cahun’s work was outcome 3. This was my attempt to replicate the picture that Cahun took of her partner where her partner was using the mirror to look at the camera directly. I think that my outcome was okay. The tone to the picture could’ve had more texture and darker. My subject could’ve been standing instead of kneeling down and the mirror could’ve been hanging on a wall just like Cahun’s picture. The subject could’ve also been smiling a little.
However when it comes to meaning I think that outcome 3 shows the intention Claude had with that photoshoot. Claude’s intention was to intimidate viewers by having direct contact with the viewers. In her picture, her partner isn’t posed sexually like women were back then, and I think that I achieved that with my picture. My subject isn’t being sexualized and they aren’t cosplaying as this ‘damsel in distress’. My subject has a harsh tone on her face and is standing her ground, just like Cahun’s partner in the picture.
Two outcomes that were hugely influenced by my other case study, Shannon O’Donnell, is the outcomes, 4 and 1. Shannon has a diverse set of work where it consists of black and white and normal coloured pictures. I really liked how Shannon has pictures of different body parts or zoom ins of things. Especially in her project ‘That’s Not The Way The River Flows’.
I think that I managed to show the inspiration that I had from Shannon by zooming into body parts especially in outcome 4. I think that the use of black and white and coloured pictures in outcome 4 shows the inspiration I had from Shannon because I was able to show different coloured picture whilst also creating a collage of zoomed in body parts.
However, the fact that I put multiple pictures of zoomed in body parts into a collage is not quite accurate. Next time I will just leave the zoomed in pictures as they are.
Finally, I feel like outcome 1 could’ve been better. I think that it shows that inspiration of black and white that Shannon used in her pictures but it doesn’t have a variety of different perspectives or zoom ins like Shannon’s work. I think that the pictures in my final outcome are quite repetitive and I should’ve had zoom ins and different types of poses.
I think that overall I did okay. There is obviously things I need to improve in but I do think that I have some highs in my final outcomes and photoshoots.
These are a few of the photos I took that I feel as Cindy Sherman inspired.
I wanted to let her work influence mine because I feel that she shows femininity very well through her photos and the amount of skin used is very impacting on showing femininity.
I also wanted to play around with lighting because even through most of Cindy Sherman’s photos are black and white, I thought that to bring in a red light to my photos could show stereotypical ideas of femininity.
Almost how woman were seen years ago, whenever they may have worn red or if they were associated with red as a colour it would signify almost them being ‘easy’ or prostitution, so I wanted to use that to almost counteract that idea.
For these photographs, I decided to create the idea that woman can have masculine traits and still be feminine. As you can see the photos of the girls backs show that a woman’s back can come across as very woman-like and elegant, however just because a woman wears baggy clothes or men’s clothes, it does not mean they do not have the elegant woman-like.
This is the first photoshoot with different body parts taken and different “masculine” objects. Most of the photos had: f-11, 1/160 shutter speed, ISO-100. A low ISO was used to give higher quality photos and since we where using a flash with a box light we didn’t need to worry about having the photo being too dark or light enough but blurry as we did not use a tripod. I chose 3 images from the body parts and the items to match with each other, they needed to be good quality, have an interesting aesthetic (e.g. captured from a weird angle). Large contrast in lighting and more.
I’m trying to capture the juxtaposition between masculine features of the body and masculine objects. I will achieve this by making the photos incredibly ‘masculine’ with stereotypes like muscles, strong fragrance smell, and wires as they are usually associated with a traditional ‘mans job’. This is done to make it seem unreasonable to follow these traditions and how humans can chose there own path in life.
I was inspired a little by Claude Cajun to make the images B&W and w she composes the image (high contrast inni)
3 photos and editing process:
I chose these 3 as they are all unique and show only the body of this very attractive model. I then added a B&W filter with these settings:
I bumped the contrast a lot some of the flatter images to show more veins and muscles increasing the “masculine” look.
Now here are the object photos:
Here I put them all in photoshop to invasion all of them next to each other. Here I’m trying to communicate different masculine ideas all together, overwhelming the viewer with these social constructs.
For these photos:
I edited each one with blue colour grading for the shadows and mid tones with yellow colour grading for the highlights as its often associated with a “mans” colour, further adding to this unreasonably masculine image collection:
Clare Rae is an artist from Melbourne who produces photographs of moving images, In her photographic practice Clare explores ideas of performance and gesture to interrogate and subvert dominant modes of representation. Her work is informed by feminist theory, and presents an alternate and often awkward experience of subjectivity and the female body, usually the artists’ own.
Never Standing On Two Feet
Exhibited in Entre Nous: Claude Cahun and Clare Rae at the Centre for Contemporary Photography, Melbourne Australia 22 March – 6 May 2018, and subsequently at CCA Galleries in Jersey, UK, 7–28 September 2018.
Action Shots
Clare Rae produced action shots of women within there space, configuring the environment and the agriculture with the action portraying a sense of juxtaposition.
Engaging With The Object
Clare Rae uses her images to engage with the object, she does this by using movement and blur to portray the actions of engaging with the object, she also uses various lighting within portraying the actions, allowing for a real sense of capturing the movements.
Rather than physical space, the theme of Environment can also be considered within a psychological context where artists construct or imagine an environment that they respond to in creative ways using photography, performance and film.
Using binary opposites we can think of these environments as;
exterior/ interior private/ public masculine/ feminine physical/ psychological
Francesca Woodman
Francesca Stern Woodman was an American photographer best known for her black and white pictures featuring either herself or female models. Many of her photographs show women, naked or clothed, blurred, merging with their surroundings, or whose faces are obscured. Although she died very young, there is no denying that Woodman was one of the most innovative and promising artists of her generation. She pushed the boundaries of experimental photography and played with the potential of shutter speed and exposure.
Blurred and Merged
Blurred photographs are commonly done to emphasize movement, to create an abstract composition, to suggest distance, poor (or blocked) vision, to enhance certain moods, sometimes simply because there’s no real need for something to be sharp or in focus in the image, and so on.I’ve heard people say it’s because they symbolize our blurry memories: the blur of femininity, the ineffability of life. I think it’s that, and more. It rejects form and in doing so, it becomes more than one form.Blurring also maintains the aestheticism of the image. It enhances image by giving a shallow depth of field which looks very nice.
Mergers occur when two objects in an image appear to be touching or merging together. This can happen when two subjects are too close together or when one subject is photographed in front of another subject with similar colors or tones.
My response photos ~Clare Rae (Edited):
These are my response photos to one of my artist references, Clare Rae. Clare Rae’s photos consist of taking images which not only portray a sense of femininity but also contrast it by the use of ‘engaging with the object’. There are many objects that are stereotyped to be seen as feminine, and I have used these stereotypes to portray femininity within my photos, my character is clearly a female and can be seen engaging in the use of many different ‘feminine’ products, like the hairbrush, and different makeup products. This creates a juxtaposition, the idea of two items with a contrasting effect being put together, there are many different examples of this juxtaposition within my photos, the environment my model is in being one, there are a few main things that stand out about the environment she is in which are stereotyped as feminine, even coming down to the lighting, the fairy lights are typically deceived as feminine, proving how even something as silly as lighting puts you into a box of femininity the same goes for the ‘hollywood glam’ style lighting on the mirror, and even the small lit up LED heart on the wall. All these different things indicate to signs of femininity. It is a very old stereotype that females are those who should clean, so the fact that my characters environment is clean adds to this deception of femininity, changing the stereotypes into imagery to be portrayed in a more elegant way. This is why I chose Clare Rae as my artist inspiration, Clare Rae’s images show the capturing of movements, and I saw this as a opportunity to use my own person agriculture too create ‘engaging with the object’ and make it as feminine as possible to really show the beauty within it.
The photos that I have edited to be black and white look most similar to Clare Rae’s photos but I used editing within lightroom to add a masculine contrast to the images. I did this by adding a colour tint too some of the images, I chose colours like blue and green which are typically related with masculinity to create a sense of incongruity. This is only a little edit so may not be picked up by most but I would like to label it ‘opposing attractions’.
Photoshopped Image:
I used photoshop to focus on the engagement with the object, I did this by highlighting my character and duplicating to her in order to make the main focus of the images the engagement of the feminine action.
My response photoshoot ~Francesca Woodman (edited) :
I chose Francesca Woodman as my second artist reference because I believe her use of blurring and merging images allows for a blur between lines of femininity and masculinity. Blurring an image can somewhat make it look ‘cool’ but it also creates an image which you have to actually use your brain to configure the silhouette between the lines, but while you do this your brain wants to put this silhouette into a category of whether this character we are viewing is a boy or a girl? a man or a lady?, this is due to our brains being fed so many stereotypes from a young age making us want to consistently use them and fit everything into one box or another. This is why I chose the environment of these images to be at the skatepark. The skate park is typically associate with boys due to skating being a ‘sport’, where you often get hurt and thrown around which is seen to be more masculine, so I have put these characters in the proximity of an environment which correlates to them, but I have used blurring the character’s into their environments’ to turn skateboarding into something more of a dance rather than a hardcore sport.
I have edited the photos to make them look a bit dimmer and darker, not to create a sense of eeriness but more a sense to make the images more vague, by doing this the images are in the middle, in-between showing a clear image and one that’s not configurable at all.
Photoshopped Image:
I used photoshop to created duplicates of my character, I did this to create a merge, and to make the image look even more unconfined, like it doesn’t have to be something so simple and ordinary but instead its an image of question, an image that Francesca Woodman would’ve created to add to her innovative ideas.
Personal Response Photoshoot ~Femininity (edited):
Personal Response Photoshoot ~ Contrast (edited) :
My plan for my first photo shoot was to take photos of womanhood, there is a lot of speculation around females just being used as a housewife, I wanted too use my first photo shoot too prove that womanhood could be fun as well, and that woman should not be given every single housework and cleaning task, I took inspiration from Crissy Knight, her photobook ‘woman of yesterday’ shows pictures of woman and labels attached underneath them stating what they are, my aim was too take this idea and also reverse it.
The Flapper- 1920’s
My response to this was proving how women do not need to be labeled, and can just be and do whatever they want.
PhotoShoot Two Plan-
The plan for my second photoshoot was to evaluate the idea of women being together, for a very long time women were separated, girls not allowed to go to school and as they grew they would be taught how too cook and clean by their mothers basically living for the man, things have new developed, and I wanted to show how women should no longer be seperated, and that they can help each other without fighting over the man. My inspiration for this was Claude Cahun and the ideas of culture wars constantly separating people. My inspiration wasn’t so much her actual photography but rather who she was, the fact that her pronouns being ‘ then/theirs’ showing a pure amount of fluidity rather than fitting in a box, and the fact that she was an inspiration, she decided to take photographs instead of being shoved into a kitchen which inspired many other women, which now allows for women today to band together and be what they want.
My responses-
PhotoShoot Three Plan-
The idea behind my third photoshoot was to shows girls being ‘rebels’, breaking the normal of them just being ‘ lovely, motherly, caring’ but instead living as reckless of a life as they want. Showing females doing something which would more fit in with masculine traits. I didn’t have an artist inspiration for this photoshoot in my mind but my one idea was to prove how females don’t always have to be caring, femininity does not have too all be about sitting still and looking pretty, but instead its about females leading how they want to lead, and living their own life too the fullest, because after all they are people with the same craziness as men. It was also to break the standard that all women do with their ‘girlfriend’s’ is girls things, like gossiping or doing each others hair, but that they can do the same ‘manly’ activities’ as everyone else, while still being feminine.
PhotoShoot Four –
My plan for this photoshoot was to use it for my environmental portraiture as I did not have many photos, the idea for dancing for environmental portraiture can open many opportunities, whether this person teaches dance or performs dance is very hard to capture, so i’ve tried my best to capture my model in her own dancing environment teaching, my model has her own full time job but doesn’t feel as if she is in her own environment until she’s working on her own business, I wanted to use these images to portray the empowerment of femininity and how beautifully people can flourish when places in their favorite environment.
Photoshoot Five-
The idea behind my fifth photoshoot was to capture movement and blur as inspired by Clare Rae, the idea of capturing movement and creating a blur tells a story about the sport, I choose to photograph skating as its more of a boyish sport rather than feminine due to the risk factor and how boys tend to be more ‘reckless’.
Photoshoot six-
The idea behind my sixth photoshoot was very similar to my third photoshoot, I was just trying to capture the beauty of girl-hood.
Photoshoot seven-
The ideas behind this photoshoot was essentially the same as the idea behind my fifth one.
Photoshoot eight-
Photoshoot nine-
This photoshoot is my favorite one as it captures the engagement with the object, females doing feminine things. Inspired by Clare Rae.
I have marked the photos with a colour coding system so the green ones are the ones I like and are good photos where as the red and yellow aren’t as strong or I just don’t think they are what I intended. For this shoot I chose to do self portraits inspired by Kayla Varley’s work of herself with close up angles and unusual composition but strategic focusing. I found while there was a couple of photos I liked there was only one that was what I originally intended to get. (pictured below) I will now go onto look at my work from other shoots and pick the best ones to edit and produce my final outcomes.
This is my strongest photo prior to editing as my eyes are in focus where as my nose is out of focus drawing the attention to my eyes. I also like how the smaller less noticeable details are visible like the freckles scattered across my nose. I like how subtle the glitter ‘tears’ are in this shot but for the next shoot I will definitely try some bolder glitter that stands out better. The framing of the shot is similar to that of Varley’s work with the close crop and close up view of the subjects face.
Julia Margaret Cameron was a British photographer who is considered one of the most important portraitists of the 19th century .She is known for her soft-focus close-ups of famous Victorian men and women, for illustrative images depicting characters from mythology, Christianity, and literature, and for sensitive portraits of men, women and children.
After showing a keen interest in photography for many years, Cameron took up the practice at the relatively late age of 48, after her daughter gave her a camera as a present. She quickly produced a large body of work capturing the genius, beauty, and innocence of the men, women, and children who visited her studio at Freshwater, and created unique allegorical images inspired by tableaux vivants, theatre, 15th-century Italian painters, and the work of her creative contemporaries. Her photography career was short but productive; she made around 900 photographs over a 12-year period.
Cameron’s work was contentious in her own time. Critics derided her softly focused and unrefined images, and considered her illustrative photographs amateurish and hammy. However, her portraits of respected men (such as Henry Taylor, Charles Darwin, and Sir John Herschel) have been consistently praised, both in her own life and in reviews of her work since. Her images have been described as “extraordinarily powerful” and “wholly original”, and she has been credited with producing the first close-ups in the history of the medium.
Why was Cameron’s work criticised?
Her talent, however, left her known as one the greatest photographers in history. Still, many of Cameron’s contemporaries considered her work to be inept, for it was blurry, smudged and scratched, and instead they believed that the best photography should be about technical perfections superseding all artistic intent.
The statement ‘Julia Margaret Cameron accidentally created soft-focus photographs’ is true due to her technical inexperience. She later embraced and intentionally used this soft-focus technique, significantly impacting portrait photography.
PHOTO ANAYLYSIS
The Red Roses ( 1865)
The meaning of this picture is ambiguous as the red roses of the title are not clearly identifiable. In the Victorian Language of flowers, red and white roses signified unity, discernible here in the closeness of sisters Kate and Elizabeth Keown. The hands clasped in prayer evoke Christian iconography, where red roses stand for martyrdom and white for purity. Cameron often borrowed many of her subjects from religion, history and literature. One of her famous images is ‘ My Grandchild, 1865’
In this image, Cameron transforms a portrait of her grandson asleep into the study of Madonna and her Child. Making this image simultaneously a religious study and a family portrait.
Madonna and Child was painted by one of the most influential artists of the late 13th and early 14th century, Duccio di Buoninsegna. This iconic image of the Madonna and Child, seen throughout the history of western art, holds significant value in terms of stylistic innovations of religious subject matter that would continue to evolve for centuries.
This lyrical work inaugurates the tradition in Italian art of envisioning the Madonna and Child in terms appropriated from real life. The Christ Child gently pushes away the veil of his mother, whose sorrowful expression reflects her foreknowledge of his crucifixion.
The word Madonna means “My Lady” in Italian.
This painting from the late 13th century by Italian painter Duccio di Buoninsega, in contrast, expresses the emotions of love and tenderness between mother and child. The infant Jesus returns the Madonna’s placid but intense gaze.
MOODBOARD
MY WORK INSPIRED BY CAMERON
I edited these images to creative a less detailed focus in the centre surrounded by a feathered border with warm tones to create a vintage and old look so it fit Cameron’s work in the 19th century. I kept the portraits more focused around the outside like Cameron’s work although she got criticized for it but ended up embracing it and in my opinion I think it makes the image look a lot more elegant and gentle which is a typical female stereotype.
