After looking through a photography book on masculinity I found three photographers with photos I liked, now I need to choose one to use as a possible reference.

1. Fouad Elkoury

2. Collier Schorr

3. Mikhael Subotzky

Mind Map

Femininity Mood Board

This mood board shows general things that are related to women and that I could use as ‘props’ or ‘tools’ in my photoshoot. These include different hairstyles, which are more feminine, such as long hair, rather than shorter hair. It also includes things such as makeup, jewellery, clothing and nails. However, this mood board also includes stereotypes of women that I could also showcase in my photoshoot. These stereotypes include women being too emotional, or that women must be housewives and mothers. The colour pink is also stereotypically correlated with women. This mood board also includes places that typically suit a women or could be used as a background to make my photographs more feminine, such as meadows, or fields, as well as snowy fields, sunsets and flowery fields.

Masculinity Mood Board

This mood board includes ‘props’ or ‘tools’, which can be used for my photoshoot, to achieve a more masculine variety of photographs, such as weights, footballs, or the colour blue. This is because these are typically associated with males. There are also different outfits, such as suits and ties, or army camo clothes. Stubble could also be used to make the photoshoot more masculine. This mood board also includes stereotypes of men, such as they are fathers, aggressive and restrain their emotions. These stereotypes could be used to help position and pose my model, so they look more masculine.

Women were often valued for how they looked and not what they did. Looks and behaviours contribute to being feminine like having softer features, long hair and a smaller frame and curves. While these are all stereotypical ideas, women have and continue to move forward in the world. When thinking of femininity you often picture beauty, as beauty associates with women rather than a women doing what she loves or what she does.

The term ‘femininity’ has been adapted over time, for example in the 20th century women were expected to be:

• Passive
• Sensitive
• Emotional
• Gentle
• Caring
• Nurturing

These photos show the evolution of what is perceived as femininity and women throughout the last century

1920s

1930s

1940s

1950s

1960s

1970s

1980s

1990s

2000s

2010s

2020s

As you can see, starting from the 1970’s women began to wear more uni- sex clothes e.g. blazers and jeans which eventually grew more and more for it to be normal and daily clothing. This shows that from the 1920s you had to reach the feminine stereotypes and look a certain way however nowadays wearing anything is still classed as feminine.

Cindy Sherman

Cindy Sherman is an American photographer, born 19th January 1954, New Jersey, United States. Her work consists primarily of photos which depict herself in many different contexts and as various different imagined characters. Sherman usually inserts herself into a dialogue about stereotypical portrayals of women in her photographs, which resemble scenes from 1950s and 1960s films.

Her art plays on the feminist idea that gender arises exclusively within culture and deconstructs dominant gender ideologies, representing the underside of popular culture’s definition of “woman.”

Sherman has received numerous awards, including the Hasselblad Foundation International Award in Photography in 1999 and a MacArthur Foundation fellowship in 1995. She lives and works in New York.

Here, in this photo, feminism is shown as it shows a woman in the kitchen. Its stereotypically known that a woman is ‘meant to be’ in the kitchen.

This picture shows femininity as it shows a woman in front of the mirror dressed all nicely and girly. It is expected for women to dress in a specific way. She is also posing in an innocent, nurturing, and accommodating way.

Sherman’s photographs visually describe the feminist social constructionist argument that there is no natural identity behind the mask of gender. Women affirm their gender identity through performative behaviour.

What is femininity?

Femininity is a set of characteristics, behaviours, and qualities traditionally associated with women and girls. It typically includes aspects such as tenderness, nurturing, empathy, sensitivity, gracefulness, modesty, gentleness and a focus on relationships and community.

What is masculinity?

masculinity is a set of characteristics, behaviours, and qualities traditionally associated with men and boys. Typically includes traits such as strength, courage, assertiveness, independence, competitiveness, resilience and a focus on achievement an success.

What is identity?

Identity refers to the qualities, characteristics, beliefs and values that define an individual or a group. it is a multidimensional and complex concept that encompasses various aspects of a persons life, such as heir race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, nationality, religion, social class, and personal experiences. identity can also be influenced by external factors such as culture, society and interactions with other individuals. It plays a significant role in shaping an individuals sense of self and how they relate to others.

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Photoshoot plan

Here’s some of the ideas I have from the relation of what I’ve studied and artists I’ve studied, as well as me as a person and what I do and how I am the way I am.

Here is an example of what I am looking to achieve, and photos similar to these…

The makeup, hair, nails, outfit all need to be in bold, revealing the femininity within these images. They need to be beautiful and sharp as well as going for a strong jawline and out lining women’s curves.

Here is an example, showing you how a pose can make you look very feminine.

Just a difference with the way you stand can change a lot.

Justine Kurland

Justine Kurland is an American fine art photographer, based in New York City. She tries to remsble girlhood in her photos, Girlhood is the period of a female person’s life during which she is a girl. She had shared responsibility for her brother since girlhood. Her girlhood dream had been to study painting..

She is best known for photographing subjects in American wilderness landscapes.

Here is my shot of these photos:

These photos show girlhood and girls having fun, inspired by Kurland.

Photoshoot one

Cindy Sherman

Here are some edited photos in Lightroom of our first shoot- inspired by Cindy Sherman and Kulrland.

Here is some of Sherman’s work and why and how it inspired me, its more about the image for me and how she portrays females in todays society even though the photos she took were years ago , in the 90s.

These photos represent our female society and girlhood as they show  how Sherman represented her women are images of women, models of femininity projected by the media to encourage imitation and identification.

I want to outline the best bits of women and how much beauty we have in us.

We as women are strong, we will have bad and good days and photos can represent a lot about what we have to go through as women on the daily all the time as photos show empathy, struggle, pain, love, beauty and much more. Feminine photos inspire me because it shows such a strong sense within the images.

What does Cindy Sherman’s art represent?

Sexual desire and domination, the fashioning of self-identity as mass deception, these are among the unsettling subjects lying behind Sherman’s extensive series of self-portraiture in various guises. Sherman’s work is central in the era of intense consumerism and image proliferation at the close of the 20th century.

Photoshoot two

Cahun’s work:

Early life:

Claude Cahun, born with the name ‘Lucy Renee Mathilde Schwob’, was a French writer, sculptor and photographer. Cahun was born into a wealthy Jewish family. In her late teens and early twenties Cahun had been looking for a new, gender-neutral name for a while. Around 1914, she changed her name to Claude Cahun. Cahun is most known for her self-portraits that portray her as ambiguously gendered and as different characters. Cahun started taking her first self-portraits around 1912, when she was 18, and continued taking images of herself throughout the 1930s, creating a lifelong obsession with examining gender, using herself as subject. Marcel Moore, born Suzanne Alberte Malherbe, and Cahun met when they were only 17 and 15. From this onwards, they created an artistic and romantic partnership together. The two became step-sisters in 1917 after Cahun’s divorced father and Moore’s widowed mother married. During the early 1920s, they settled in Paris together. She and Moore then returned to Jersey to live, taking up their old names and letting people assume they were sisters. For the rest of their lives together, Cahun and Moore collaborated on various written works, sculptures, photomontages and collages. 

Work:

Artist inspiration

For all of my photoshoots, I was inspired by Claude Cahun. I have picked this particular photo because we tried to recreate one of Cahun’s artworks as much as possible. As you can see, both of these images are in black and white, and the subject holds a miserable face towards the camera. I think this is really effective as it makes the viewer question what the story behind the image is.

Photoshoot 1: For this photoshoot, I am planning on taking photos in the snow with the nature as a background. We will use the flowers and trees to add more of a feminine aspect. I will try and include elements of masculinity by using props, for example a motorbike or a car.

Photoshoot 2: For this photoshoot, I am planning on taking photos in the studio focusing on femininity by taking photos of a female doing her makeup. We will use props like makeup and a mirror. I am also going to take photos of my model dressing up as a boy and using props to support these masculine images.

Masculinity is seen to be the trait which emphasises ambition, acquisition and wealth. Whereas femininity is seen to be the trait of caring and nurturing behaviours. However these days people challenge these older views using things such as social media and political movements. This has led to these views changing overtime meaning women can also be seen having those masculine traits and men can now be seen having those feminine traits. One large aspect which has challenged these views is photography from photographers such as Claude Cahun and Cole Ndelu.

In photography masculinity and femininity can be challenged for example by dressing a woman in a males suit it challenges the idea that women are able to wear masculine clothing. This is also challenged by men putting on makeup it shows that men can also be feminine like women.

I’ve narrowed down to 3 final photos to edit and finalise for the Femininity vs Masculinity topic.

These 3 photos, for me, portray the topic of Femininity vs Masculinity very well, and with some editing I believe they could be staple pieces of my work.

Editing ( photo 1 ) –

I began with playing around with saturation and colour in photoshop with the first photo, increasing the contrast and hue and played around with black and white a little, just to see what might look the best for this specific photograph.

The highlights and shadows with this edit, I feel, worked really well and complimented the dimensions on the photo especially on the skin. It gave the photo a warm feeling with the use of warm colours and lights that were used in the studio as well as successfully contrasting with the shadows and lowlights within the photo.

With this edit, I wanted to have a basic feel to it, so I wanted to try out a black and white idea. Initially all I did was add a black and white cover over the top of the original photo but after investigating with the saturation and shadows I was able to give the photo more of a raw and gritty feel which I think fits perfectly with this photo.

Editing ( photo 2 ) –

For this photo I have a definitive idea of what I want to do. I want to make this photo almost over saturated to enhance the inspirational aspect of male perfume adds and how they are portrayed through the internet

This edit was not very successful as it was difficult editing this on photoshop purely using saturation and hues.

For the next edit I am going to try and use dimensions to improve this photo.

I did end up cropping the photo and changing the hue, but only slightly so that the natural elements of the photo weren’t taken away as it happened. I smoothed the texture a little around the face but made sure to keep it within the rest of the photo to keep the realism.

Editing ( photo 3 ) –

For this photo, I want to definitely use a more grunge feeling to the photo to show almost power as that will compliment the red hue already in the photo.

I worked a lot with the saturation in this photo and the colours that make up the photo, like the purples, blues and reds. I am not sure if I like the brightness of the photo, it does not really fit with the grunge idea I was going for, so with the next edit I am going to focus more on the shadows and how that will effect the edit style and photo itself.

This edit went a lot better for me, as I used Lightroom to edit instead of photoshop. The grunge effect I was going for definitely was shown in this edit as I focused on the contrast between colours and shadows in the photo, also thinking about the texture and clarity of the photo as well. The use of the red hue focuses on the femininity of the photo as well as thinking about the connotations the colour red has, as its often linked to danger which contradicts the stereotypical idea of femininity.

Artist Inspiration –

The artist that inspired these photos and edits was Cindy Sherman.

In her photos, she only ever photographed herself and I wanted to use that idea of independence in my work as well because, woman ( stereotypically ) are not independent and rely on other people for most things. I wanted to counteract that idea by using photos of myself.