Femininity: The social expectations of being a women. It refers to the qualities or attributes regarded as characteristics of women or girls in a given society.

Masculinity: The social expectations of being a man. It refers to the roles, behaviours and attributes that are considered appropriate for boys and men in a given society.

Summary

Femininity and masculinity are a binary opposite, which means they are relative terms, which mean the opposite. Another example of binary opposites are good vs evil. Binary opposition originated in Saussurean structuralist theory in Linquistics (scientific study of language). According to Ferdinand de Saussure, binary opposition is the system by which, in language and thought, two theoretical opposites are strictly defined and set off against one another. Using binary opposites can often be very helpful in generating ideas for a photographic project as it provides a framework, which provides a set of boundaries to work within.

Identity Politics

Identity politics is a term used to describe people of a particular race, religion, gender, social background, class or another identifying factor and how they are more or less venerable to oppression. Some social groups are more likely to be oppressed, such as women, ethnic minorities or sexual minorities, because they are seen to have less power or privilege. However, some people are less likely to be oppressed and are more favoured are mainly whites, or men, because they are seen to have more power or privilege.

The term was coined by the Combahee River Collective in 1977. It took on widespread usage in the early 1980s, and in the ensuing decades has been employed in myriad cases with radically different connotations dependent upon the term’s context. It has gained currency with the emergence of social activism, manifesting in various dialogues within the feminist, American civil rights, and LGBT movements, disabled groups, as well as multiple nationalist and postcolonial organizations, eg. Black Lives Matter movement.

Culture Wars

Culture wars are cultural conflicts between social groups and the struggle for dominance of their values, beliefs, and practices. It commonly refers to topics on which there is general societal disagreement and polarization in societal values is seen.

The term is commonly used to describe contemporary politics in western democracies  with issues such as abortion, homosexuality, transgender rights, pornography, multiculturalism, racial viewpoints and other cultural conflicts based on values, morality, and lifestyle being described as the major political cleavage.

In the photograph above it is Grayson Perry, who goes on a Big American Road Trip, where he travels across the US, exploring its biggest fault lines, from race to class and identity, making art as he goes along. He travels to the Midwest to find folks bitterly divided over identity politics and hot issues like abortion and vaccination.

Gender Identity

Gender identity is how a person describes there gender. This is your deeply-held inner feelings as to whether you are a female, male, both or neither.

Cultural Identity

Cultural identity is a part of a person’s identity, or their self-conception and self-perception, and is related to nationality, ethnicity, religion, social class, generation, locality or any kind of social group that has its own distinct culture.

Social Identity

Social identity refers to people’s self-categorizations in relation to their group memberships (the ‘we’). These categorizations are often assigned to us or something we are born into.

Geographical Identity

An individual or group’s sense of attachment to the country, region, city, or village in which they live. It is also the key characteristics with which a particular country, region, city, or village is associated.

Political Identity

Political identity is a form of social identity marking membership of certain groups that share a common struggle for a certain form of power. This can include identification with a political party, but also positions on specific political issues, nationalism, inter-ethnic relations or more abstract ideological themes.

Lack of/ Loss of identity

The loss of identity can refer to a range of experiences in which an individual feels disconnected from their sense of self, purpose, or values. This can occur due to various factors such as major life changes, trauma, mental health issues, or societal pressures. This can also cause mental health issues for some individuals.

Stereotypes

A stereotype is a widely held, but fixed and oversimplified image or idea of a particular type of person or thing. There are many different gender stereotypes that influence femininity and masculinity. Examples:

 • Women should be housewives and mothers

 • Men should be tough and strong

 • Women are too emotional

 • Men should souly provide for the women

Prejudice

Prejudice is a favouring or dislike of something without good reason. It is having unfriendly feelings directed against an individual, a group, or a race.

What is the definition of Femininity?

Femininity is generally defined as the attributes, behaviours and characteristics of women or girls. The most prominent example can be seen with the stereotypical traditional association of the colour pink, being highly regarded as a ‘feminine colour’.

(Barbie, 2023 – Ryan Gosling and Margot Robbie – actors)

What is the definition of Masculinity?

Like Femininity, Masculinity is generally defined as the attributes, behaviours and characteristics of Men and boys. Using the same example, The colour blue is stereotypically associated to be a ‘masculine colour’.

(Donald Glover – Actor & Musician)

What is the definition of Identity?

Defined as being who or what a person or thing is. Identity can vary with culture, environment, gender, politics, and social aspects. Identities alter in different nations and regions having their own appearances and characteristic’s in their population.

An example cultural identity of this can be seen with Māori people from New Zealand. Being an Indigenous Polynesian population, in mainland New Zealand their identities can shown through their appearances, the most well-known one being their cultural tattoos, called Tā moko.

(With Men, It is more common to see the entire face, tattoo’ed as of tradition)

(With Women, The tattoo is usually on the lips and chin)

These further show examples of environmental identity, taking influence from culture and history with these tribal face tattoos dating back pre-European involvement with New Zealand. Additionally their Customs and traditions are associated with cultural identity. The Haka, a ceremonial dance that consists of vigorous movements of rhythmical foot stamping as well as expressive facial expressions, It is performed for various social functions associated with Māori culture.

Social identity, which is when people self-concept are shown through membership in groups, can be found with influential movements of fashion or behaviour. A notable social group associated to the UK are Roadmen. Dressed in all black, and known for being anti-sociable, they’re social appearance is recognisable for those reasons and can be found in urban areas such as London where large groups socially affiliate with each other territory.

With fashion, social identity can be shown through trends and styles. Styles can define someone’s identity with their appearance acting as a insight to their personality.

Styles such as Normcore, explore the deliberate choice of being unremarkable or unfashionable in casual looking clothes, yet creating a noticeable appearance through style.

Gorpcore, which focuses on wearing functional outdoors wear, is usually associated to clothes such as fleeces, Gore-Tex jackets and hiking trousers. Made popular through social media with Celebs such as Frank Ocean spotted or appearing at events wearing gorpcore brands, like Arc’teryx. This helped it become more popular in High fashion with brands such as Balenciaga getting involved with the style. Therefore leaving a large influence on the fashion influencers who build their identity on how they are dressed.

(Frank Ocean – Musician)

(A$AP Rocky – Musician)

Geographical Identity, which is a groups sense of attachment to their country/region can be shown locally with an example being the Island games. Showing Island recognition for a sporting event, and loyalty to its island through its players, this shows geographical Identity as the island is represented through its population showing their pride.

Identity can also be formed with upbringing, with parents, siblings and relatives playing factors of building personalities. When surrounded by people who you live with, you grow to adapt in your character from aspects of theirs, if you have a parent that shows confident or introverted characteristics, you are more likely to develop those traits. This can also be seen genetically with children being identical to their kids.

For this photo I had a 2 point lighting setup with a honeycomb light lighting the foreground and a snoot light in the background.

I enjoyed the heavy contrast between the two saturated colours so in Lightroom Classic had the temperature decreased for the royal blue and increased the tint for the ruby red and copied the settings to a similar photo.

Finally in photoshop I imported both photos, opacified the second one and dragged the spot heal tool sporadically until I ended up with the eyes. To achieve the aquamarine highlight I simply increased the overall exposure.

This is a simple setup with one key light. I added a gaussian blur to the primary layer to smooth out the subject.

On the secondary layer I positioned a similar image in the same place with a motion blur then copied and cropped the eyes from the layer and added to it additional motion blur for this dreamlike look.

(This last photo had to be downsized to fit the upload limit)

Like the previous image I added a gaussian blur and spot healing to smooth out the subjects face in both images.

I tried to make the red highlight more subtle so opacified that layer. This works out quite well as the opaque layer is directly staring into the camera

Inspiration

Overall these edits take inspiration from the work I’ve seen from Jonti Wild.

The stark neon colours and use of blur gives his images a new type of depth I want to add into my own portfolio.

Identity

Identity is the characteristics that determine who or what you are. It is how you define who you are and also how others define you. When you figure out your identity you can form strong, meaningful connections with others and also helps you to communicate with people. It is important to recognise how you identify to be able to love yourself and to be confident and learn to accept who you are.

Social Identity

The 8 social identities are :

• Ability
• Age
• Ethnicity
• Gender
• Race
• Religion
• Sexual Orientation
• Socioeconomic status

Social identity is how people categorize themselves into a social group and how the perceive themselves in relation to society and the options of different social groups. Social identity influences how people see themselves and how they interact with others.

Cultural Identity

Cultural identity is the distinct identities of people or groups in cultural or subcultural categories and social groups. It gives people identification with a sense of belonging with a certain group of people based on the different cultural categories including nationality, ethnicity, race, gender and religion. People express their cultural identity through clothes, food, festivals, music and art.

Geographical Identity

Geographical identity is when a person or group of people feel a sense of attachment to a country, region or the village in which they live in.

Identity politics

Identity politics is a form of art that focuses on exploring the concept of identity. It is almost always personal and allows them to express their experiences, emotions and beliefs. It can also be a way to explore different social and cultural issues that relate to :

• Race
• Religion
• Gender
• Sexual Orientation
• Social background
• Caste
• Social class

Culture Wars

Culture wars are a type of cultural conflict between two or more social groups who struggle to politically express their feelings or what they believe in. In 1980s culture wars flared up and there was a rising movement of conversations that American society had lost its way. The main problem of these culture wars was there was a decline of cultural and moral values instead of economic or political issues.

Identity Art:

An early example of identity in art is Frida Kahlo’s self-portraits who wanted to express her Mexican culture through art as well as the larger social and cultural issues. Her work challenged the traditional of woman in art which she created the idea that woman are portrayed as passive and decorative objects.

This is one of Frida Kahlo’s Artwork.

Identity art evolved throughout the 20th century and we saw Cindy Sherman use gender roles and stereotypes of men and woman and how they are portrayed so differently.

Cindy Sherman is an American artist who created self-portraits in different contexts to portray the different stereotypes of woman. She was extremely interested in experimenting in different identities. She would create different images with props that she has deliberately chosen to resembles movie characters. She continued to create different photographs to show the diversity of different people and different human stereotypes.

The 20th and 21st centuries have been seen for artists and photographers to use political identity to portray there authentic life. Political identity is a huge part of our life today as we see it everywhere, whether its through artwork or other ways. This is beneficial for them to express their feelings of their identity to

gender identity / cultural identity / social identity / geographical identity / political identity / lack of / loss of identity / stereotypes / prejudices etc.

Juxtaposition in photography is the placement of two photographs close to together to present contrast or similarities. Inspiration could be taken by the pairings of the old monochrome portraits of Henry Mullins and more recent portraits of Michelle Sank which are opposed to show the comparisons, e.g., between the classes (social & professional) in Jersey mid-19^th century & early 21^st century. Juxtaposition can create that interest and contrast in a photograph, it may also try to convey a message from the photographer. It could also create tension and difference.

Juxtaposing images can also be terms of shapes, colours, repetition, object vs portrait.

Contact Sheet for my headshots:

Experimentation with Photoshop:

In terms of Juxtaposition, I took inspiration from my mood board and experimented with different gels and lights in contrast and opposed the different hues in the studio against the subject being photographed.

In the photographs below, I decided to take the title “Juxtaposition” in a different approach and put two photographs in contrast to each other, as shown below. The collages of different emotions and facial reactions can represent a division between one thing and another.

Cahun was well-known for her collaboration with Suzanne Malherbe and was linked to the Surrealist movement in the 1920s and 1930s. They collaborated to produce a body of work that challenged both gender and traditional artistic standards. Claude Cahun is especially well-known for his photography self-portraits. She created a lot of characters for these pictures and explored identity, gender, and the part of self-image in detail. Her work addressed issues of unclear gender and identity flexibility which was unique. The later years of 1900s saw a rethinking of gender and queer studies, which gave Cahun’s life and work new meaning. Her legacy continues to influence current discussions on identity, gender and creative expression. She has been recognised as an inspirational figure in the history of gender identity in art.

In this image Claude Cahun shaved her head and is dressed in mens clothing. This image is very disturbing and has an eerie effect to it, i think this effect is given by the self portrait of her on the right side. The self portrait behind her looks creepy because its eyes are darkened and it is an unusual photo. This photo could suggest that there is more than one person in her body the idea of being two-faced. The aspect of Cahun having her head shaved shows an idea of false identity, almost like she doesnt know who she is, relating to gender in this image you can not really tell if it is a female or a male. The photo is in monochrome and has the main subjects centred within the frame.

Femininity:

Femininity is having qualities or characteristics that are traditionally associated to women or boys. E.g powerful, nurturing and strong

Masculinity:

Masculinity is having qualities or characteristics that are traditionally associated to men or boys. E.g strength, toughness and virility.

How can place, belonging or environment influence identity.

Identity within an individual or community can be hugely effected by the environment they are surround. For an example, if an individual is surrounded by a white supremacist group they will have tendencies to think like them, to think that the white race is superior and should dominate.

Identify can also be effected by they way an individual is brought up. If an individual is brought up surrounded by homophobia, they will probably follow their traits and therefore think that homophobia is okay. However, because of the individual being brought up in an homophobic environment, the individual might feel like they can’t express themselves and have a loss of identity because of their upbringing and fear of rejection.

However, an individual who is brought up with an open minded and non-prejudice parents/family/ group, may find it quite easy to express their gender identity or social identity. This is because they grew up with people who let them have free will and didn’t show any type of judgmental opinions about groups of people or a community.

An individual who grows up with same-sex parents will grow up learning that same-sex marriage/couples is very normal and okay. They will see it as a norm and in fact will see it as something that should be normalised unlike an individual who might’ve grew up in a very straight household that had homophobic and stereotypical tendencies which would imply that they would see same-sex couples as something that is wrong.

Furthermore, there are much more serious cases where environment massively effects identity. North Koreas leader, Kim Jong-un massively effects the identity of his citizens. Jong-un made rules that drastically changes the identity of the North Korean citizens. An example of this, is a law where there is only government-approved haircuts. This strips his citizens identifies as they are not allowed to experiment with their hair and express and find themselves through their hair. Doing something with your hair can be a form of expression or change in identity so Jong-un stripping this choice from his citizens, strips their identity. Another law that hugely effects Jong-un’s citizens identity is the fact that they have prison camps. These prison camps are used for people who have allegedly committed political crimes. This men’s that no one in North Korea has freedom of speech and has no say when it comes to commenting about Jung-un’s rules. This form of punishment effects someone’s identity because they are not able to express their thought or opinion due to a heavily controlled system.

Whilst taking my headshots I attempted to also mirror and interpret some of Henry Mullins’ work with angles and positioning when it comes to headshots. Inspiration from Henry Mullins’ models poses helped me to work on my techniques and learn more about how to make my photography look more professional.

I really admire the poses that Henry Mullins’ models would use, such as:

• Looking over the shoulder
• Staring straight at the camera
• Looking to the left
• Looking to the right
• Tilted head left/right
• Looking upwards/downwards/left/right

Catherine Opie(from a vogue article)

Regarded as one of the greatest living documentarians of the American landscape, both sociopolitically and literally, Opie chronicles everything from queer subcultures to urban development, reflecting her interest in gender, identity and community. In 2009, her photographs of Lake Michigan caught the eye of Barack Obama, who had the works mounted on the walls of the White House, where they remained during his presidency.

“I get mistaken for being a ‘sir’ all the time. In Being and Having, I was thinking about my friends and how we performed masculinity and butchness — at the time, a lot of us did drag at a great club in Los Angeles, Club Fuck. In each portrait, I wanted to take [the subject] out of their environment; I shot them against a yellow backdrop and cropped it so you focus on the fake moustaches they’re wearing. At one of my exhibitions, someone confused these people for men. I said, ‘You do realise these are all lesbians wearing fake moustaches?’. I find it interesting that when people see facial hair, they just assume it’s a man. 

I would quite like to recreate her work with some of my own twists to the work, I could use some of my lightening techniques that I learnt to add a better effect to the photo. I would quite like my model to still do similar positions as poise models do, but I would try and get some feminine girls and masculine boys. This would make the artists work very different to mine yet very similar as her work is seen as more focused on masculinity and how every gender can express it, for example she has a theme of bikers, which is stereotypically more known for men. This is where I can add some of my own ideas where I switch it up to juts a feminine stereotype.

Identity is a collection of attributes, beliefs and experiences that shape how we, and other people see ourselves. A person’s identity includes but is not limited to a persons race, ethnicity, religion, beliefs, gender and sexual orientation.

Identity politics is the discussion and political activity around a persons identity. Common groups associated with identity politics and culture wars in the United states Identity politics was Developed after the civil rights movement and include African Americans, Asian Americans, Muslims, Native Americans, Jewish Americans, LGBTQ community and Feminists.

The problem with identity politics now days is it now causes conflict and division instead of being inclusive like it once was. This leads us to the topic of Culture wars.

Culture wars is a cultural conflict betwen different social groups/identities who want to impose their own ideology in society.