Femininity and masculinity –

The topic, Femininity and Masculinity shows, not only the stereotypes of gender and self expression but also the beauty of expressing yourself. This topic really extenuates self love and ‘beauty in all’. Whether this is artist photographing the weird and unusual and still visualising the beauty in everything or the stereotypical beauty standards and displaying that. This movement is so powerful for not only the artist and their self expression but the viewers of the art and the impact that it may have on them. Gender is all about expressing yourself, and expression yourself in any way you may want to.

Examples of Femininity and Masculinity work –

These photos are examples of Cindy Sherman’s and Claud Cahun’s photography. Their work is very impactful when it comes to Femininity and Masculinity due to their blatant ignorance towards gender roles. Claud pushed boundaries with makeup and outfits, exposing himself and poses he may have taken, While Cindy in the beginning of her career photographed herself, and in the 70’s people thought that this exposure was daring. Cindy also made unusual edits of woman, with unusual makeup and unusual outfits, yet again breaking gender roles.

My examples of femininity and masculinity –

With these photographs, I wanted to push gender roles but also show the beauty of normality, stereotypical beauty. I wanted to push the boundaries to help give my photos variety but also help people feel more comfortable even if they don’t fit the stereotypical ‘normalities’.

Portrait photography –

Natural light portraiture, Portrait photography, or portraiture, is a type of photography aimed toward capturing the personality of a person or group of people by using effective lighting, backdrops, and poses. When the artist photographs themselves or other people in a formal or informal way.

Examples of portrait photography –

I wanted to dig deeper into Claud Cahun’s work of self portraiture for this analysation. He photographed the strange and unusual however all his photos consisted of him, him in strange outfits, makeup and anything unusual.

My examples of portrait photography –

In this photoshoot I wanted to stick to the simplicity of portrait photography thinking about lighting ( chiaroscuro, Rembrandt and butterfly. ) Playing around with colour schemes and posing to get a variety of photos.

Anthropocene photography –

Anthropocene photography is the idea of photographing issues within the environment, this could be global warming, deforestation, littering, pollution etc.. It is the act of photographing the issue ( listed above ) and bringing awareness to it to help the problem.

Examples of Anthropocene photographs –

These photos are by an artist called Edward Burtynsky. He focused most of his career on photographing Anthropocene, pinpointing pollution deforestation and the general wear and tear of the world.

My examples of Anthropocene photography –

Overall –

Overall, for my personal study, these three topics I feel like will be the most beneficial to me and my personal study. They may be the most included due to the great and thorough work that was presented at the end of each both these topics.

In this blog post I will review some projects which I believe have been successful.

Deadpan Photography

Deadpan photography is a type of photo which lacks all sense of emotion, it is mainly seen within landscape images. However it can be seen within portraits as well and the subjects of these portraits will tend to be in their natural state, without showing any emotion. For my photoshoot I chose to respond to the photographer Lewis Baltz.

These two images were my best shots within my Deadpan project. I completed my photoshoot in various areas within St Ouens, which is where these two photos were taken.

I also investigated leading lines within photography which are typically used for drawing the viewers attention to a certain area within a photo. I took this image on the road in St Ouens where the white lines lead your eyes deeper into the image.

Evaluation:

I think my deadpan photography went well as I was able to create some similar images to Lewis Baltz. If I were to do it again I would take more photos in different areas, not just St Ouens.

Femininity

Another project I believe went well was my project based on femininity in response to the photographer Cindy Sherman, an American Photographer who mainly takes self-portraits portraying herself as multiple different characters.

In this photoshoot I chose to focus on photographing my model doing cleaning, cooking and more. I did this as I wanted to focus on photographing the out-dated stereotypical views of what women should do.

These are my best images from this project, I chose to make them all black and white as this is what Sherman does in her photography.

Evaluation:

I liked how my final images turned out in this photoshoot especially after making them black and white. If I was to re-do this photoshoot I would focus more on the ideas which Cindy Sherman focuses on, such as domestic violence and I would try to capture more emotion in my images.

Anthropocene

One of my favourite projects I have done is my the one based on Anthropocene where I responded to the photographer Zed Nelson.

For my response to Zed Nelson I chose to visit Jersey Zoo, where I photographer a variety of animals. This related to the subject of Anthropocene as it shows has humans have had a negative affect on the lives of animals by making them live in cages for their own enjoyment.

This is one of my favourite images which I produced. I edited it to make the background blurred to make it appear that everything around the animal is moving however the animal is constantly stuck in the same place, similar to how they are constantly in the zoo.

Evaluation:

Overall this project was successful as I was able to create photographs with meaning similar to Zed Nelson’s photographs.

For this project I want to explore my connection and love for cars and bikes, from my passions for racing my own bike to my parents love for enduro events and rally cars. I want to capture the intensity and stress of racing events to the tinkering that is always going on. Particularly I want to showcase the difference loves and passions for the sport but in all we are all connected and have built a community. A large part of my family is involved in motorsports to a degree which has had influence on my own enjoyment and interest in the sport. I remember when I was younger my father would be watching moto GP while making me lunch, I never understood it until I got older and started to understand the bikes, teams, and actually understanding the concept of racing. When I was younger I have always been around cars and bikes, I watched my father take his bike away for enduro events in Spain and before that I heard all about the adventures he had been on. One I particularly enjoy hearing about is when he brought a motorbike, a Royal Enfield, in India and then rode it back to Jersey by himself, he still has this bike to this day! Alongside growing up involved in bikes I grew up around farming communities, with tractors and 4X4 which sparked my interest in off-road cars, having driven my first manual car at 10 to put fence posts in a field, since then I haven’t looked back with now having my own 4X4. Both my parents taught me how to ride/drive and I have pushed myself and tried different riding styles of my own and have my own bikes. So while I would like to reflect on their current use of cars/bikes I would also like to show sentimental things, from when they were my age or slightly older and now they don’t have as much time for but I do. I aim to show, almost the handing down of passions, remembering the good times and now their daughter (me) having me own fun and creating memories with my bikes.