Personal Photoshoot with Elliot

This January I did a quite absurd photoshoot with my friend Elliot stemming from one of my many sporadic ideas. I wanted a portrait photoshoot in a bath with a toaster.

Elliot is a massive book and musical fiend, a fan of the gothic aesthetic and a historical whiz. Other than the toaster those are all his belongings. Elliot’s creative contribution comes from the literature If We Were Villains and Cirque du Soleil.

The beginning of A levels really threw me in the deep end, but my mock selection portraits from light experimentation are interest me despite the over the top editing.

At the time I would have discovered the photographer Jonti Wild. His stark style pulls colour and lighting to the forefront, which is what I somewhat got to explore in this project.

St Malo

The opportunity to take photos in a foreign country gave us an unbiased and fresh perspective to review our skills.

This photo is my favourite of the selection for its candid narrative and sharp capturing that gave me minimal work to do in post.

The pictures are too purple for me, but the concepts and composition I admire and want to build from.

Henri Cartier Bresson was the main influence here. I was intrigued by his photos of people doing odd movements but couldn’t pass the opportunity to photograph people that interested me.

James Popysy’s style where he lightly overexposes the shot was creeping into the back of my head at the time hence some of the shiny whites. It’s a technique I want to follow up now as well.

Equestrian Portraits

and the raw photos

In my spare time I like to take photos of my girlfriend and her friends on their horses. It’s a good opportunity to capture photos in a fast pace environment and to play with light (e.g. reflections) and composition.

I don’t really have any inherent inspiration, I just practice my skills.

Multi Exposure

I got to experiment with photoshop during our multi-exposure experimentation. I sparingly used motion blur and the clone stamp tool for these photos. Jonti Wild again was a big influence on me.

Photoshoot with my sister and an experienced photographer

At the start of photography A level my sisters co-worker asked to do a photoshoot of her. I was invited so I could learn and take photos which was essential for me learning exposure and composition tricks. I also practiced colour editing afterwards, but it was very beginner.

Feminism, Female Identity, and Beauty

1. Research & Concept
   Investigate how photography reflects and challenges themes of feminism, beauty, and female identity. Key questions to explore include: How do beauty standards shape women’s identities? How can photography break traditional representations of women? Look at artists like Cindy Sherman, Francesca Woodman, and Laura Zalenga for inspiration. Their work will help you understand the relationship between women, identity, and representation.
2. Personal Theme
   Develop a central question to explore, such as: “How can photography challenge conventional beauty ideals?” or “What does true female beauty look like beyond societal standards?”
3. Techniques
   Use portraiture and self-portraiture to explore both personal and societal views of women. Experiment with lighting and composition to create different moods, emphasizing various aspects of female identity. Focus on authentic representation by capturing real, unposed moments that move away from stereotypical beauty standards.
4. Visual Style & Symbolism
   Use symbolism in your photos, like mirrors, clothing, or makeup, to comment on the construction of beauty. Include women of different ages, body types, and ethnicities to reflect the variety of female experiences and challenge narrow beauty ideals.
5. Photo Shoot Planning
   Focus on photographing diverse female subjects to reflect a range of identities. Choose settings that feel personal or empowering, like home, nature, or urban spaces. Be intentional with clothing and makeup, either to highlight or challenge beauty norms.
6. Editing
   Keep editing minimal to preserve authenticity, but consider using black-and-white or color choices to enhance the emotional tone of your work. Subtle edits, like adding textures or layers, can help reflect the complexity of female identity.
7. Reflection
   Reflect on how your photos address themes of feminism and beauty. Consider how your work questions societal norms and contributes to the conversation about female representation.
8. Conclusion
   Conclude by summarizing how your work adds to the dialogue around women’s identity, beauty, and empowerment.

Herr are the top 3 artists at the top.

I plan to do this by investing women’s beauty and misogyny etc, How do beauty standards shape women’s identities?.. Looking at artists like Cindy Sherman because her work will help you understand the relationship between women, identity, and representation. afterwards I would develop a question to explore, such as: “How can photography challenge conventional beauty ideals?” or “What does true female beauty look like beyond societal standards?” This could be done at home, friends home, beach, town centre, harbour, in a car, public, in bathroom with the shower running (with steam). These places are places I’m thinking of and hopefully will inspire women by starting off in a home, reflecting women I will choose settings that feel personal or empowering. I would use the tecqinues: portraiture and self-portraiture to explore both personal and societal views of women. Experiment with lighting and composition to create different moods, emphasizing various aspects of female identity. Focus on authentic representation by capturing real moments. In my images I would need to use symbolism like mirrors, clothing, or makeup, to comment on the construction of beauty. Include women of different ages, body types, and ethnicities. This is to either to highlight or challenge beauty norms. For these images I would be using a range of different editing tools, suck as photoshop Lightroom and I would be using various colours such as black and white or colour choices to enhance the emotional tone of your work. Subtle edits, like adding textures or layers. However by doing all of this I would still need to make sure and consider how it questions societal norms and contributes to the conversation about female representation to be able to try and make a change.

observe, seek, challenge

“the human desire to seek and explore the unknown has driven artists to look for fresh inspirations throughout centuries, compelling them to diverse subject matter and experiment with new materials”

historic paintings examples:

these paintings maybe thousands of years old but can still have many influences on artists around the world. For example Banksy a graffiti artist produced a piece in London’s Leake Street tunnel to comment on the fact that we seek the idea of attempting to preserve prehistoric examples instead of trying to do it with modern art such as graffiti in this case.

Banksy, Cave Painting Removal

(this is the painting referenced in the text above)

the soviet propaganda posters started in 1917 after the Bolsheviks took over Petrograd now known as saint Petersburg. as it was quite a young state it needed to spread an ideologies around the state effectively. this was going to be challenging as the literacy rates were only 37.9%, this meant that the image had to be the driving force of the poster not the words on them. this has influenced the modern age by propaganda now becoming used by for many things such as combating against world problems (COVID-19, climate change) and for things such as presidential election.

Ai Weiwei, Study of Perspective, 1999

this project was produced by Ai Weiwei to project the idea that people shouldn’t just listen to governments and should have there own beliefs. he done this by going to significant monuments and putting up the middle finger. this obviously has had an influence on the modern day with many people speaking up against government, a big example of this would be Greta Thunburg as she challenged the Swedish government to take part and battle against climate change which then turned then helped raise awareness around the world drastically.

Painter Jackson Pollock, cigarette in mouth, dropping paint onto canvas

Joe Pollock was an artist that used the “drip” paint technique, the reason he used this technique was to help explore themes such as surrealism navigation of the unconscious and Jungian symbolism. this basically means he wanted people to connect to his images through emotions what it made them feel and why?  “The Search to unravel the working of the Human psyche and understand the very nature of consciousness has often inspired artists.”

Rogan Brown is a British artist based in France. His inspiration stems from his interest in the complexity of nature, creating pieces that help us look at the world on a different scale.

mind map

mood board

I will be producing two photoshoots, with one being a document – (realism/ factual/ public) and the other photoshoot being tableaux (romanticism/ fiction/staged).

Documentary
For my Documentary/realism and factual photoshoot, I will be using ideas such as street photography and a mix of environmental portraiture going around town/popular places in Jersey and taking different photos of how different people live there life, or what they do for work and how their lifestyle is. For another photoshoot, I want to take multiple photos of how the traffic builds up either on the avenue or near the tunnel underneath the roundabout in town.

I have another better idea, of going to a bonfire night with a lot of people around watching the bonfire and fireworks and taking photos of random couples hugging, having arms around each other, maybe even kissing each other whilst a firework goes off. This may turn out not as good as I imagine because it will be very dark and especially because there will constant flashing lights from the fire works, plus the fire flames from the bonfire.

Tableaux
For my Tableaux photoshoot I have multiple ideas of either masculinity and femininity with showing different stereotypes or flipping the stereotypes around. Another idea would be about a story line with two friends meeting up to either sell drugs, or a different story line with them meeting up. Another idea links with the idea I just mentioned, but instead it could be a crime scene where one kills another and hides his body or similar thoughts to that. Finally, could do a photoshoot with either emotions or phobias such as claustrophobia with a photo of someone trapped in a small place surrounding themselves.

I went to the fireworks/bonfire night and these are some of the photos I took.

I selected a few photos I want to edit which are these photos.

Here I really liked the use of the bonfire with the grass almost path to the bonfire, which I can edit to create an essential ‘fake’ pathway which leads to the bonfire using Black and White on the outside of the photo with uplifting the green in the grass and the orangey/red bonfire.

In this photo I really like the use of both a male and female sat down watching the fireworks over them, I could of gotten lower to the ground and centred the fireworks in between them, but I have an idea of maybe either keeping them both ‘alive’ in the photo and in colour, or creating a B/W silhouette around one of the couple, with an idea of ‘The other partner wishing loved one was watching the fireworks with them’, but they are as a “ghost” sat next to them in B/W, sort of photo.

Something sort of like this where the male partner remembers when they watched the fireworks together in the past, she was next to him watching the fireworks but she isn’t physically there, just spiritually watching next to him.

For my personal study, it’s important that I choose to focus on something that I can explore in a vast way and come up with multiple different concepts for whilst also making it meaningful. I want to make this a study of internal reflection, with my own views and perceptions of life/ the world so that my work can be interpretive to others and subjective. I would like to shy away from more documentary photography showing realism and look for more abstract scenes or ideas as I want to be able to tell a true story that is manipulated so that the viewer of my work can perceive it in their own way and apply it into a different context that I hadn’t intended.

As this is the first time I have had to come up with a personal study entirely on my own, I want to make this body of work different from my other photoshoots that I have done as this is now going to include an element of privacy and a sense of vulnerability in my work. Now that we have done a short-term study on Mirrors and Windows, I can use my knowledge of this to determine what kind of concepts I want within my work to define the story, allowing me to choose a more subjective internal tone in my personal study. However, my work doesn’t particularly have a staged or fictional aspect to it in the form of tableaux photography as what I am demonstrating is a truthful, raw and real story.

INTENTION:

The intent within my personal study is going to be about the difficulties and struggles of growing up with a family member who, over time, deteriorates from gaining a mental illness. Specifically, the illness that I would like to represent is Bipolar disorder, something that can occur over time for a multitude of reasons, for example a neurological change within the brain. I think this concept will be very powerful within my work as it will be able to curate a narrative that develops throughout my final piece, as well as convey many emotions to the viewer through obscure metaphors and symbolism. As well as this, I find that creating an outlet where issues concerning mental health issues, such as photography, can be extremely progressive in removing stigma, shame or even helping to develop an understand about these kinds of things in society because they represent the reality behind the labels that people are given, as well as visually exhibiting every factor that comes along with this socially sensitive topic. Sometimes, the best way to educate about things, such as mental health is through visual art forms as it is easier to show the harsh reality behind it, as well as enabling people to communicate their own inner struggles through photography.

Bodies of work like this can begin to strike conversation about inner conflicts and battles in a form that allows the individual or people involved to express themselves in a way that words can’t describe. Mental health in men and boys, whilst slowly becoming more progressive and seen, is still stigmatised against due to phrases such as ‘Be a man’ for example. My work will be able to show that males do also suffer and the hands of these different illnesses and can be used as a form of awareness to show that this is reality, and that it truly is okay. Regardless, it also proves that things like this can happen to anyone, with them actively going through it or experiencing the second-hand repercussions of it every single day, proving that you never do know exactly what people are going through and that you must always be mindful of that.

My plan for this photoshoot is going to begin with going through old images of me and my brother and selecting ones that I think are the most appropriate for my final piece. I am going to photocopy these so that I can physically create something with them, whether that be burning selective pieces, using pen or painting over it. I think this will be very effective as it adds an element of art and graphic design into my work where I can then really get creative and use dynamic lines to tell a better story than the image could alone by itself. I will then photograph these images again so that I can put them onto the computer.

I am also going to go through many things that my parents have kept from me and my brother when we were younger, for example drawings or notes from childhood, so that I can also use these I my work because I would like to be able to highlight the way that mental health issues can completely take over and transform a person, being able to indicate that life wasn’t always like this and that these issues can develop, grow and fester so quickly out of nowhere that it occurs before your eyes before you realise. As this is something that has been occurring within my family life for a while now, being around 6-7 years, I think its not only incredibly important but that I owe it to myself to actively and clearly represent a difficult story that I have been part of that many people wouldn’t expect if I didn’t tell them, however this is something that affects millions of people on an day-to-day basis that makes it hard for them to cope with the demands of the world around them. This project is something I have thought about for a long time, knowing that this would be the topic I would like to focus on, because it is a part of me, and its a part of my family.

I gained the inspiration of using archived images such as family albums and distorting them from ‘Is that my blue butterfly?’ by Matthew Knapman, where he tears, scribbles, burns, bleeds, splatters ink, digitises and collages different images of his mother at a variety of ages and personal keepsakes of hers, in order to display the story of his mothers struggle with breast cancer, resulting in the loss of her life. I came across his personal study in the classroom when we began looking at what makes a personal study and deciding what grade boundaries we would give the one that we picked based off of their essay and their final piece. When I came across it, I instantly knew that I wanted to explore this theme of loss through different destructive methods as it will allow me to detail even further, the story that I intend to tell. Matthew Knapman gained inspiration from Jessa Fairbrother and Carolle Benitah, two artists who I plan to explore whilst also investigating the similar artists I can find and choosing whose work best correlates with my aim for my personal study, choosing who influences me the most.

I think one of the most important themes within my personal study is going to be nostalgia. The sentimental aspect behind my work, using old keepsakes from my childhood or archived images, is going to drive the story about the events that have occurred within my life that may have been unpleasant, but have shaped me as the person I am today, making it extremely important to tell this story in a clear yet respectful and truthful way. Alongside the theme of nostalgia comes a tone of grief, however, I want to convey the difficulty of grieving someone who is still here yet not the same person they one were or not who they are recalled to be. This sense of absence within my work is something I think will be very moving and striking, especially through the use of different art mediums, because not only will it make my work memorable and abstract, but it will be able to convey the multitude of emotions that I feel about the topic of mental health in regards to my brothers situation.

Justine Kurland

Justine Kurland was born in 1969 and is an American fine art photographer, based in New York City. She first gained public notice with her work in the group show, called Another Girl, Another Planet (1999), at New York’s Van Doren Waxter gallery.  The show included her large c-print staged tableaux pictures of landscapes inhabited by young adolescent girls, half-sprites, half juvenile delinquents. This was her first exhibition of a photographic interest that lasted from 1997, when she began taking pictures of her mentor Laurie Simmons’s babysitter and her friends, to 2002. Altogether, Kurland published 69 pictures of girls in a series called “Girl Pictures.” The staged photos take place in urban and wilderness settings, with girls depicted as though to imply they are runaways, hopeful and independent. As landscapes she chose the ‘secret places’ of late childhood; wasteland on the edges of suburbia, ‘owned’ only by a feral nature and unsupervised children. Her book Spirit West (2000) featured similar work on a more ambitious scale. In early 2001 Kurland spent several months in New Zealand, where she created similar work with schoolgirls there.

About ‘Girl Pictures’

‘The girls were rebelling. The girls were acting out. The girls had run away from home, that much was clear. They were trying on a version of themselves that the world has thus far shown them was boy.’ Floating a raft down the Mississippi. Tucking smokes into the sleeve of a T-shirt. Having a rumble. Living off land. Cowboys, sailors, pirates, hitchhikers, hobos, train hoppers, explorers, catchers in the rye, lords of the flies- you name it, all the dominion of boys. If you wanted a place in the narrative, you had to imagine yourself inside of it. – Justine Kurland.

This is the first paragraph in Justine Kurland’s book, where she sets the narrative of her ‘Girl Pictures’ for the viewers. The narrative of this story is that these girls have ran away from home, so that they can explore and have fun and be whoever they wish to be. She sets this narrative in these tableaux images, by having the girls pose doing all these different activities, such as swimming in rivers, or camping in forests.

She also explains what she wants the viewers to take in from this book and from her images, which is that you too can be anything you dream of in your imagination. She states that they are pirates, cowboys etc, because in ‘Girl Pictures’ these girls aren’t just girls, they are whoever they want to be. She also states that they are trying on ‘boy,’ because in society standards it is more socially acceptable for boys to act in this rambunctious manor, rather than girls. This is due to stereotypes seen through genders. I feel like in this book ‘Girl Pictures’ she is trying to fight against these stereotypes of young girls, and this is an important matter to her and all other girls, because they have grown up being told they should be or behave a certain way due to their gender. She is fighting against these stereotypes, by having these young girls act in a way that is seen as more masculine and not socially acceptable for these girls.

Kurland also began dating women shortly after completing her ‘Girls’ series, working with an undercurrent of sex and female sexuality. As of 2018 she had been dating her current female partner for three years. I think that, because of her work fighting against stereotypes it impacted her and also allowed her to fight stereotypes and socials norms in her own personal life.

Girl Pictures

Analysis of one image

The lighting used in this image is artificial lighting, because the image is taken inside. The image also has a high level of control, because it is a staged tableaux image, where the girls position, distance and location was manipulated the way Justine Kurland thought best fitted. This image is a colour image and has quite warm tones throughout out, because of the warmness of the light (not a harsh florescent light). The layout of these girls was manipulated, so that there was a foreground, middle ground, and background, which leads the viewers eye around the page from front to back. This make the girls the main viewpoint of this image.

This photograph displays ‘run away’ girls living out of public restrooms, as they are exploring their sexuality and ‘trying on boy.’ This photo is largely about fighting against stereotypes, as they are acting in a way that is seen as more masculine, as they are travelling and acting in rambunctious ways.

This image is also a mirror image, because it is a reflection of Justine Kurland the photographer. It is a reflection of her and very internal to her, because she is a lesbian photographer, who also had to grow up in these stereotypes and during these social norms that girls had to behave a certain way, that was socially acceptable. It is also a tableaux image, even though it looks like a documentary candid image. This is because it is a staged image.

Doug Aitken- New Opposition

Doug Aitken is an American multidisciplinary artist. Aitken’s body of work ranges from photography, print media, sculpture, and architectural interventions, to narrative films, sound, single and multi-channel video works, installations, and live performance. He was born in 1968 in Redondo Beach, California. He moved to New York in 1994 where he had his first solo show at 303 Gallery. He is best known for his work with video, and the characteristics that define that medium are apparent within ‘New Opposition.’

Aitken has a large range of work, including an array of site- specific installations, sometimes synthesizing interactive media with architecture, for example New Horizon. He has also made video installations since the mid 1990s and has created them by employing multiple screens in architecturally provocative environments, for example the diamond sea (1997). He has also made outdoor film installations. He has also written books, done sound experiments, made sculptures, light boxes and taken photographs.

About ‘New Opposition’

Aitken is well known for his many photographs, which often explore spatial and temporal disruption and narrative suggestion like his installations. In ‘New Opposition’ the photographs do not work as the self-sufficient one-off frames, but rely on each other for meaning. The optical tricks that the landscapes form when put together give the impression to the viewer that they are either falling into the centre of the earth, or are on top of it looking down as if from the apex of a pyramid. The active involvement by the viewer and the three-dimensional sculptural sensations of the photographs can also be seen in the elaborate installations that often accompany hid videos.

‘The series New Opposition consists of three pieces and was started in 2001. I was interested in the fragmentation of the image. I wanted to formulate an image that was whole but also broken apart. So these are multiple images working as one. I wanted to find a way to blend together different moments in time, different spaces and different locations. I wanted to bring them together in a central unifying image. They are not portraits or cityscapes but more an entropic progression. As the series progresses it becomes increasingly abstracted and denser and you get a sense of motion. The elements in the last image are ones you might just walk past in dally life – there is nothing special about the land. You can imagine someone who is surveying the land taking them. I really like the idea of banality and repetition being used to generate the images, which are simple and unobstructed and not captivated by composition. The images create a cycle of different places, but they can all be tied together through the central unifying theme of the horizon, which cuts, perpendicular, through them. I was after a three-dimensional quality. Working as well are the ideas of montage and editing, basically filmic concepts, as is a repetition. I wanted the eyes to constantly search for the horizon. When the images are brought together they collapse and create a feeling of retreating or expanding.’ – Doug Aitken.

New Opposition

Analysis of an Image

The type of lighting used in this image was natural daylight in all four of the sections, because these are all landscape images. There is also shade within this image, especially in the top two sections of this image, because it looks like a rocky mountain range to me, which would create a lot of shade, due to the rocks blocking the sun. There is little control in this image, because Doug Aitken cannot manipulate the landscape. However, he can manipulated the position he is in, where he point the camera, his editing and the distance he wants to stand at, and this can alter the levels of light, shade and just how the images look. There is lots of warm tones throughout this image, as the colours in this image are sandy brown colours. However, the bottom right section is the exception and has more cool tones, as the colours in this image are blue and a chalky white. There are quite a few dark and light tones throughout these images, due to the shade and lighting within them. There is also a lot of texture throughout these image, as you can see the texture of all the different rocks. The image is also very 3D due to its editing and due to the chosen landscapes. There is also lines and a pattern of repetition in his work, because of the lines separating the four quadrants.

The composition of these images are organised and arranged into their four sections during the editing process. The images are cropped and the angle of them is manipulated to create these images. The viewpoint of this image is the horizon. There is also harmony between the images, as they are all similar landscapes, but there is also contrast between the bottom right section and the other sections, due to the change in tone and colour. The editing in this image also gives depth of surface illusion, as it looks like the images are falling.

Doug Aitken wanted to create these images of ‘boring’ landscapes and create an image that would capture the viewers eye and leave the searching for the horizon in the image. He was also interested in the fragmentation of the image, as he wanted to form an image that is broken but whole. He did this to blend together different locations at different times.

This image is a mirror, because it is a documentary image of four different landscapes that have been pieced together. These images show the exterior world and are not a reflection or internal to Doug Aitken, because they do not reflect him in any way. These images have not been staged or manipulated.