ESSAY: In the Spring term will be spending 1 lesson a week, normally Wednesdays on writing and developing your essay. However, you will need to be working on it independently outside of lesson time.

Objective: Criteria from the Syllabus

• Be aware of some of the methods employed by critics and historians within the history of art and photography.
• Demonstrate a sound understanding of your chosen area of study with appropriate use of critical vocabulary. – use for image analysis
• Investigate a wide range of work and sources
• Develop a personal and critical inquiry.

How to start: Copy this essay plan into your own blog post, titled: Essay Draft:

Literary sources: Go to this blog post here: Theory: Literary Sources and copy relevant key texts relating to the subject of your essay and list in alphabetical order in your bibliography. In addition, find your own key texts in relation to artists selected for in-depth analysis in your essay and list these too. These texts could be interviews with the artist, or reviews/ critique’s written by others. See useful online sites/ sources here .

• Research and identify 3-5 literary sources from a variety of media such as books, journal/magazines, internet, Youtube/video that relates to your personal study and artists references .
• Begin to read essay, texts and interviews with your chosen artists as well as commentary from critics, historians and others.
• It’s important that you show evidence of reading and draw upon different pints of view – not only your own.
• Take notes when you’re reading…key words, concepts, passages, page number to be used for in-text referencing etc.

Essay Question

• Think of a hypothesis and list possible essay questions
• Below is a list of possible essay questions that may help you to formulate your own.

Some examples of Personal Study essays from previous students:

possible-essay-questions-to-investigate

Essay Plan
Make a plan that lists what you are going to write about in each paragraph. Further help can be found here essay structure or see link here The Royal Literay Fund

• Essay question:
• Opening quote
• Introduction (250-500 words): What is your area study? Which artists will you be analysing and why? How will you be responding to their work and essay question?
• Pg 1 (500 words): Historical/ theoretical context within art, photography and visual culture relevant to your area of study. Make links to art movements/ isms and some of the methods employed by critics and historian. 
• Pg 2 (500 words): Analyse first artist/photographer in relation to your essay question. Present and evaluate your own images and responses.
• Pg 3 (500 words): Analyse second artist/photographer in relation to your essay question. Present and evaluate your own images and responses.
• Conclusion (250-500 words): Draw parallels, explore differences/ similarities between artists/photographers and that of your own work that you have produced
• Bibliography: List all relevant sources used

Use of AI / ChatGPT – go to this blog post here for guidelines.

Key Terminology: Here is a link to a glossary of key words, glossary of photographic processes, glossary of art movements and genres, and linking words and phrases.

Essay writing: Here is a link to another blog post which will provide you with guideline and more details about how to structure each paragraph in your essay.

ESSAY WRITING

Draft Introduction (250-500 words). Think about an opening that will draw your reader in e.g. you can use an opening quote that sets the scene. You should include in your introduction an outline of your intention of your study e.g. what and who are you going to investigate. How does this area/ work interest you? What are you trying to prove/challenge, argument/ counter-argument? What historical or theoretical context is the work situated within. Include 1 or 2 quotes for or against. What links are there with your previous studies, if any? What have you explored so far, or what are you going to photograph? How will your work develop. What camera skills, techniques or processes have you experimented with, or are you going to experiment with?

Literary sources –

1. Sontag, S (1977) ‘In Plato’s cave’ in On Photography, London; Penguin Books

Question –

How is femininity shown through childhood, and stereotypically perceived through society?

Introduction –

Femininity is a very broad label to put on not just looks, but beliefs and speech. Femininity is the characteristics shown stereotypically by woman and girls. As a female today, my views and beliefs have varied throughout the years of my childhood. Not just because of growing up, but social media played a very big part as well. Everyone telling you what you can and can’t do, wear and say, really affects a developing brain, especially in a world where all you want to do is fit in. A very big inspiration in not just my photography work but mindset too, is Cindy Sherman. She breaks social stereotypes and never adapted herself to norms all through her long career. My work reflects hers quite deeply, as well as showing my own personal hints throughout as well. My childhood came with a lot of emotions and cultures, growing up abroad and living with a strange environment, with my parents splitting and that changing my view on stereotypical love. I want to include all the messy and irregular things that have happened to me and show them to the world. By normalising the unnormal, it can reflect Sherman’s work perfectly, the abstract, unnormal and weird. My project will be mainly surrounded by the idea of femininity and masculinity, using my previous project on that topic as inspiration and almost like a baseline for help. I know that will benefit my overall outcome. I’ve photographed moments of love, lust, fun and danger, focusing solely on teenage life for my first couple of photoshoots, the fun memories and universal moments that teenagers all over the world could relate experience too. I want to finish photographing the other areas of my topic, the family and childhood aspects, which I hold dearly in my mind. I want to focus my nostalgic photos on natural light, the outdoors and nature in general. I feel like naturalistic light can bring copious amounts of nostalgia to a photoshoot and that is a very important aspect to my project.

Paragraph 1 –

Femininity and stereotypes have been judged and watched for centuries, artists and photographers have battled these negative connotations alongside all the change and disruption it has caused. From the suffragette movement to the recent pro-choice movements against abortion bans in the US, and the Taliban control over woman in Afghanistan, photographers have followed it all. These movements are very important to me not just as a photographer, but a young woman in this era of time. With almost all my rights no longer being mine in some parts of the world it takes all the hard work and effort woman have given to fight these issues back after almost 100 years. I want to not only share my childhood story and simple issues that I faced personally with my audience, but also include the issues women all over the world face. Woman have always been the underappreciated gender, through stereotypes, and social and societal norms, “take care of the kids, clean the house, cook the dinner” and those are only the superficial sayings. I want to look deeper into the suffragette movement as inspiration for my photoshoot, since I want to add in almost nostalgia, the idea of the pro-choice movement almost repeating history of the suffragette movement, links nicely to my idea of using old, archived photographs and polaroid photos. The movement also being so powerful in female history, gives not only an impactful connotation to my work, but also helps show the hardships that continue to ensure to this day. Even though the times have changed, the issues still commence, and I believe that focusing on that explanation and topic can impact my personal study immensely. The use of usually candid photographs that are taken of these movements, are very powerful, raw emotion and genuine expressions hold a lot of importance, so I want to include that aspect. I want to place photos that demonstrate issues women must face all over the world, next to innocent childhood photos and general childhood to adulthood moments and memories to show the contrast and the behind the scenes, of almost every girl’s life. With photos that depict party scenes, kindness and genuine friendship and love, contrasting with photos that depict hatred, maliciousness and hurt. I believe that everyone should have to see the life every woman lives, whether it is fitting into societal norms, or rooting into personal insecurity. Many people wrongly think that life as a woman is nothing but giggles and makeup, cooking and cleaning but the struggles that woman face hold an unmeasurable amount of weight on each and every one, including myself. I want to be able to open the eyes of the people who view my work, physically, emotionally and morally. I want them to not only feel emotion towards it, but feel the need to make change, to thank their mother, grandmother, sister and friend, for making it through to whatever stage they may be at in their life, a simple thank you and an I love you can really make the hardships worth it, when you hear it from someone you love. While I understand that the ‘normal’ woman may not understand or even be able to fathom half of the issues that some woman in Afghanistan, for example may be living with, everyone has their own hardships and with my work, I want to show the raw and sometimes hidden difficulties that come with life, and more importantly being a girl. Social media has not been around long enough for people who endured the suffragettes movement, I believe that with the power that social media holds over everyone on this earth, my work could reach just the right people, not just those who could do something about it, but those who need the hope of knowing someone is watching and noticing and wants to make a difference.

Paragraph 2 –

One photographer that I believe really resonates with my work is Bianka Schumann. Her work focuses on the idea of memory, she explored this topic through two perspectives. The first reflects on adolescence, growing up and something that she calls ‘no mans land’. This is what she describes as the space between childhood and maturity. The awkward time frame where I sit now, you think you know everything there is to know but really, you have no clue. The second perspective being nostalgia, the memory of things that sometimes we don’t realise we remember. The secret memories hidden away that are enclosed by not just time but hurt too. These memories are usually deeply personal and some things that people don’t often feel the need to share. Bianka uses a lot of natural light in her work, it gives an incredible idea of the instinctive and regular life through childhood. Using clever spacing and portrait she also brings unease and danger into her work slightly. I feel that this is symbolism of danger and unease could show the criticality of childhood, the importance of this time in every person’s life. Bianka also uses techniques in her photography like blurring. She often blurs backgrounds of photos, whether this is to bring more attention to the focal point or show a sense of desperation, a need to be seen. Many children have times where they don’t feel seen, and maybe this is how Bianka helps her inner child heal from not being seen. Bianka’s ideas of nostalgia and memory is something I really want to interpret into my personal project. My memories I have surrounding my childhood are very close to my heart, good or bad. So, including them is important for me. Since my main idea is to pursue the theme of childhood and growing up from the feminine perspective, I believe nostalgia can be a very powerful approach for expressive work as it resonates with a lot of different people, man or woman, from all over the world, in whatever way they want to portray it. I also would love to include Bianka’s use of natural light. I feel that is can emphasise meanings and symbolism throughout my work very easily. Studio lighting and artificial light can come across as too harsh in some respects. I want my photographs to not look staged, I want it to be as natural as it can. Obviously, I will need to think about staged ‘candid’ photos since it is difficult to capture photos in the style I’m looking for in natural scenarios, with completely natural lighting that is perfect for my photographs.

Paragraph 3 –

Another artist that resonates with me and my work is Catherine Panebianco, a photographer who resides from British Columbia, Canada. Her work, similar to Bianka Schumann’s, focuses on memories, home and people she loves. Catherines work looks for a sense of belonging and place, a safe space some people may phrase it as. This really links to my work because of the idea of security, I wanted to include this in my project in the form of archived photos. In Catherines work, she used archived photos and the original place they were taken. I believe that that holds a lot of power in reconnection with past memories and emotions and though I don’t want to use that exact idea, the concept I believe is very powerful. The technicalities of Catherines work varies from blurry background to natural light. Similar to Bianka’s work, it really encapsulates nostalgia, the use of this technique of naturality captures the ease and thought that links to nostalgia, no artificial memories, just raw. I believe that natural light can help develop or remind a person of memories and the undeniable link that holds with each individual, whether that’s fragile reminders or ones that bring someone the most comfort. Catherine’s use of blurs in her photos is also an extremely powerful tool id like to include in my work. It focuses the viewer on the spotlight of each photo, immediately retaining their attention and in Catherines case, the polaroid she uses in each of her photographs. It shows the focal point immediately allowing the individual to focus on the centre of each photo, concluding their own story and interpretation of each photo. Focusing on the centre of the image, whilst the rest of the story comes in when they take a wider look at the artwork. I also really appreciate the personal feeling her work holds. The subtle inclusion of Catherine’s hand in each photo allows each viewer to have a separate and individual relationship with the art and the artist herself. I also believe that a small detail like this almost takes the serious connotation these types of photoshoots hold, and while Panebianco’s work is very well established, it allows a relaxing and calm nostalgic environment surround the piece. One aspect of Catherine’s work I definitely want to impact mine is the idea of a focal point, her use of a focal point really resonates with me. I want to bring that self-creating feel to my artwork, not just to interest my viewers, but to resonate emotionally with each and every individual. One photo alone can bring up so many emotions for someone and I feel like nostalgia is a universal part of that. Natural light, which I’ve mentioned countless times, is a serious technique I want to include. The comfort and natural feel it can bring to art is so powerful. It brings a general understanding to art and not just others but ourself too. Natural light has a powerful way of bringing things together, in a technical way, it compliments everything in nature, the beauty and danger of it all. However, in an emotional way, it brings it together almost intertwining them as one. The memory of the warm sun and comforting, grounding feeling of outside, can bring thousands of memories form everyone all over the world together.

Conclusion –

Both artists explore a variety of different themes, techniques and approaches. While Bianka Schumann focuses on growth and maturity through approaches like adolescence and growing up, Catherine Panebianco focuses on memories, home and people she loves. Bianka pinpoints in on the journey and the growth, the experience that is needed to grow emotionally and spiritually as a person. She uses a lot of natural light, similar to Catherine’s work but they both use it so simply to produce completely different pieces of art, yet they build on the same emotions in each and every person. I believe that Bianka’s use of natural light help her explore the naturality of her emotions. The expression that she uses to impact her photography is seen clearly through all her work. Since her work resonates a lot with childhood the use of natural light has such a different impact and outcome overall then what you see with Catherines work, where it impacts clarity and feeling more overall. In Bianka’s work, the portrait photographing technique is very moving and impactful for her theme and production. With the inclusion of this technique, the technicality side of photography is really brought to light as well, as this is something you may not focus on as much with Catherine’s work which focus more and candid photos and archived polaroid pictures which create not just emotion but dimension. While Catherine uses proof of memories and archived photographs, Bianka takes hers from scratch. Personally, I believe that Catherine’s technique is subsequentially more impactful emotionally, however some may argue that the use of fresh images may reach a lot more important subliminal messages to other people and allow individual emotions to manifest in each person. Up to now, my personal work I feel, has reflected a lot more of Bianka’s not just thought, but technique overall. The use of similar ideas she has included, my portrait photography and ‘canid’ moments caught through the lens, my reinvention of old memories, It all leads back to her work. While I love the ideas that is shown through Catherines work, the idea of including archived photography into my newly made photos has become more crowded than I have liked. I will be definitely be including the use of archived photos, but I believe that they give so much impact themselves that placing them into or on top of new photos can be almost overbearing in my project in particular due to the heavy theme I have dedicated my work too.