Here I did a photoshoot based on Cindy Sherman’s work and how women were idealized, they were around to cook and take care of the house work and children, women were taken seriously and these photos slightly represent what their lives consisted off. we went round the house taking pictures of the model cleaning the floors, the dishes and also reaching out for a book from the book shelf, I made the model hold quite a steady face almost as if they were upset but try to hide it, having the model smile would completely defeat the point of the photo as women were quite miserable as they didn’t have as much freedom as men. This photoshoot holds quite a lot of emotions as there are a few photos of the models crying, this represents a stereotype that women are seen as weak and not as strong as men they tend to let all their emotion out where men tend to hold their emotions in, this helps them build character as show that they are masculine where girl aren’t afraid to let people see their emotions.
I made these photos black and white as did Cindy Sherman. I feel as though it makes the photo look more elegant and modern, these photos show so much mysterious elements to show that we don’t know what was going on in their life. They are such feminine photos as stereotypically you wouldn’t see a man scrubbing the floor or doing the dishes, although it is normalized now back then it would be seen as strange and not right as men were meant to go out and work and women stayed at home. The photos where the model cry’s could show how they were emotionally damaged and never had anyone there for them when they needed it, they didn’t have any support. Although I do have two models crying together it could represent a mother and daughter going through the same thing or it could sister, they hate that they are so emotional and always picked on because of it, boys are too “masculine” to cry.
To get information about Cindy Sherman and used the website:
https://www.moma.org/artists/5392
Cynthia Morris Sherman is an American artist whose work consists primarily of photographic self-portraits, depicting herself in many different contexts and as various imagined characters. Sherman was always interested in experimenting with different identities. As she has explained, “I wish I could treat every day as Halloween, and get dressed up and go out into the world as some eccentric character.” Shortly after moving to New York, she produced her Untitled Film Stills (1977–80), in which she put on guises and photographed herself in various settings with deliberately selected props to create scenes that resemble those from mid-20th-century B movies. Started when she was only 23, these images rely on female characters (and caricatures) such as the jaded seductress, the unhappy housewife, the jilted lover, and the vulnerable naif . Sherman used cinematic conventions to structure these photographs: they recall the film stills used to promote movies, from which the series takes its title. The 70 Film Stills immediately became flashpoints for conversations about feminism, postmodernism, and representation, and they remain her best-known works.
“I wish I could treat every day as Halloween, and get dressed up and go out into the world as some eccentric character.”
–Cindy Sherman
Cinder Sherman’s work is based on how women were treated back in the olden days. She states that her photos show that she is an unhappy housewife, all her photos were self-portraits to help represent how badly women and wives were treated, her photos look very mysterious which helps us to identify what she was feeling. Although this photo isn’t very easy to consolidate, I can see that all her photos are in black and white and almost have this gradient effect on the photo. Having your photos in black in white for me makes the photo look more modern but in Cindy Sherman’s photos I believe it adds an emotion to the photo, it shows that she may be smiling on the outside but the inside she is really hurt and feels alone, she hasn’t got no one there for her. The photo has a main focus on Cindy and makes everything else in the background look a little bit blurrier, this helps us to see how Cindy has portrayed her emotions, to look happy but still hold some sadness. Cindy Sherman’s posture make the photo look a lot more mysterious as you really don’t know what she is up to.
Sherman has continued to transform herself, displaying the diversity of human types and stereotypes in her images. She often works in series, improvising on themes such as centrefolds (1981) and society portraits (2008). untitled #216, from her history portraits (1981), exemplifies her use of theatrical effects to embody different roles and her lack of attempt to hide her efforts: often her wigs are slipping off, her prosthetics are peeling away, and her makeup is poorly blended. She highlights the artificiality of these fabrications, a metaphor for the artificiality of all identity construction.
Here I went to the studio to take a few photos, we tried to get a coloured background to represent different things, for example I used a red colour to appear on the models face as it creates an evil effect almost as if the model is a bad person, the background is quite neutral and is just in clack and white to show that the model has no filter, evil is the only thing they represent.
here I tried to experiment with different colours, for example by changing out the red and using a purple sought of represents a mysterious mood which wouldn’t be identified very well, personally my favourite photo is the top middle photo, i really like how the red sits perfectly on the models face, and the way the model is looking away almost as if she was hiding something from the camera, not wanting to tell the truth.
Here I used photoshop to add some colour and light to my photos, I tried to add a gradient look to make more pictures look more detailed, some of the photos have very different lighting such as the one on the right looks very light and almost has an ash look to it while the one on the left looks more dark toned, where the lighting is dark and the facial features are harder to see, this represents an evil look more than the one on the right as the features of that photo are more soft. However the one in the middle looks very evil too although u can see the facial features quite well, the facial expression that the model holds are very sinister and the back ground is a plain light with green reflected onto the model which could symbolise good but could also easily be a trick. That represents a mysterious look.
When editing these photos into more detail I would quite like to overlay half of the good vs evil photos onto each other to create an image where both sides are competing with each other, its almost a war of which face is going to win. Both of these photos can easily represent someone’s mood on different days and the storyline could show that the person is trying their hardest to fight the evil from showing, they only want there good side to be seen.
Here I tried to recreate the second one down however it didn’t really go to plan as the lighting was very dark and the facial feature weren’t visible, but I do like that it has a red background as it helps to bring out the evil. I do feel as though having a black background could be sufficient as everything else is black out except one part on the models face.
Here I got a few photos off the internet, which could help me do a photoshoot on good vs evil and I thought that having two models together could make the photo look more detailed, however I do have a few single model photos to take for example the man who have his hand in the middle of his face to separate the different sides, as you can see one side is hided in the dark which could represent to good side meaning there isn’t one some people don’t have a good side and only show the evil side, as the side sowing looks quite mad and annoyed. although these ideas don’t necessarily represent my artist research, I could easily link them together, the idea of being good or evil can be represented through using stereotypes of certain genders, for example boys could be seen as stronger and more powerful, this therefore makes women seen as softer and ‘better’ as they don’t necessarily have much power to make them bad. I could use a boy to stand as the evil model and ill have the girl stand on the side as a ‘good’ model. This doesn’t necessarily portray women as weaker and less powerful but through the decades its shown that women were just on the side and never player the main role, like Cindy Sherman. However, I chose a different artist as it shows how different people see genders and everyday life also the artist defines each gender as combined to show that they don’t have to separated, they feel as though gender shouldn’t be seen as a difference. For example, men shouldn’t be seen as leaders and should be neutralised, or men and women are both leaders to show equality.
Girl Vs Boy:
This idea looks more realistic to my research and makes more sense to consider. The way girls and boys are portrayed.
We could also see how girls and boys dress themselves and how opposite they are/ how similar they can be.
Using some of the ideas from above, recreating their posture and poses. I like the idea of having two different genders standing next to each other as they are very different, however they can be very similar depending on how each person believes and thinks. Each gender has a very different style and so does each race as everyone has their own beliefs and views which can show a contrast between different views although it does make the photograph look quite unusual as there are different types of themes in the photo, it could make the photo look messy and untidied, in a cool type of way instead of having everything looks professional and neat, This could be a way of representing different opinions out loud without offending anyone but simply by being yourself can help open people’s views and thoughts more wider. I like the idea of doing boy vs girl or man vs women, however if I could have had the chance, I would have liked to do women vs girl/ man vs boy, this would help us understand how people grow up and change and how people mature through the years. It could be how a little girl was interested in sports and the opposite of girly things girls ‘should do’. As girls are stereotypically seen as doing their makeup in their spare time. This little could grow up to hating sports which destroys their childhood and their possible dreams they had.
I would quite like to recreate the photo with the two children walking away from the camera, I really like it as the two children are wearing completely different clothes and have different hair styles, this shows how each gender is portrayed as, as you wouldn’t see a little boy wearing a dress, it would be seen as unnormal and weird which isn’t the right word to describe it as.
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.
Catherine Opie’s photography has many factors of stereotyping what men and women should be seen as, and not what they chose to become, although men and women are seen as very different you shouldn’t portray a certain expectation from them. I believe that women and men should have there own preference as long as it stays respectful to each gender, for example it wouldn’t be right for a man to dress up as a women and make fun of them for ow they would dress or how they act by imitating certain feminine actions. There are different types of people and styles that are more feminine and masculine, as for in the photos they seem to be bikers that ride big bikes, therefore they are dressed in quick thick leather jackets, most have short hair and wear big chains/ necklaces. This doesn’t make the style specific to a specific gender but does portray certain clothing’s men tend to wear. At the top the 3 photos I chose to use as a mood board represent how boys should be seen and how some are seen as more feminine, the middle photo is unidentified as a girl or a boy as there facial features are show, personally I would say it is a girl but wouldn’t assume as that can effect someone’s well being. The top right and left photo are pictures of ‘boys’ stereotypically shown as they are seen playing sports. However the middle picture is a girl to me as they are wearing jewellery although they have very short hair they still have most of the feminine features. Catherine Opie has a very unique photography styles where she takes portraits of people and presents them as that without adding any exposure to the editing, she left them photo quite clean and basic so we could really focus on the persons facial features. She is also known for creating openly lesbian artist who is part of often denigrated queer subcultures, Opie has spent much of her career documenting underground, subversive, and outsider communities – using extremely stylized, formal conventions of portrait photography to frame unconventional subjects, including herself.
she even has some of her work put up in a gallery, this shows how important and how it has impacted so many people as it lets people to open up as find a way to express themselves without getting judged.
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.
The Russian-Ghanaian artist had two solo exhibitions in 2019, at the South London Gallery and the Brooklyn Museum, New York. Since moving to London in 1991, she has continued to dedicate herself to documenting the lives of communities from the African diaspora, adding to her ongoing project Black Balloon Archive.
“I wanted to approach the subject of masculinity from a woman’s perspective. My mum made the needlepoints [of Leonardo da Vinci’s The Last Supper and Mona Lisa and Iphigenie by Anselm Feuerbach]; she began making The Last Supper when I was 15 and it took her two years to complete, so I grew up with this image. She did so many needlepoints. They were made at home and she never showed them to anyone. Like the voguing classes I documented — the girls went there for themselves, it wasn’t to entertain anyone.”
Liz Johnson Artur type of photography is very cultural and has a very specific type of clothing used, most of the photos show what the girls wear such as short crop tops and shorts, some would wear vest or maybe some basket ball shorts which doesn’t really show masculinity.
However Liz likes to recreate photos with ‘men’ wearing making up and dressing up like girls and this doesn’t necessarily represent that they are making fun of women and how women are portrayed to be like, I would say women are very soulful and like to dress up which isn’t the case for everyone as there are people who like to stay cosy and not as dress up which doesn’t make them less feminine. Also we have men dressing up as women which doesn’t make them fully women but they have a chance to express themselves, although many people have very strong opinions about how certain genders act such as men are strong and big headed and should act as if they have power and control and women are seen to be more sensible and strong working, they are more caring and they look after the children, cook dinner. Most people don’t like changing that as it can be seen as insulting to dress up as the opposite gender. This artist helps us to view why some people might be doing it since they are looking for themselves or a way to express themselves, they want to feel more connected to a certain type of gender, as different genders have different topics to discuss, such as makeup for girls and possibly sports for boys, although it isn’t wrong for other gender’s to relate to each of the topics it just shows a stereotype of what we as a society are used to. I like the idea of getting the different genders to dress up as it shows that we should accept people as a whole and let them express themselves as it could be harder for some than others.
( article found)
Liz Johnson Artur is a Ghanaian-Russian photographer based in London, England. Her work documents the lives of black people from across the African Diaspora. Her work strives to display and celebrate the normal, the vibrant and the subtle nuances of each of these people lives that she encounters. Artur has taken photographs across Europe, America, Africa and the Caribbean for more than three decades. She calls this ongoing project the Black Balloon Archive, alluding to a 1970 song lyric by Syl Johnson that describes a black balloon ‘dancing’ in the sky, which is how Artur imagines her own movement when taking photographs. This exhibition focuses on London, where Artur has lived since 1991, capturing the richness and complexity of Black British life. “What I do is people,” Artur says of her work. “But it’s those people who are my neighbours. And it’s those people who I don’t see represented anywhere.” Artur shoots exclusively on film, and here her images are printed at various sizes, materialised using traditional photographic techniques onto paper as well as applications onto fabric, tracing paper and cardboard. Artur uses these different techniques in the workbooks she has regularly made since she first picked up a camera, and the exhibition functions as an expanded version of these ongoing journals.
Qualities or attributes regarded as characteristic of men or boys. Masculinity involves displaying attitudes and behaviours that signify and validate maleness, and involves being recognised in particular ways by other men and women.
Boys/ men are portrayed to act all tough and strong and told to hold and show no emotions, this therefore shows us a clear image of what men are/can be. We all believe that women and the sensitive ones and its ok to cry whereas if a boy shows any tears they are seen as weak and need to man up. This shows a negative image as we aren’t really seeing what boys/ men are but the mask that they put on. I believe that men/ boys should be able to do anything they desire as long as its right and respectful, although they are seen as strong they sometimes use that as their advantage which shouldn’t be seen as a positive aspect of being a man, everyone has an opinion and everyone has feelings that they express otherwise they get bottle up and create more anger inside someone’s minds.
Personally I believe that men/boys act stronger than what they are in all positive ways as they create a shield in front of them to block any negative things from coming their way.
based on the internet I found that a man who is truly masculine embraces responsibility and loves, honours, protects and provides for his family and loved ones.
What is healthy masculinity?
What Is Healthy Masculinity? Healthy or positive masculinity is the idea that men can be emotionally expressive, have female friends or mentors, and express their emotions without feeling emasculated.
What does toxic masculinity mean?
Toxic masculinity refers to the notion that some people’s idea of “manliness” perpetuates domination, homophobia, and aggression. Toxic masculinity involves cultural pressures for men to behave in a certain way. And it’s likely this affects all boys and men in some fashion.
What is gentle masculinity?
Gentle masculinity is supportive, caring, loving, gentle and kind. There is banter, yes, but it’s gentle banter. It’s supportive banter compared to that of “sour masculinity,” which is marked by aggressive behavior, harsh sexualized language, abusive and cold banter about women, and constant put-downs between boys.
FEMININITY:
Qualities or attributes regarded as characteristic of women or girls. It is both a means of ‘getting ahead’ as much as it can be a form of distraction. Being in the feminine means taking time as it comes and feeling into situations. It’s about trusting intuition and allowing time and space for life to unfold.
however women/girls are portrayed to be more fragile and weak, we are supposed to stay at home and cook, clean and do all the house work, this gives us an impression that women are seen as helpers, I personally believe that women are a lot more than that and have a lot more potential.
Other forms: feminists. A feminist is someone who supports equal rights for women. If your brother objects strongly to women being paid less than men for doing the same job, he’s probably a feminist. If you believe that women should have the same political, social, and economic rights as men, you are a feminist.
we use a stereotype on women where they belong in a kitchen and being a house wife when women want to have freedom and rights they deserve the same rights as men as we are all equal, it is said that women are more weak and men are stronger which doesn’t define someone and isn’t necessarily true
There are seven feminine archetypes that prevail in contemporary western society—the mother, the maiden, the queen, the huntress, the sage, the mystic, and the lover. The presence of these archetypes in our psyches accounts for the major differences among women.
What is very feminine behavior?
This may include being passive, naive, sexually inexperienced, soft, flirtatious, graceful, nurturing, and accepting.
What are the three types of femininity?
Type 1: Careerist Femininity. Type 2: Individualised Femininity. Type 3: Vocational Femininity.
Binary opposition
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 – a set of boundaries to work within.
A binary opposition is very easy to identify as its the basics of opposites for example:
-A more narrow definition of a cultural conflict dates to Daniel Bell‘s 1962 essay, “Crime as an American Way of Life”, and focuses on criminal-enabling consequences of a clash in cultural values.
-Kornblum notes that, whenever laws impose cultural values on a group that does not share those views (often, this is the case of the majority imposing their laws on a minority), illegal markets supplied by criminals are created to circumvent those laws.
-Kornblum also classifies the cultural conflict as one of the major types of conflict theory.
(Ideas):Conflicting values
–Jonathan H. Turner defines cultural conflict as a conflict caused by “differences in culturalvalues and beliefs that place people at odds with one another.”
-On a micro level, Alexander Grewe discusses a cultural conflict between guests of different culture and nationality as seen in a British 1970 sitcom, Fawlty Towers.
-Cultural conflicts are difficult to resolve as parties to the conflict have different beliefs.
– Cultural conflicts intensify when those differences become reflected in politics, particularly on a macro level. An example of cultural conflict is the debate over abortion.
Personally, I believe that there are a lot of things causing cultural wars such as inequality, racism and other things such as religion and sex plus people trying to find their identity. I think that people should just accept certain people for who they are but there are also people who abuse the system by claiming information and wanting to make it real. It’s the fact that everyone is different and everyone has an opinion, certain feel as though they have the right for everyone to hear their thoughts where as others disagree, it’s hard to get everyone to agree with the same things that’s why we have conflicts and wars, we have the different genders fighting for different things such as women wanting equality, and certain men believing they should have the power, through all these ideas and conflicts to make everything easier the genders should be neutralised, this would be a huge problem for certain but why should men be above women just like why should certain races be above others. We have had constant arguments about Black Lives Matter and why they should be equal to the rest, these fights are all very unmatured to my opinion as everyone is human and deserve to have the same rights as everyone else, no one is left out, no one is judged and no one should have to sacrifice more things to have the same thing in return. This society has changed a lot which impacts the way people think and act. There are many things that have changed people’s perspective on life and some opinions are more valid than others, however it doesn’t change the fact that everyone has an opinion and has the right to express it. We have conflicts on things on abortion, some people believe that it is murder while others believe that abortion should be allowed, each opinion is valid, but I do believe that it should be the women’s decision if she wants to keep the baby or not. Many people would go against my opinion which I think is wrong as everyone has freedom of speech, there are conflicts about religion and how people may have different beliefs that someone else and therefore creates this exclusion. Some religions are more restrictive and make people wear religious symbols, headscarf’s whereas other religions are kept more on the down low. People believe that showing of your religion can impact how people think for example, children might feel forced to have a religion based on what they see around them. All together they will always be conflicts in society as everyone is so different and we don’t all agree which is a good and bad thing.
Here I used Photoshop to edit some of my photos together. I had to press a specific mode to choose what type of overlay I wanted to have on each photo. One of the photos I made, I started by putting a background onto photoshop and then applied different photos that I thought would work best. I then used the Elliptical marquee tool to cut out circles of the models face, this then aloud me to get the diamond cameo effect. I turned the photo black and white to make it blend in to the background a little bit better.
For the bottom ones I had experimented on photoshop to see if I could mix up the photos a little bit, I started by importing more than one photo on top of another and then selecting a blending mode or even placing on each end of the page so I could see both faces, whether it was the same face or a different one.
I personally really like how the top left one and the bottom right one turned out as you can see the facial details quite well. It also helps me to identify what hard and soft lighting is. These two photos are quite different as one is light an the other one is rather dark and another is light.
overall I’m really happy how things turned out and how well my ideas came together, although a lot of my final outcomes looks quite similar I made sure to use different photos so that each outcome could have something unique and different. I personally really like how the bottom two ideas worked out as they are very different to my first attempt to edit, although I didn’t use the same photos, I used different affects. However for these bottom two photos I had to copy each layer of the green photo and place it next to each other to create a whole collage of photos, this really impacted the final result.
For these photos I only used on specific tool to edit them, This impacted how much each overlay of the photo could be seen whether I put it on vivid light or soft light. I chose a range of them depending on the lights and shadows of each photograph.
Here we went into the studio and started taking pictures of each model with different coloured lights to try and get a different perspective of each photo taken, I believe that these colours really change the mood of the photo whether the photo has a light or dark shadowing or none, or if it has a red colour to represent anger or even love, there are so many possibilities to these photos which makes the viewer look and think about all the scenarios. I believe that each photo has a meaning even if its just a random photo taken at any random time there is still some meaning to the phot as to why it was taken at that time and place .
we got each model to do different poses so that after I could edit the photos together to create a dimensional look on the photo, I really like how the red ones turned out as I asked the model to look to the side and therefore I can make the photo look quite different and unusual. The two side photos have very different lighting although they are both red there shadowing is light and dark, for example on the left the shadowing in the side of the models face is a cooler colour which makes the face look more mature and sophisticated and the on eon the right has a much more warmer tone which blended in more with the red colouring this made the features stand out less than the cooler tones did.
overall this photoshoot was a success and I really like how the final outcomes of the photos turned out, personally I really like how the middle blue photo looks in the end as its a very different photo compared to the rest as the lighting is a lot darker, the background of the photo is also a lot lighter and pink which changes the black around to give each person different shadowing.
