What is Femininity

Femininity is mainly associated with women and girls. and there is some evidence that some behaviours considered feminine are influenced by both cultural factors and biological factors. Femininity can be influenced by places, society and family etc.

The term ‘femininity’ has been adapted over time, for example in the 20th century women were expected to be:

• Passive
• Sensitive
• Emotional
• Gentle
• Caring

Women were often valued for how they looked and not what they did. Looks and behaviours contribute to being feminine like having softer features, long hair and a smaller frame and curves. While these are all stereotypical ideas, women have and continue to move forward in the world.

These photos show the evolution of what is perceived as femininity and women throughout the last century

1920s

1930s

1940s

1950s

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1970s

1980s

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2020

Nowadays, women can be and feel like whatever and whoever they want to be as the world is a much more open place.

This is stereotypically how femininity can be shown but lots of women feel as if they do not fit into the category of being stereotypically “feminine”. This means that women who don’t feel like they fit into being feminine, can be transgender and feel comfortable and more belonging as a male.

What is Masculinity

Masculinity is mainly associated with men and boys. and there is evidence that some behaviours considered masculine are influenced by both cultural factors and biological factors. Masculinity can also be influenced by places, society and family.

Masculinity can be described as:

• Strength
• Courage
• Independence
• Leadership
• Assertiveness

A patriarchal perspective sees men as rational and normality. In the 20th century men were seen as the “household heads” where they would provide and care for their family and home. The looks and behaviours of a stereotypical male would be wider faces, broader and prominent features and more facial and body hair.

These photos show the evolution of how masculinity is perceived throughout the last century

1920s

1930s

1940s

1950s

1960s

1970s

1980s

1990s

2000s

2010s

2020s

Binary Opposites

A binary opposition is a pair of related terms or concepts that are opposite in meaning. Some examples would be:

• Positive V Negative
• Male V Female
• Good V Bad
• Young V old
• Strong V Weak

Femininity and masculinity are seen as binary opposites, this is because of the theory that “Man” and “woman” have been opposed as binary oppositional terms since patriarchal society was formed.

Gender Identity

Gender identity is your sense of whether you are a man, woman, nonbinary, gender fluid or a combination of one or more of these identities. It’s part of your sense of self. It’s how you understand who you are and how you interact with others.

These are the final photos we took for the diamond cameo. For the actual photos we made the model look towards the camera, left and right for the cameo. while editing I made them all black and white because I thought it would look best for the type of design I would like the end result to look like. Then I put the exposure up as when I turned the pictures to black and white they all looked really dark and the model blended in with the background. I turned down the texture and clarity to get rid of any unwanted textures like the curtain in the background.

Final Diamond Cameo

This is the final cameo. I chose a white background for it as I didn’t like an olden day look to these images, so I liked the plain white background with the black and white images standing out. It gave these images a modern style which I preferred. The model is posing seriously as the diamond cameo is showing all angles of the face which I personally preferred a neutral and more serious look for.

Henry Mullins started working  230 Regent Street in London in the 1840s and moved to Jersey in July 1848, setting up a studio known as the Royal Saloon at 7 Royal Square. His speciality was Cartes de visite and the photographic archive of La Société contains a massive collection of these. After his death his collection of over 20,000 pictures was acquired in 1883 by Clarence Philip Ouless and formed part of his collection which was given to La Société in 2006. he had a collection of over 9,000 portraits of Jersey residents.

These images are only a small portion of the large amount of images he took, these images would then be placed into an album, presented as Carte De Visite:

Carte De Visite:

Henry Mullins specialised in Cartes de visite, it is presented widely in the photographic archive of La Société and the online archive contains 9600 images. The Carte De Visite is described as the first commercial photographic print produced using egg whites to bind the photographic chemicals to the paper and this is would be very rare to see now. This consisted of a small thin photograph mounted onto a thicker piece of card, however Mullins placed his work into an album.

Diamond Cameo:

This layout of final images is called a Diamond cameo because of diamond-like shape made by the placement of oval images. I personally like this layout form because it makes it interesting by showing all the angles of his face.

Arnold Newman

Arnold Newman was an American photographer born in New York 1918 and died in 2006. He created environmental Portraits. in 1946, Newman relocated to New York, opened Arnold Newman Studios and worked as a freelance photographer. He maintained that even if the subject is not known, or is already forgotten, the photograph itself must still excite and interest the viewer. Most of his work is black and white but he does have some images in colour.

Throughout his career, Arnold Newman photographed a variety of different famous people, for example: Pablo Picasso, Frank Lloyd Wright, Golda Meir, Andy Warhol, Marilyn Monroe, Salvador Dalí and Bill Clinton. He found his vision in the empathy he felt for artists and their work.

This photograph of Pablo Picasso is very messy but its like everything is perfectly placed to show Picassos day to day environment. The artwork around Picasso is probably his own work. It is telling a story about his life in paintings inside a photo. Arnold Newman’s work is very emotional.

We use studio lighting because it lets us to create a variety of photo lighting techniques, without the need for editing. Studio lighting also presents a professional look in photos, differing from the quality without studio lighting. Studio lighting can make a photograph like setting the mood, creating shadows and texture and more. Using studio lighting is much easier than using natural light or any other light.

1 point lighting:

1 point lighting is a lighting set up which uses one light source to light up the subject. The light is often positioned directly in front or behind the camera although, it is often positioned at a 45 degree angle to the subject. The light used for this set up is known as the key light.

2 Point Lighting:

2 point lighting consists of 2 different types of light, the key light and the fill light. The key light is placed to one side of the camera and illuminates the subject, creating shadows and the fill light is positioned directly opposite the key light to ‘fill in’ the shadows. This produces a more harmonised and authentic appearance.

3 Point Lighting:

3 point lighting uses of 3 lights which are placed in order to create a well balanced photograph while illuminating the subject. 3 point lighting includes a key light and fill light and it also has a backlight. The backlight is placed behind the subject to illuminate the sides of the subject and make it stand out from the background, rather than blending in.

For this photo I changed the colour to black and white to make the photo look moody as he isn’t smiling in the photo. I added texture to display the image better.

For this photo I added vibrancy into the photo to make all the colours pop more because she was smiling and is a happy lady so it matched the vibe.

For this photo I didn’t feel the need to edit much as he is in a normal environment and he is smiling so all I did was make the photo clearer and a bit brighter.

For this photo I made it black and white because I think it looks really good like that. The black and white photo makes the photo have an older vibe which makes the photo look very good as it fit well with the teacher.

For this photo I turned down the exposure and highlights because the original photo was very bright and it didn’t look good. I turned up the temperature for a warmer vibe to the photo as he is happy and smiling so it makes the photo look really warm.

These pictures are my flagged pictures because they were my favourite photos and they definitely looked the best out of all my pictures they were also the clearest and the best ones taken.

Butterfly lighting is a technique where the light source is placed directly above and slightly in front of the subject’s face, creating a small butterfly-shaped shadow under the nose. This happens because the lighting in the shot comes from above the models head. The technique is achieved by placing a light source at a 45-degree angle to the subject, slightly above eye level.

Butterfly lighting is primarily used in a studio setting. Butterfly lighting is mostly used for portraits, as it is flattering on everybody. It can either be a very harsh light or soft depending on the type of photo you want to achieve.

Here are some examples:

My photoshoot:

For my photos the Chiaroscuro photos are coloured yellow, the Rembrandt photos are red and the butterfly photos are coloured green

For this photo I didn’t edit it that much because the original photo perfectly displaced the butterfly lighting technique already so all I did was change the colour of the photo to a bit darker to match the dark backdrop.

For this photo I changed it to black and white to display the butterfly shadow under her nose and really show it off. Black and white was the better option for this photo as the model has dark hair and had a grey jumper on so by changing it to black and white demonstrates the darker features more effectively in this photo.

For this photo I edited the highlights and saturation of the photo as it looks like a happy photo as she is smiling so I turned up the whites, clarity and the saturation of the photo because I wanted to make the photo look more colourful to make it look vibrant and happy.

Chiaroscuro is a high-contrast lighting technique that uses a low-key lighting setup to achieve contrast between the subject and a dark background

Chiaroscuro is Italian for light/dark and makes the use of strong contrasts between light and dark, usually bold contrasts affecting a whole composition. In these photos the shadows are very harsh while the light is bright. There is a very obvious contrast of lighting in these photos.

here are some examples:

My photoshoot:

For my photos the Chiaroscuro photos are coloured yellow, the Rembrandt photos are red and the butterfly photos are coloured green

For this photo I edited it to black and white because I think it looks better than to when it was in colour. i changed the shadows and the blacks the most to make the darker side of my face look harsher but also cleaner so it is a prominent split between the middle of my face.

For this photo I took inspiration from the example photos by making one side of her face very dark and not prominent compared to the light side of her face to make it look light and vibrant I changed the texture and clarity to get rid of the highlights on the darker side of the photo.

Rembrandt lighting is a standard lighting technique that is used in studio portrait photography. and cinematography; it is also used in contrast with butterfly lighting  It can be achieved using one light and a reflector or two lights, and is popular because it is capable of producing images which appear both natural and compelling with a minimum of equipment. Rembrandt lighting is characterized by an illuminated triangle under the eye of the subject on the less illuminated side of the face. It is named after the Dutch painter Rembrandt, who occasionally used this type of lighting.

Here are some examples of Rembrandt lighting:

My photoshoots:

For my photos the Chiaroscuro photos are coloured yellow, the Rembrandt photos are red and the butterfly photos are coloured green

I chose these photos because they are the best pictures I got of the Rembrandt photos, you can really see the triangle under the eye and the definition of it in these photos. I edited one photo with colour and another black and white to try it with two different styles. I prefer the black and white as it represents the lighting style better in my opinion. I also experimented with a white background but it didn’t have the same effect as the black background as it didn’t reflect the triangle onto the face as well as the black background.