Photoshoot plan – inspired by Cindy Sherman’s ‘Untitled Film Stills’ (1977-1980)

My first idea for this photoshoot is to take photos of someone else inside or outside at night, which are inspired by the portraits Sherman took of herself in her series of photographs called ‘Untitled Film Stills’. In some of these photos she took, she is outside and is also seen wearing clothing which contrasts against the environment she is in, for example, wearing a white dress with either dark interior walls or a dark night sky. I could also invert these colours for more variety in my photographs. I am inspired by these photographs Sherman took because of how this contrast makes the subject stand out whilst within different locations and landscapes.

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My second idea for this photoshoot is to take photos of someone else inside, either in a house or workplace, which are inspired by Cindy Sherman. I might also use some props for this photoshoot, for example, kitchenware or kitchen utensils within a typical kitchen setting, or equipment which is used within the job the who I am photographing works at. For clothing, the person I will be photographing could wear the attire which is usually worn at their workplace, which could depict how women are portrayed in media, as in Cindy Sherman’s case, she performed and challenged the different ways of how women are supposed to look and act to be considered typically female in film in the 1950s and 60s. She also exposes the artificially and culturally constructed idea of gender and femininity with her photos. For example, in Sherman’s photos where she is in the kitchen, she is often seen wearing an apron, which was prominent in films during that time.

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I will be using a Fujifilm digital camera to take these photos, which I feel will be able to replicate a similar look to Sherman’s photographs, using this camera I could also set the colour to greyscale, or change that during editing.

Cindy Sherman is an American photographer, born 19th January 1954 in Glen Ridge, New Jersey, United States, whose work consists primarily of photos which depict herself in many different contexts and as various different imagined characters. Sherman usually inserts herself into a dialogue about stereotypical portrayals of women in her photographs, which resemble scenes from 1950s and 1960s films.

Sherman has played with the visual and cultural codes of gender and photography. Shortly after moving to New York, she produced her Untitled Film Stills (1977-1980) starting when she was 23, where she dressed up as imaginary characters and photographed herself in various settings. These around 70 Film Stills immediately became a point of discussion for feminism, postmodernism, and representation, and still remain Sherman’s best-known works.

The Untitled Film Stills she produced seem to deliberately rely on female characters and caricatures in movies, and she used cinematic conventions to stage these photographs. Sherman was always interested in experimenting with different identities, she explained, “I feel I’m anonymous in my work. When I look at the pictures, I never see myself; they aren’t self-portraits. Sometimes I disappear.”

Image Analysis

This is a film photo by the photographer Cindy Sherman. There is one subject in this photograph. The focal point is Cindy Sherman by herself in the foreground sitting outside in a light dress on a tree branch and slightly to the right of the middle, which shows me the composition follows the rule of thirds. In this image, the lighting appears to be natural daylight on a cloudy day. The midground and background features a barren desert-like landscape, with occasionally a large rocky structure, stretching far into the distance. No aspects of the photo are overexposed or underexposed, and the contrast appears to be not too strong. The depth of field is sharp so I believe the aperture is f/11, as the background and midground is clear and not blurry. The shutter speed appears to be 1/125, and the image is slightly grainy, so I believe the ISO is around 6400.

The themes of ‘Femininity’ and ‘Masculinity’ are a binary opposite – a pair of related terms or concepts that are opposite in meaning. Using binary opposites can be helpful when gathering ideas for a photographic project as it provides a set of boundaries to work in when creating photographs.

The term ‘binary opposition’ originated in Saussurean structuralist theory in Linguistics (scientific study of language).

Examples of other Binary Opposites:

Good and Evil, On and Off, Up and Down, Strong and Weak, Black and White, Hot and Cold

Themes surrounding Identity:

gender identity, cultural identity, social identity, geographical identity, political identity, lack of/loss of identity, stereotypes, prejudices, etc.

Definitions

Femininity: a set of qualities, attributes, behaviours and roles generally associated with women and girls.

Masculinity: a set of qualities, attributes, behaviours and roles generally associated with men and boys.

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Masculinity and femininity can be understood as a social construct, and there is also some evidence that behaviours considered as either feminine or masculine are influenced by societal expectations and cultural factors, rather than being biologically driven. This means that a person’s upbringing and environment can influence their identity and way of expressing themselves.

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Some photographers, such as Claude Cahun and Cindy Sherman, challenge and play with the stereotypes and expectations of femininity and masculinity and examine the construction of identity.

Claude Cahun

Claude Cahun was a French surrealist photographer, sculptor, and writer who was born on 25th October 1894 in Nantes, France and died on 8th December 1954 in Saint Helier, Jersey. Cahun referred to herself as ‘elle’ (she) in her writing, but also said that her actual gender was fluid. She began taking self-portraits as early as 1912 (aged 18), around 1914 she changed her name to Claude Cahun, and continued taking photos of herself throughout the 1930s. In Cahun’s work, she incorporated the visual aesthetics of Surrealism, which in photography, represents unconscious ideas, dreams, and emotions.

Contact Sheets

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Edited Photos

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Edits

Photos and edits in black and white:

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Diamond Cameo

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Edits in Photoshop:

How I did a vignette edit in Photoshop:

Henry Mullins was a photographer who is best known for producing over 9000 portraits of Jersey islanders from 1853 to 1873 at a time when the population was around 55,000. Henry Mullins started working in London in the 1840s and moved to Jersey in July 1848, where he set up a studio and would photograph Jersey political elite, mercantile families, military officers and professional classes. In the record of Mullin’s work, he placed his subjects in a social hierarchy and it is highly politicised.

The portraits taken by Henry Mullins were printed on a carte de visite as a small albumen print, which was a thin paper photograph mounted onto a thicker paper card, and he mounted these prints into an album.

The card photographs became immensely popular because of the small size and affordable reproducibility, and cartes de visite were commonly traded among friends and visitors in the 1860s.

Contact Sheets

Edits

Rembrandt

Before and afters and what edits I did:

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Butterfly

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Chiaroscuro

Chiaroscuro lighting (Italian for “lightdark”) is a technique within portrait photography which utilises a low-key lighting setup to achieve contrast between the subject and a dark background to create additional depth.

Chiaroscuro typically provides a high contrast between light and dark and a sense of drama and intensity which remains striking today. This technique emphasises the subject and features by drawing the eye to the subject, and creates a three-dimensional quality in photographs.

History of Chiaroscuro Lighting

Chiaroscuro lighting originated in the Renaissance period but is most notably associated with Baroque art. This technique first appeared in the 15th century, but true chiaroscuro developed during the 16th century, in Mannerism and in Baroque art. Chiaroscuro in film: Film noir (French for “black film”), is a cinematic term is generally regarded as originating from the early 1940s to the late 1950s.

Chiaroscuro Lighting Setup

Chiaroscuro lighting is created by using one key light and a reflector that reflects the key light back onto the subject.

Butterfly lighting is a technique within portrait photography which refers to when the key light is placed above and pointing down on the subject’s face, which creates a dramatic shadow under the nose and chin that resembles a butterfly and defines the contours of the face.

Butterfly lighting is primarily used in studio settings, and it is one of the most common lighting setups. Butterfly lighting is also called ‘paramount lighting’ or ‘glamour lighting’.

History of Butterfly Lighting

Butterfly lighting dates back to some of the earliest glamour shots. This technique was first used by Josef von Sternberg, a Hollywood director who is most known for his work with Marlene Dietrich, in the 1930s. Sternberg used butterfly lighting to create a sense of mystery around Dietrich’s character, and this lighting has been used in portraiture ever since.

Butterfly Lighting Setup

Butterfly lighting is created by positioning the main light directly in line with the subject’s face and the camera, with the main light above and facing down on the subject. Most photos which use butterfly lighting have the model facing forward. A reflector can be placed below the subject to bounce light back up into the face if the shadows are too deep.

Rembrandt lighting, named after Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn, is a technique within portrait photography which refers to the way of lighting a face so that an upside-down light triangle appears under the eyes of the subject.

Using Rembrandt lighting instantly creates contrast and shadows in a photograph. The main characteristic of this style of lighting is the triangle of light which appears beneath the subject’s eye, used to draw the viewer’s attention to it.

History of Rembrandt Lighting

Rembrandt lighting was an effect created in the early 20th century in Hollywood by film director Cecil B. DeMille, who introduced spotlights to create more realistic effects of light and shadow into the studio lighting setup. This lighting effect has become widely used in promotional photographs of film stars, because of its ability to show film stars in a dramatic and eye-catching way.

Rembrandt Lighting Setup

Rembrandt lighting is created by positioning the light source at a 40 to 45 degree angle and higher than the subject. Both flashlights and continuous lights are used for this style of lighting. The type of lens used for Rembrandt lighting is 35mm or 50mm. A 50mm lens works nicely for portraits and will give a nice depth of field if you are shooting at a shallow aperture, whilst a 35mm lens will have a wider point of view and is good to fit more of the subject than just the head and shoulders.

Sian Davey’s photography explores the psychological, social and political surroundings of herself and the people around her. Davey was born in Brighton in 1964. She studied Fine Art painting at Bath Academy of Fine Art in 1985. She was a psychotherapist for fifteen years before becoming a photographer, and her training in psychotherapy fundamentally informs and inspires her work, which often feels intimate and features themes of depression and grief.

Many of Sian Davey’s photographs are environmental portraits, which tell a story about the subject’s life and usual location. For example, in her project ‘Martha’ she has photographed her step-daughter in various locations, either by herself or in groups of her friends.

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Image Analysis

This is a digital photo by the photographer Sian Davey. There are 5 subjects in this photograph. The focal point is the person sitting on the bed in the foreground, and the composition follows the rule of thirds. In this image, the lighting appears to be natural daylight, creeping in from the window in the background. Some parts of the photo are overexposed, for example, the subject closest to the window, whilst some are underexposed. The depth of field is shallow, as the background and midground is blurred. The shutter speed appears to be fast at around 1/250, the image is a bit grainy, so I believe the ISO is around 1600.

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This is a digital photo by the photographer Sian Davey. The focal point is the 1 subject in this photograph, who is holding a newspaper and is sitting on a moving vehicle. This composition follows the rule of thirds. In this image, the light source appears to be strong and heavily contrasting natural daylight from the window on the left of the photograph. The depth of field is shallow, as the background and midground is blurred. To represent the movement of the vehicle the subject is sitting in, there is a horizontal motion blur, obstructing the details in shadowed areas even further. Because of this, I believe the shutter speed is slower and around 1/30, and the ISO is around 100.