The theme for the final exam in photography is ‘Union’. To start with my investigation, I began by reading through the entire exam paper as this provides me with starting points to gain inspiration from before I fully research different interpretations of the theme. I annotated and underlined key pieces of information and the names of any movements or artists so that I could research them later on.

I also used the other exam inspirations for different courses such as Fine Art as this could give me an idea of what else I could incorporate into my work and the different ways that artists inhabit this theme in their work. I used this as my starting point when creating my mood board.

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Mood Board:

These are just a handful of the suggestions within the exam paper that I found may inspire me. From here, I have already started to think about some different ideas that I want to do.

The word ‘union’ is defined by:

‘a society or association formed by people with a common interest or purpose.’

Once I had defined this term, I began to think of ideas of my own. Some of these ideas were:

1. Environmental portraiture in the workplace in relation to trade or work unions
2. Cubism in photography

However, one of my favourite ideas I have been inspired by is political movements surrounding feminism and the like. Being a young person, I have always sought importance in keeping myself informed about the different injustices and movements within society because I understand that it is key that I am aware to these things in society. However, growing up in a world as a young girl has meant that I have acknowledged the inequalities between man and woman in society and have experienced the repercussions of normalising these issues.

Because this is a topic that is important to me as a feminist myself, I want to explore as many issues as I can that are highlighted within feminism within this study. These consist of:

What is Feminism?

Feminism is the advocacy for women rights in society in accordance to gender equality. A common misconception is that feminism is concerned with ‘girls being better than boys’ however this movement strives to remove the barrier between male and female in political, economic, personal and social contexts. A core value of feminism is the position that modern society is infiltrated with patriarchal viewpoints, this being where the male point of view is prioritised due to predetermined stereotypes. This movement is centred around fighting against these close-minded views that women shouldn’t receive the same personal, educational and professional opportunities than men do.

Feminist campaigns originate back to late 18th-century Europe, pushing for women’s equal rights such as the right to vote, earn equal pay, run for governmental office, the right to education, owning property, equal marital rights and maternal leave. These are just a small handful of what the feminist movement has pursued over many years, however this must still be driven to combat the stereotypical views that women equate to lesser than men. This movement was fundamental in ensuring women and girls gain access to contraceptives, legal and standardised abortions, as well as the protection from sexual assault, sexual harassment, rape or domestic violence.

However, these implementations of societal change stem from major historical battles that women have faced for hundreds of years, and are currently still having to be fought for in many third-world countries. For example, there are 24 countries across the world where abortive services are entirely prohibited, according to TIME magazine.

In these third-world countries, this may be due to the undeveloped nature of their medical systems. However in a more familiar and Western world, the U.S Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, which was a landmark in history that granted women in each state of America access to suitable healthcare surrounding their pregnancy freely to the choice of their own. This removed every woman’s constitutional right to abortion rights in America, and handed it to each state to make a decision of their own. After existing for nearly half a century, this jeopardises many young girls and women’s lives, practically taking a step backwards and undoing all of the work that feminists of the past had strived to complete.

Roe v. Wade was initially passed in 1973 allowing the entire right to an abortion during the first three months of pregnancy, however this has been eroded over the years. For example, Texas – a very republican state which majorly agrees with the pro-life movement – passed a law in 2021 allowing the people to sue clinics and doctors for carrying out an abortive procedure after 6 weeks. Now that Donald Trump has been re-elected as president, one of his plans have begun within his Project 2025 campaign which concerns bans on contraceptives and abortions with absolutely no exceptions. This is entirely dangerous and harmful to the millions of young girls and women across the country who could be put in life-threatening situations without simple access to these services.

With the inability to terminate a pregnancy, this could result in numerous deaths as the mother could die from giving birth – whether this may be from not being developed enough to carry to term or the body straining, rape victims being forced to birth their assaulters baby, not being able to provide for the child due to financial instability or pay the extravagant prices of hospital bills due to the lack of free healthcare, not having a support system in place, or just simply not feeling ready to have a child.

Historical events:

The Suffragettes:

The Suffragettes dominated the feminist movement for several decades, and are a notable period of time of activism for the rights of women. These women were members of an activist organisation in the early 20th century, fighting for the right to vote in the UK.

Within this campaign, there was a divide in the choosing of tactics and strategy in making their voices heard.

The Suffragists: NUWSS:

The suffragists sought to achieve women’s suffrage (the right to vote) through deep debating and campaigning through non-violent marches and petitions. This was led by Millicent Fawcett who was the head of the National Union for Women’s Suffrage Societies (NUWSS). This was an organisation, founded in 1897, however was merged with other organisations dated back to the 1860s. This consisted of primarily upper- and middle-class, however there were many women representing the working-class too. This was a limited representation as the working-class would be restricted on the time they would have to attend these protests as this would result in the loss of money when it was already difficult to gain a living in the first place.

Many women who were interested in this movement sent delegates to the NUWSS to then report back the benefits to those who were being represented, many of these women were textile workers, sweated labourers and those who worked in mines. By 1914, the NUWSS had over 100,000 members throughout the country with over 500 branches. Some of these methods of constitutional seeking for change consisted of:

• Public meetings
• Organised petitions
• Wrote letters to politicians
• Published newspapers
• Distributed free literature

The Suffragettes: WSPU:

With the lack of progress with the NUWSS being disappointing, Emmeline Pankhurst and her daughters formed the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU) in 1903. Instead of taking a peaceful approach like the suffragists of the NUWSS, the WSPU decided to use a confrontational manner out of irritation of resistance to change by the government – a male-dominated field at the time. This direct advance was referred to as militancy, leading to these campaigners being called the ‘Suffragettes’ instead of Suffragists. This adding of the suffix ‘ette’ was purposely applied to belittle those taking more dramatic action, portraying the idea that these women were lesser than those acting in a peaceful way. However, this insult stuck and was used by the members of the WSPU themselves. This radicalised approach resulted from a culture of women who had already campaigned tirelessly without seeing results.

The Pankhurst family who formulated the WSPU led the way for the new struggle, and due to them being at the forefront of campaigns they were arrested numerous times, being imprisoned and committing to numerous hunger strikes. The Suffragettes These tactics implemented shocked society due to a large number of these women having well-connected families in middle-class society, with this being reinforced by the traditional stereotype that women should be family-orientated, delicate and nurturing – this was seen as scandalous.

Initially, these tactics were employed to cause disruption and some civil disruption, for example 60,000 people gathered in October 1908 as a ‘rush’ on Parliament – this was intending to invade the House of Commons. However, this was just the beginning, as the lack of government attention resulted in:

• Ruining male-only clubs and golf courses
• Hunger strikes
• Handcuffing themselves to railings/buildings as public displays of resistance
• Planting bombs
• Burning public buildings and unoccupied politicians homes
• Disrupting political meetings, the postal service and the 1911 census (this recorded the details of over 36.3 million men, women and children)
• Smashing windows of private property and government buildings
• Attacking Church of England buildings
• Holding illegal demonstrations
• Heckling MPs
• This is just a fraction of the disruptive strategies that the Suffragettes used to make themselves known and heard.

The Suffragists would not co-operate with the Suffragettes as they did not agree with this form of direct action, and believed that non-violent methods were more suitable. Whilst their civil disobedience allowed them to be the main focus of the country at the time, meaning that no politician could ignore them, this meant that the NUWSS’s actions were often overshadowed by the actions of the WSPU. Many historians still argue over which side of the movement furthered the campaign.

Black Friday:

A notable point within the Suffragettes is Black Friday. In the 1908 election campaign, a member of the Liberal Party named Herbert Henry Asquith promised to pass a law that included women’s rights if elected as Prime Minister. With the support of the Suffragettes behind him, he was elected. However until 1916, this actually resulted in Asquith refusing to reform the right to vote, leaving the women with empty promises and anger.

In response, the WSPU organised a march to highlight the issue with his refusal, however the women were met with violence by policemen and male bystanders. This meant that hundreds of women were badly hurt, even resulting in death.

‘Public conscience must be aroused, and it can only be done by attacks on public property. When women’s bodies were battered on Black Friday that was alright but when a few windowpanes are broken, that is all wrong.’ – Emmeline Pankhurst, 2 years later in a newspaper.

The concept of feminism is still fought for in modern society through protests as well as the use of social media. A great example of this is the #MeToo movement where women can come forward online about sexual harassments or assaults and tell their story in hopes to help those who relate or inspire others to come forward about it. This has also involved celebrities too, highlighting to the world that these people are not untouchable and many of them do awful, inhumane things and expect nothing to occur due to their wealth and fame. This is also extremely useful for those who have reported their assaults but have lost their case.

A predominant issue within modern feminism is the focus of misogyny which has been widely practised for thousands of years, this being a dislike of, contempt for, or ingrained prejudice against women or girls, being a partial form of sexism that women should be kept at a lower status than men. This concerns male violence and domestic abuse against women, where approximately 1/4 women (23% or 2.2 million) have experienced violence by an intimate partner since the age for fifteen in the UK. A notable addition to this is the fact that in the event that the England football team wins or draws, the occurrence of domestic violence increases by 26%, and when they lose the percentile increases to 38%.

The feminist movement has been growing strong for hundreds of years, and is still rife in modern society.

Sources:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feminism

https://time.com/6173229/countries-abortion-illegal-restrictions

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suffragette

https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/articles/zh6nsk7#zspyvwx

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-42879161

https://hist259.web.unc.edu/nationalunionofwomenssuffragesocieties/: Exam preparation

https://www.parliament.uk/about/living-heritage/transformingsociety/electionsvoting/womenvote/overview/startsuffragette-/#:~:text=However%20the%20lack%20of%20Government,campaign%20for%20votes%20for%20women.

https://noviolence.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/Whataboutmen.pdf

https://www.simononthestreets.co.uk/news/domestic-violence-and-football-the-campaigns-fighting-for-change#:~:text=For%20example%2C%20in%20the%20event,that%20statistic%20rises%20to%2038%25.

red line editing:

For this editing, I searched red line/ stitch on the internet and found an image that I was satisfied with and uploaded it onto Photoshop. In Photoshop, using the objection tool on the left, i selected the red line and moved it to the tab where the image, seen above, was. I placed the red line on top of the people seen in the image and decided if i need to make the line bigger or smaller or where the line needed to be positioned.

I selected the layer which the red line was on and used the rubber tool seen on the left side, to rub out the parts of the red line I did not want to be seen. I wanted it to look like the red line was going through the people seen in the image. As if they were connected by the red line, the ‘bloodline’.

Update 1:

This is the first update for the photo book I have. In this update I had the front cover done and started adding images onto my book.

Update 2:

In this update, loads of things were changed. Photos was changed, structure of the book was changed. This is also where I started playing around with picture framing and positioning.

Paper editing:

For this image, I searched in the internet for a yellow and old paper and uploaded the image that I was satisfied with onto Photoshop. After the image was uploaded onto Photoshop, I copied the image that I wanted to edit, found in my documents, onto Photoshop and applied the image on top of the paper, creating a second layer in Photoshop.

pressing the layer where the image is in and using the objection tool on the left side, I selected a person from the image and cut them out. I moved the selected section from the image, away from the image to reveal the old, yellow paper under it.

I moved the selected section from the image, away from the image to reveal the old, yellow paper under it. This was all I did for this edit.

Update 3:

In this update, I started adding text to my images and playing around with the color of the text. This is also where I was trying to figure out where to put my text and how to smoothly add text in my book. I also started to add more images in my book and different frames to my images. I also started to figure out whether I wanted to have images that have a border of full bleed.

Update 4:

In this update, I started to be happy with the structure of the book and kept it constant throughout the book. I figured that I would start with a house of my grandparents and then and image of them in the next page. I also did this when I introduced images of my parents. After showing an image of my parents further into the book, I added an image of our house. This is where I started to find a more stern structure in my book and used different techniques like juxtaposition and match cut.

Full overview of final Photo Book:

Conclusion and evaluation:

In conclusion, I think that I did really well in terms of editing. I was clear and strong with my editing and even showed repetition within my editing to show a clear inspiration found because of my two artist I studied. The use of red lines and aged paper was a clear inspiration from Carole’s work and the nostalgic editing seen in some of my images implies a clear understanding and innovation towards Jo’s work.

My overall editing was simple but effective. I didn’t do a big amount of editing in my images but I did enough to enhance my images and show inspiration.

Here is the final product of my photo-book ,I believe that this turned out quite nicely and even though it wasn’t what I had originally planned it have some better features added. Originally I wanted to make this photo book look more like a magazine with boxes of writing and the. Pictures next to it, however it was quite difficult to figure out what to write in those boxes, therefore I replaced those pages either a blank page filled either one single word or a quote from a famous individual known in the fashion industry. I also changed the colour of the background to make it less boring and more different, I did get his inspiration from previous fashion magazines found online.As you can see I changed the background colour from white to black on some of the pages and this was so that I could add the light drawings in and make them look like they are floating and blending in, it helps to make the magazine less tacky. I really like the idea of putting quotes in the magazine as it does help to add a narrative and a perspective to the magazine. It almost adds a character and should be seen as an inspiration to others who read it . One thing I did struggle with was the front cover as I had edited it in photoshop adding a vogue sign in it to help make the magazine and then the whole edited picture didn’t fit in the book layout ,so I had to re edit it and move it around to make it look right. I also added my essay in my final book layout as it helped to add a magazine look, most magazines have pages of writing written in columns and I thought it would look better with the essay added at the end . Overall, I do feel like if I had captured few more pictures, it even some candid pictures it would have looked a little bit better and more interesting, thought I am quite pleased with the outcome even if there is room to improve.

To what extent have cindy sherman and Claude Cahun explored the male (photographic) gaze in their work?

“In their traditional exhibitionist role women are simultaneously  looked at and displayed with their appearance coded for strong visual and erotic impact so that they can be said to connote to-be-looked-at-ness” 

-Laura Mulvey

The male gaze. The term the male gaze is referring to Laura Mulvey’s feminist theory where she discussed how women are seen as objects for men’s visual pleasure. This is present within society however it is magnified through the media. A prominent example of it would have to be Marilyn Monroe specifically in River Of No Return from 1954 where the first few shots of her in the saloon focus purely on her body and then her seductively resting on the piano. Similarly, Tom Ford’s advertisement for their first male fragrance in 2007 featured a woman’s bare chest with a perfume bottle in between her cleavage and another with a perfume bottle placed in front of her groin. Its clear that the male gaze has been evident and used for many years and has not appeared to stop.

However, artists like Claude Cahun and Cindy Sherman challenge these harmful stereotypes and portray a different perspective of the female experience. Cindy Sherman focused on identity, gender roles, and stereotypes. Similarly, Claude Cahun questioned identity and gender but they used aspects of surrealism in their work. I believe that their work and their message are still important, relevant, and still needed. I am exploring similar themes within my own work as I believe it is important to highlight the issue of the male gaze. I’m planning on showing this by creating cracked effect for the models faces. I want to use some of the usual conventions similar to what Cindy Sherman created however by creating this cracked makeup on my models face I’m hoping it can show her she is breaking from within and the objectification she’s facing is ultimately breaking her.

I believe feminism is such an important topic as the patriarchy affects everyone in society. Feminism tends to have a bad stigma around it which could be due to the lack of education around real feminism. Society has tainted the message of feminism many people think it centred around wanting women to be superior to men which is not the case. The first feminist movement (which can be considered the first wave of feminism) took place during the 19th and early 20th centuries. It was centred around women’s suffrage and giving more opportunities to women as during that time women were seen as inferior to men, they weren’t able to have their bank accounts, they weren’t allowed to vote even after that law was lifted the only women who were married could vote as well as women of colour were still unable to vote whether they were married or not. There have now been around seven waves of feminism each one carrying on the previous message but improving it through new ways. For example, the main difference between third and fourth-wave feminism is fourth wave wants to focus more on technology and social media so spreading your knowledge and fighting through social media. However, very recently it appears that as a society we seem to be back peddling as of January 20th, 2025 Donald Trump is president of America once again and has been vocal about his opinion surrounding abortion rights. Women finally got the right to have control over what happens to their bodily autonomy in 1973. However, since President Trump has been elected people are scared that once again we will have these rights stripped away from us.

A photographer who was renowned for their work centred around feminism and the male gaze would be Cindy Sherman. She rose to fame during the mid to late 1970’s with her “Untitled Film Stills” where she produced 70 black and white stills centred around her portraying these different characters. She produced a depiction of a working woman, a housewife, etc… This can be linked to Judith Butler’s ideas of Gender performativity where she discusses how gender is based on repetition and rituals within society. The idea that gender is not fixed but is unstable and the notion of gender that gets pushed on people during infancy is in fact a myth. Similarly, Cindy Sherman discusses how she took inspiration for her work from the phrase “male gaze” as she felt that the media only portrayed women from a heterosexual viewpoint and it tended to reduce women to being objects. You can see how this impacted her work as she tried to challenge these gender-driven stereotypes by not romanticizing or glorifying them and instead exposing them. She does this very successfully, her images tend to be quite simple and she is always the model which I believe makes it more effective as she always has the same quite flat and unreadable expression on her face in all the photographs making them appear a lot more superficial as you can not tell how the model/women within the image is feeling. I also think by Cindy Sherman being both the model and the photographer for her pictures I believe makes them more impactful as she has all the power in the situation, she isn’t affected by the male gaze which will often occur subconsciously or not because it is so heavily ingrained into society but because she can control every aspect she tried to prevent that.

For example, in image no. 10, Cindy is playing the ‘role’ of a traditional 20th century housewife. She is depicted crouching on the kitchen floor alongside a broken, spilled shopping bag. What Sherman achieves through this comment on female stereotypes is nothing less than protesting the traditional roles of women in that time period. Women in this era were restricted and categorized to act and be a certain way; cooking and cleaning for the kids and husband, and overall being the invisible ‘caretaker’ to what would’ve been an ungrateful family. This concept is solidified in her lack of direct address, her melancholic, distant gaze leaves the audience questioning her real personality; who she is behind the ‘role’ of a housewife. Visually you can tell she was inspired by the 20th century from her outfit to her hair and makeup which is effective for creating the atmosphere of the role she is meant to play as being a housewife was one of the only roles for women during the 20th century until a little later when the suffragette movement started to grow and women started to get into more occupation fields but it was only around 20% of all women at the time who were working.

Similarly, Claude Cahun is a great example of an artist who challenges harmful stereotypes and creates thought-provoking feminist photography. Even before creating they started to explore art and photography Cahun started to push the boundaries with feminism and gender during their childhood Claude Cahun delved into the idea of being non-binary and going by they/them pronouns which clearly influences their work today through their differing characters some presenting more masculine some more feminine. They tended to focus on gender and more specifically the fluidity of gender. Claude Chaun’s work is contradictory to Cindy Sherman’s work focuses on the stereotypes to challenge them instead Claude Cahun uses elaborate props and fashion to convey new a different ideas about gender. It is evident within their work that they stray far away from the male gaze all of their work appears to be quite androgynous and doesn’t fit the beauty standard. However, like Cindy Sherman all of Claude’s work are self-portraits so they’re taking away the power from the audience by being in control.

For instance, the image ‘I am in training don’t kiss me’ holds the title as one of Cahun’s most famous pieces of work. In the picture they have short hair, evident in how Claude makes a point of distancing herself from the male gaze and alongside it, the stereotype that women must have thick, long hair in order to be deemed attractive by society. Similarly Cahun appears to be holding a pantomime barbell which continues to challenge stereotypes as its often said that women should be dainty and delicate and not strong, powerful and capable to do the same things as men. Additionally, Claude’s facial expression holds power and significance. Specifically, in the direct address to the audience, Cahun comes across as very intimidating and, as a result, holds power over the viewer, positioning herself at a higher status. In addition, they wrote the title of the picture on their shirt which emphasises their message of “don’t kiss me” demonstrating that they don’t want to be sexualized through her photo.

Ultimately, both Claude Cahun and Cindy Sherman have created incredible work which pushed against boundaries, challenged stereotypes, and helped advocate for change. Claude Cahun has effectively helped push the boundaries of gender and gender performativity, and Cindy Sherman challenged the harmful stereotypes which often suppress women. An aspect of both of their work that I am interested in exploring is their use of facial expressions in their photos. Both Cindy Sherman and Claude Cahun use quite deadpan facial expressions however, unlike Cindy Sherman, Claude Cahun uses direct address, which I find comes off as very powerful and demanding, so I would like to experiment with that within my work.

This is my full complete photobook, I kept the layout throughout it similar as it gives a symmetry and sequence throughout the whole book having everything relate. I kept all the pages background black as it went well with the theme giving a dark depressing affect as well as contrasting well with the majority black and white images.

How can photographs be a way to connect to the past and a way to create a sense of nostalgia?

‘the power to photograph, the power to archive, the power to create a certain set of memories.’ ¹– Collin Pantall

In my personal project I have chosen to explore the theme of nostalgia through photography. Nostalgia is a sense of longing affection for a period in the past, photography is a great way to create this sense as it allows you to capture this moment in time and lets you look back on these moments. To do this I studied the photographer Irina Werning whose most known project, “Back to the Future”, is all about nostalgia and how photography can be a way to reconnect to the past. To respond to Werning I looked through old photo albums to gather images which I was planning to recreate. In doing these photoshoots a sense of nostalgia was created for the models recreating these images, it was like reliving the past. Alongside Werning I also studied photographer Samiksha Chaudhary who created a project which also relates to nostalgia and memories. In my response to Chaudhary I photographed my families old objects, specifically my grandmothers. Whilst doing this I learnt more about my families past as I was told stories which accompanied each of the old objects.

Nostalgia itself goes back to the 17th century the Swiss medical student Johannes Hofer described the feeling of nostalgia as a disease, and those who felt it suffered from an ‘afflicted imagination’ ². This was seen as a dangerous condition and it was thought to be caused by an imbalance of the four bodily fluids, which was a huge cause of disease in this era. It was also believed that it could cause physical health issues, especially if those affected were away from their native places for prolonged periods. It was not until the 18th and 19th centuries that nostalgia began to shift from a sickness to an emotional experience. The Romantic period was when nostalgia really began to be understood as a universal human feeling, an emotional reaction that was linked to memory as well as identity. Today, nostalgia is considered to be a complex emotional state which can create both positive and bad feelings.

Irina Werning:

Irina Werning is a freelance photojournalist who focuses on personal long-term projects. She is based in Argentina and has a bachelor’s degree in economics, a master’s degree in history and a master’s in photojournalism. Werning won the Ian Parry Scholarsip in 2006, the Emerging photographer fund in 2012, and he first place Sony world photography award for portraiture in 2012. Irina Werning became world-famous as a result of her project ‘Back to the Future’. In this project Werning photographed people as they reenacted their childhood portraits. This unique series shows how people look and feel 20 years after their childhood portraits, Werning took her camera and portrayed hundreds of people as they go back to their future. She was inspired to create this project after she scanned some older photos and after she ended up in one of the locations where one of these photos had been shot.

In this image taken by Irina Werning, three relatives have come together to reenact an old portrait of the three of them when they were younger. Although this may not create a sense of nostalgia for the viewer, it would have created one for them as it is a recreation of a time in their childhood. In her book The Photography Reader, Liz Wells stated, ‘memories evoked by a photo do not simply spring out of the image itself, but are generated in an intertext of discourses that shift between past and present.’⁴ This suggests that the sense of nostalgia created from old images is subjective to the viewer. One viewers may see an image as nostalgic whereas another may not, this is because everyone has a different past and presence which may not connect to these images in an emotional way.

My response to Irina Werning consisted of me photographing mainly my mother. When recreating these old found images it created a sense of nostalgia not for me but for her, as she was the one who lived the moments captured in these photographs. This adds to the concept that the feeling of nostalgia is subjective as everyone gains a sense of nostalgia from different things depending on their past.

Samiksha Chaudhary

Samiksha Chaudhary believes objects function as memory keepers and he found himself reliving these memories through photography. This all began in lockdown when Chaudhary found himself stuck in Mumbai, whilst his parents were back home at Calcutta. Chaudhary found this time lonely as he missed his parents, therefore he aimed to revive and relive little moments which were created by these objects. He released a set of photographs taken of these objects as part of a bigger collection which he previously shot during 2019 whilst being at home with his parents. Chaudhary found photography to be a way of tracing back memories all the way to his childhood. It was also a way to feel closer to his parents and a way to hold onto old memories. Each of his unique objects tells a story which takes him back to his home. Chaudhary wishes to capture the object’s value to his personal history, rather than the value of them. These objects create a mental map to his childhood and they are also a way of knowing his family’s history. With the objects laid out they all tell a story. They capture a lifetime within them, not only his own but also that of his parents and relatives.

This image by Chaudhary is taken of a wooden doll, a wedding gift to his mother. It held a small vial of perfume and this amongst many other objects were showcased in his home when he was growing up, some were inherited whereas some were received as gifts, and some were collected by his parents themselves, mainly his mother.

In my response to Chaudhary I chose to photograph mainly my grandmothers old items, one of which being a ruler from when she was ages 14 during 1966. Whilst photographing many of these objects I gained a sense of nostalgia as she told me the stories which accompanied each of these valued items, despite not experiencing this time period myself. Looking at all these old items also allowed her to travel back in time through bringing back old memories which she has connected to these objects.

To conclude, photography can be a way to connect someone to the past. This can be seen in both Irina Werning and Samiksha Chaudhary’s work, however they both create this sense of nostalgia in different ways. For example, Werning focuses on portraiture and reenacting older images, reminding people of those times in the past and reliving old memories. This sense of nostalgia was felt by my family members when I photographed them restaging old images. On the other hand Chaudhary photographs objects of his parent past, creating new memories of a time he didn’t experience. Which is what I experienced when photographing my grandmothers old items, I felt a sense of nostalgia for a time I didn’t experience. Overall photography is largely linked to nostalgia as it is a way to both relive old memories as well as gain new memories of the past.

Bibliography:

1. Collin Pantall (2019) Remembering the Past, Remembering the Present. Location of site: Here ↩︎
2. Johannes Hofer (1688) Coming home again. Location of site: here (Page 2) ↩︎
3. Image from project ‘Back to the Future’. Location of image: here ↩︎
4. Annette Kuh (2003) Remembrance The child I never was. Location: here ↩︎

I believe my final photobook was extremely successful. However, to improve I believe my experience would’ve been a lot easier with more preparation In prep for my next mock exam and the final exam, I must remember to complete small details which should not be left until the final 3 day exam, as this will waste time and may prevent me from finishing all my tasks. Unfortunately I was not able to print my book to Blurb on the final day of the mock exam, and instead had to order it the day after, this can not happen in my real exam and must be completed within the time limit. However, this mock has taught be to work more efficiently with time and pay attention to the blog posts, planning and prep hat needs to be done in the weeks leading up to the final mock. I believe that however, I worked well under the pressure and solved any issues which resulted. For example, my images were not of a high enough quality to be posted onto my book, this was an issue I had to overcome, and attempt to find images of better quality which would not result in low quality and blurry images in my final book. Another issue I also faced is my final complete blog post with all screenshots and aspects of my mock process was unable to saved and erased from the blog, the outcome of this has been a highly less detailed analysis of my work completed on the mock date, however, with extra work and more explaining I will be able to overcome this by attempting to replace any screenshots that were erased and attempting to find clear pictures that I can use to input into my analysis blog post. I also need to beforehand, work on a practice book on Adobe Lightroom, where I can experiment with photo layouts and what kind of layout will look clean and effective to help my images be presented in the best way possible. An aspect of my work I am glad I included was a small paragraph demonstrating my intention for each magazine at the beginning of the book, this sort of contents page has helped to escalate the quality of my book and helped the reader to understand my intention of female gender stereotypes over time. I have focused mostly on the contextual and conceptual side of my work and focused more on a storyline of work and demonstrating a feminist viewpoint and both critiquing and praising the works of photographers through time. I also referenced both of my inspiration photographers Cindy Sherman and Helmut Newton in my book through my essay. I incorporated their work into a paragraph of analysis on their work and their intention. I then focused a paragraph on image analysis of their work and how I can relate it to my own, I then also compared a theorists with their work and highlighted the differences and similarities of their work, alongside the positives and negative of their viewpoints. I also incorporated my two inspiration photographers by including a photoshoot each in my book of images inspired by their work, this has helped my work be more relatable to the analysis I have completed on their work, and how modern day photography can relate to their work, without provocative and negative stereotypes of women.

PHOTOBOOK: Mon-Wed + MOCK EXAM
Follow these steps:

You want to aim for a draft layout before the Mock Exam begins, then use the two days allocated to fine tune final layout and design.

Draft Layout of Photobook.

1. Write a book specification and describe in detail what your book will be about in terms of narrative, concept and design with reference to the same elements of bookmaking as above.

Narrative-

Narrative: – Describe in:

• 3 words – Female Gender Stereotypes

• A sentence– The importance of stereotypes forced upon women in the past and present day and how it affects society and young adolescent girls.

• A paragraph– The topic I would like to explore is girlhood and femininity. I will be focusing particularly on older teenagers at the age of 17-19 and the struggles of moving from adolescence to adulthood and the hardships young women face. I like this topic as it is a current topic which is faced globally, and I feel it is a topic which I will enjoy expressing my opinion on and it is an important topic which needs embracing by young people especially. I would like to initially explore how the media portrays women in positive and negative ways and how it creates derogatory and unrealistic stereotypes of women. Gender Identity and roles is a topic I wanted incorporate and the stereotypical themes and personality traits a woman is expected to have. I find this topic interesting as expectations and views on women are changing but not particularly quickly. By focusing on multiple branches of femininity and youth such as empowerment, stereotypes, different eras, I would like to cover different aspects of women, femininity gender stereotypes, identity and rights. The idealised view of women is the key part to my chosen topic, and I feel I can expand on this by including both positive and negative viewpoints. 

• How you want your book to look and feel– I would like my book to be a hard cover rectangular/ squared book with a clean sleek feel to it. I would like it to be relatively large (around A4) this is to create a book which is not too difficult to read and so that my images are not too small to see the details and understand the message behind them.

• Paper and ink

I am using a magazine layout style book which will have thinner paper for my book to have a more magazine feel to it rather than a book feel. This will be thinner paper inside which magazines and newspapers typically have.

• Binding and cover

This front cover will be a soft/paper back front cover due to it being a magazine and not a book.

• Title – My title will be something to do with the male gaze. I would like the title to just plainly be ‘The Male Gaze’ but I feel this title may be slightly too basic and not capture an audiences attention as quickly. However I also like the idea of ‘Through his Eyes: Exploring Femininity and Stereotypes, I really like this title as it is including the male gaze in a way of not directly saying Laura Mulvey’s idea of the male gaze but instead saying it in a less direct way. The next part of ‘Exploring Femininity and Stereotypes’ also is a short way or explaining the project I am exploring. However this second section may make my title slightly too long, however I really like this title but could also shorten it to ‘Through his Eyes’ as a large title and then accompanied and anchored with the subheading of ‘Exploring Femininity and Stereotypes’. Here are some other ideas for title names:
• – The Male Gaze
• – The Gaze
• – Gazing
• – Through their eyes
• – Through His Eyes: Exploring Femininity and Stereotypes

• Design and layout

I am going to have a book with a main front cover, a first front cover with a magazine interpretation of a 1960s/70s magazine., using Cindy Sherman inspired images. I am then going to have a magazine cover of a modern day girls magazine with promotional images of products inside, I will then have a final magazine cover from a modern day women’s empowerment magazine with Helmut Newton inspired images inside.

• Editing and sequencing

I am going to create this book on Adobe Lightroom and It will include images that are edited by using black and white filters and also editing resources provided by Lightroom to make my images bolder and higher quality. I will also be editing a section of images on Adobe Photoshop, which make the images look like promotional images with brands such as Gucci, Charlotte Tilbury promoted inside the book, I have also edited the magazine covers on Canva in order to create realistic magazine covers from software specialising in covers, this has helped to increase the value and complexity of my work to make it more realistic and believeable.

• Images and text-I would like my images to take up the whole page so that they are large enough to see, however this may be a struggle as many of my images are portrait and many of them landscape. This may means that my e.g. portrait images would not be able to fit the page completely. However, any portrait images could have a small white border around them, but still take up the majority of a page, or vice versa. I do not think that I want more than 1 image on a page, however when it comes to my second section and I am focusing on the fashion and beauty industry pushing beauty products onto young girls in order to make them want to be beautiful and purchase their their products.

2. Produce a mood-board 

Here is a mood board of the Blurb Inspired photobook I have seen. I would like my images to be presented in a clean, sleek way which makes the book easy to read and enjoyable. I like his layout of clean white lines to separate images as I think it makes the page look less busy and does not clash with other images which decreases the quality of the book.

9. EVALUATION: Upon completion of photobook/ film and presentation of prints make sure you evaluate and reflect on your learning and final outcomes. Comment on the following:

I believe my final photobook was extremely successful. However, to improve I believe my experience would’ve been a lot easier with more preparation In prep for my next mock exam and the final exam, I must remember to complete small details which should not be left until the final 3 day exam, as this will waste time and may prevent ,e from finishing all my tasks. Unfortunately I was not able to print my book to Blurb on the final day of the mock exam, and instead had to order it the day after, this can not happen in my real exam and must be completed within the time limit. However, this mock has taught be to work more efficiently with time and pay attention to the blog posts, planning and prep hat needs to be done in the weeks leading up to the final mock. I believe that however, I worked well under the pressure and solved any issues which resulted. For example, my images were not of a high enough quality to be posted onto my book, this was an issue I had to overcome, and attempt to find images of better quality which would not result in low quality and blurry images in my final book. Another issue I also faced is my final complete blog post with all screenshots and aspects of my mock process was unable to saved and erased from the blog, the outcome of this has been a highly less detailed analysis of my work completed on the mock date, however, with extra work and more explaining I will be able to overcome this by attempting to replace any screenshots that were erased and attempting to find clear pictures that I can use to input into my analysis blog post. I also need to beforehand, work on a practice book on Adobe Lightroom, where I can experiment with photo layouts and what kind of layout will look clean and effective to help my images be presented in the best way possible.

5. Print a set of small work prints (4 to one A4 page) on the Laserjet, cut them up in guillotine and lay them out on the big white table for editing.

6. Decide on format (landscape, portrait) size and style of your photo-book. Begin to design your photo book, considering carefully, narrative, editing, sequencing, page spreads, juxtaposition, image size, text pages, empty pages, use of archival material etc.

I would like for my book to be around 30-40 pages long, like a usual conventional magazine and I would like for there to be sections dividing up my photoshoots, I will be adding my essay to the back of the book and I will be including a contents page to the beginning of my book.

7. Add your illustrated essay at the end of your photo book, including title, any captions (if needed), bibliography, illustrations of artists work (incl data) and images of your own responses. Think carefully about font type, size and weighting.