Claude Cahun was a French surrealist photographer, artist and sculptor. Born in 1849 to a Jewish family and died at 60 years old via execution for her protest art work in December 1954, heartbreakingly just before Jersey was freed from occupation and the war was ended.

Her art was revolutionary and convention-breaking in many ways but primarily in their work on identity and self recognition.

Claude Cahun, originally Lucy Schwob, changed there name in order to adopt the gender ambiguous name , Claude.

they did this in a battle with their attraction to women and conflictions about their identity, throughout their life they created challenging and thought provoking images that very very controversial and generally upsetting at the time.

Claude primarily took self portraits displaying the conflict of identity that they were enduring often either featuring two versions of themselves or contradicting themes (eg. typically masculine clothes or objects pared with heavy makeup and provocative shirts)

these ideas were considered outrageous at the time especially during the occupation of jersey in world war two, so outrageous their work was considered dangerous and threatening to the Nazis, this resulted in cahuns eventual arrest and execution.

Cahun was very ahead of there time and payed a very high price for it, as an artist there work is interesting and absurdist, representing the absurdness of her situation and the contradiction in their identity .

This photoshoot was another creative concept however after 59 photos it wasn’t working the way I wanted and I actually preferred the previous shoots results. However I did get some good photos as featured below.

While these are good results they aren’t what I wanted and I think the message would be stronger if I draw more inspiration from Sherman’s work. I did here in the sense I got the model to dress up and ‘not be herself’ but I think the message is over shadowed but the general shock of first glancing at the photo. I don’t think the over all look of the photo with the orange wall and window frames are quite distracting to compared a blank wall.

Mind map

I will use two different types of models I will use myself and I will use someone else, a friend perhaps. It is important to me that I am not just the main subject of the photos as everyone’s idea of femininity is different to others, it’s an ever changing definition.

Photoshoot One

Photoshoot Two

This photoshoot is a lot more about how boys are seen in our society instead of what they could be seen as, for example we would see boys as strong and not emotional whereas they can be emotional and should let out their emotions, its the same for girls we are seen as weak and more caring, which is just a stereotype. Boys and girls can be seen just as emotional and caring as each other.

Here I went to the studio to take pictures of some boys to show that boys are very different to girls, while taking these photos, I made the boys pose as if they were doing a normal photoshoot to see how different they pose compared to girls. I did get a few photos of them fighting, which represents the masculine side. The main photos that I really like are the ones where they are sat on a chair/standing up and they are holding their jackets behind them, these photos portray how boys would pose as if they were modelling and how differently they look to when a girl would be modelling. I did make the photos black and white as its foes make the photo look more modern as it also gets rid of all the bright colours in the photo, this helps us to focus more on the facial features and how different boys are not what colours are around them, however it could be interesting to see it as boys wear blue and girls are meant to be wearing pink. In these photos the boys are wearing blue however it should be normalized that they can wear pink and still be seen as masculine. This photoshoot as very different from the femininity photoshoot as this one has less emotions and was based on any artists, it was more of a free style type of photoshoot where they could just pose, where as the girls photoshoot was based on Cindy Sherman where she takes portrait photos of herself to show how women are represented back in the days. Although this this photoshoot could be linked in with one of my artists research such as Catherine Opie, she does photography based on how each gender could be seen as and why they shouldn’t be judged for it, for example if a man wanted to wear pink clothes and wear some makeup it should be normalized, they also do show that its alright to have women dress up in big leather jackets and have short hair with big piercings, therefore this artists does explore how each person could feel in their bodies.

Photoshoot 1

For this photoshoot i did exactly as i had planned and i went to the studio and took photo of a model shirtless and focused on the masculine features of the body. This photoshoot was inspired by Sam Contis This photoshoot is inspired by Sam Contis

The photos by Sam Contis I was inspired by are:

Photoshoot 2

This second photoshoot i focused on femininity, I used a model and got her to do different poses. In this photoshoot the model held props such as: flower, mirror and makeup supplies. This photoshoot is linked with Cindy Sherman as it highlights clearly femininity and stereotypical females.

(inspired by Cindy Sherman)

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.

Intentionally ridiculous or bizarre behaviour or character.

I am looking at this style of photography because it links well to the idea of femininity and masculinity. I have found most people assume class anything unusual or absurd as masculine rather than feminine stemming from the idea that boys will be boys. This style allows for the presentation of women doing absurd things without being classed as masculine or just odd and in fact being creative.

In the mood board of photos above there are many different examples from having hand edited images and spliced them together to big expressions and close ups of the model. I love the idea of exploring the darker parts of femininity and that not everything is soft and perfect all the time like the classical depictions of a feminine person or thing.

In this photo the model is raising her arm to clean the window. I chose to use this pose as it signifies the stereotypical view that women are meant to clean however with the models arm raised in that way it gives a sense of power as it looks like she is putting her fist in the air.

In this photo the model is demonstrating changing a lightbulb which can be viewed as a more manly task to do. I chose this pose to challenge those views and show women can also do the same things as a man.

Here the model is shaking a cloth outside of the window which suggests she has just been cleaning. I like the window in this photo as it creates interesting shapes and details.

In this photo the model is making the bed, again demonstrating stereotypical women jobs such as taking care of the house.

I took this photo at an angle to create the look that it had been taken without the models knowledge or as if it was from a film rather than just a photo. This fits in which my artists work ‘untitled film stills’. I chose this pose to demonstrate cleaning again.

The model is cooking in this photo which shows the old views that women are meant to be the ones who cook and stay at home.

I again took this photo at an angle similarly to the other angled photo. I did this to create an interesting viewpoint rather than just a regular angled photo.

I specifically chose this pose due to the flowers being shown and the female model. I did this because flowers are often linked to femininity and women due to their beauty.

Photoshoot 1

During this photoshoot I took photos of my model doing daily house tasks as well as stereotypical feminine things such as putting makeup on. My aim was to create similar photos to Cindy Sherman’s, to make them even more alike I will adjust them to make them black and white by using Lightroom. I took these photos using artificial lighting.

I used labelled my photos using black (bad) and white (good) flags in order to make the editing and selecting process easier.

Best unedited photos:

Editing

 First edit:

 Original photo:

I began by decreasing the exposure as the original photo was slightly over exposed. Next I changed the vibrancy to -100 to remove the colour from the photo, I chose to use the vibrancy tool rather than the saturation tool as it looked better. Then I used the effects to add a grainy texture to the photo similar to Cindy Sherman’s photos. I chose to then experiment by adding back the red coloured lipstick to the photograph and decided I liked it better with the pop of colour rather than the plain black and white version.

Final outcome:

Photoshoot 2

For my second photoshoot I chose to take photographs in natural lighting. I also used a different model and photographed different tasks. I labelled each photograph with either a white (good) or black (bad) flag.

Best photos:

Editing:

Edit 1:

Original photo:

Final outcome:

I used photoshop to further edit the photo. (overlay)

Edit 2:

Original photo before editing:

Final outcome:

In this photo the model is shaking a cloth out of the window which implies she has just done some cleaning. The flower tattoo on the models arm gives a look of femininity, due to flowers being largely associated with women, as well as masculinity as people believe that it is often men that get larger tattoos rather than women. The fact that the model is looking away from the camera gives the impression that she is unaware of the camera being there or as if it is taken from a film, which is just like Sherman’s work. The panels of the window not only add detail to the photo but they also create interesting shapes by altering the view that you see through the glass.