Contact Sheet

The Selection

Editing

more images of ‘the sublime’ in photography and art

From this variety I decided to have a go at trying to take photos how Rosanna Jones did. She normally does a lot of physical work as well as digital. This allowed me to get creative both ways when having to work out what to do.

These are the images I chose to recreate digitally and physically.

For this photoshoot I was able to get a range of images with different outfits, poses and lighting. At home I designed and created physical copies decided to recreate some of her iconic images. I then categorised it further into to colour and rating

I managed to categorise it by the starring it and colour coding it. I was then able to put the images I’m replicating in the same category to make it easier for myself when I’m editing digitally.

Original Images

Comparison

Editing

Final Images

ArtSteps Presentation

With this being my mood board I decided to take inspiration from one image and chose to take a more creative outlook showing the make of the makeup look, to give an almost behind the scenes mood.

Technical: The lighting looks like it could be natural as the hair is looking more golden than the rest of her meaning the sun could be shining on her. However, studio lighting could be used just to brighten the image up and get clearer features. For the white balance I don’t think theres any setting changed as tungsten wasn’t used because she isn’t blue and daylight wasn’t used because she isn’t yellow or really bright. I think the photographer asked the person to be located against a white wall in a studio or a home to give it a more sophisticated and clean look. The image doesn’t look over exposed although the saturation looks quite high to create an almost doll-like effect. The photographer decided to keep the tonal range warmer showing lots of different shades of orange and yellow contrasting with the whiteness of the t-shirt and the background. For the aperture it looks like a standard lens was used to take an upper body picture, the image isn’t blurry and uses sharp and focused depth of field. The ISO looks like it’s on a medium setting (maybe 800 – 1200) as the image isn’t grainy or coarse. Texture can be seen through the image from the veins on her hand to the way her hair is layed, this shows that she was the main focus.

Visual: Cindy Sherman decided to go with a warmer tone and colour through this image creating a more inviting space instead of using a cool toned palette perhaps to not ‘scare’ the viewer. Sherman layed out the model by making her look away from the camera but still smiling as if she’s looking at something that she’s enjoying. The image looks less formal than normal as the model looks like shes in casual clothes and has an averting gaze – it is almost as if its a non staged, staged photo trying to make her seem ‘casual’ and ‘easy-going’. The image doesn’t have symmetry but has a good focus on face so she isn’t hidden and blurred.

Conceptual: To my knowledge, Cindy Sherman doesn’t see herself as a self portrait artist as everytime she does a photoshoot she’s alway playing a new character(s). With this photo I think she might of wanted to break away from women stereotypes people create and show the real meaning of being a girl. The messy makeup look shows the beginning of something: her trying out a new style or practicing for the first time. Most of her photoshoots have normally been about over exaggerated things like the clowns or the traditional housewife but for this shoot, she kept it more simple and let her face do the work instead of her body.

Contextual: At the time of the 2000s fashion and bright fun makeup was very big. A lot of women decided to come out their shell and experiment with what they could do, this was shocking because before then women were traditionally seen as objects or people that were subordinate to men. The stereotyping to women came heavily when it came to photoshoots as they were meant to be perceived for the male gaze however, after Sherman’s photoshoot from 1977 I think she realised how much the world has changed about their view on women and how they should act, dress and look.

I worked with different heights, lighting and poses to give a variety of images to choose from. This allowed me to make a further selection in which images I want to edit and makes changes to.

Original Images

I then did the behind-the-scenes esque photoshoot where I pretended the camera was the mirror I was doing my makeup in.

Editing + Experimenting

I chose image 6 to be my final image to compare the original photo as I think I positioned myself best and used the the same facial expressions as Cindy Sherman. I also think the lighting and height were more accurate than the other images I could’ve chosen because I think the photo is angled lower rather than at head height.

Here I took the image I think fits best with Cindy Sherman’s photo and edited it to look similar. I cropped and upped the saturation to give an almost doll-like look to the image. I also used the drawing tool to give myself the same colour nail polish which allowed me to get the same effect that Cindy Sherman used.

For these images I decided to take on my own approach giving an almost behind-the-scenes take on it. I took pictures during me putting on the bright makeup. This to me shows a feminine side as growing up as a girl to me is exploring and finding out how to do makeup. The use of the bright makeup allowed me to be more creative with this shoot and editing because I needed to try and accentuate the brightness and extremeness of the look.

Here I also decided to mesh to photos together to create almost a story of how i’m getting ready. I think it looks good because the haziness of the left photo blended with the right makes it seem as if it were intentional. If I were to do this again I would make sure the camera is more focused which would make the image look clearer yet, it still works with how it’s normally taken.

My Final Images + Gallery

Next time, I’d use a tripod to help me set up and get the images straight which would mean less editing for me. It would also help me by having a place the camera can be set, I’d also try and use natural if possible as you can tell in the images how fluorescent the lighting is.

Identity is what makes us as a human. Everything we do leads to our identity which defines who we are. This could be a range from your finger print, hair colour and behavioural traits etc.

Femininity are qualities in which are ‘female’ or ‘girly’. The word is normally used against women as they are seen as more let loose and bubbly however there are other ways femininity can be seen as a bad way to describe how women act because males often see women in household settings like, cooking or cleaning because this is seen as a feminine thing to do as its almost a delicate way of living because they are home bound and not doing ‘masculine’ activities.

Masculinity are qualities in which are ‘male’ or ‘acting tough’. The word normally links to men as they are usually seen as having to be masculine. This means instead of doing household work they’re outside providing for the women showing that they are in charge of the house. However, the thought of having to be ‘masculine’ can effect boys’ mentality as they think they need to fit in a specific category causing them to think which side is wrong or right and which one they should fit in.

Identity, Femininity and Masculinity can be strongly influenced by where you’ve lived, who you surround yourself with and many other attributes. Cultural identity allows people to be closer to who their family are but can lead to aspects in which people might not want to participate in like having an arranged marriage set up for a woman who doesn’t want to but with her culture its allowed. Social identity is also a major problem as society is a big part of the world but this means it can lead people judging and giving their opinions on how someone should act, dress or look like. This can affect someone deeply if it’s coming from people you might know or just a group of people who have opposing views from you. This leads to stereotyping and prejudice against women and men having to act how the rest of the world wants them to act. Women stereotyping are seen as doing delicate jobs and only helping their higher male figure, while men are seen ass doing the hard stuff providing for their families, laying back, playing sports etc however when either gender steps out of that category society sees this as a personal attack as they ‘aren’t fitting in society’.

Cindy Sherman

Cindy Sherman was a key figure of the movement Pictures Generation. This movement was a transformation that reveals identity as role-play, where femininity appears as something that is shaped by male expectations. The pictures were profoundly intriguing to intellectuals of the time.

Before becoming a photographer, in 1972 Sherman enrolled in the visual arts department at Buffalo state University, where she majored in painting. However, when she finished school in 1977 she moved to New York where she would begin working on what would become the Untitled Film Stills.

Her main key goals were to explore with themes such as identity, gender, and the role of women in society. She achieved these goals by using herself (self-portraiture) to create fictional characters to explore such themes. A range of personas are created as she uses make up, costumes, lighting and settings to make each of them different like, Clowns (2003-2004) a series of colourful images where Sherman portrays herself as a variety of clowns, or Untitled Film Stills (1977-1980) a series of black-and-white photos in which she plays various female characters inspired by film noir.

Cindy Sherman Mood Board

Photoshoot plan 1 & 2:

• location: my house —> my room, kitchen, living room and dining room
• People: myself in different settings —> self portraits
• lighting: natural lighting using windows or artificial light to emphasise the image setting
• how i’m going to do it: using my Sony camera
• editing ideas: use Lightroom to turn most images b&w or turn up the saturation

Rosanna Jones

Rosanna Jones is a photographer and mixed media image maker based in London. She is a graduate in Fashion Photography from Falmouth University. Her work specialises in an experimental blend of art and photography; celebrating the physical possibilities of an image, rather than simply its two dimensional form. Her trademark aesthetic has been built through years of painting over, ripping up, burning and otherwise distressing her photography to create tactile portraits that defy the flat images they once were.

She finds destroying the photographs a largely therapeutic process and her work “draws attention to portrait photography’s central conflict—the idea that taking a person’s photo can immortalize them, in a way, but it can also be an act of violence.” Jones also did another collection called “Skin” about how body image, positive or negative, can impact identity.

A lot of Jones’ work is making a statement about misogyny and the male gaze within the art/photography world, as it is still mainly dominated by men. Her manipulations of the photographs and the fact that in most of them the majority of the model’s bodies are painted over or edited so that they are unclear, even to the extent of being torn up could symbolise that Jones refuses to let her model’s bodies be exploited and wants people to focus on the photograph and why she creates it the way it is, rather than only focusing on the model’s body itself. This is clearly shown in another of her collections called ‘Girls’ where she manages to convey more attention to what’s going on in the image rather than the girls in the picture.

Rosanna Jones Mood Board

Photoshoot plan 3:

• location: friends house —> their room, plain walls —> outside, shed, hammock
• people: friend —> style them to fit the different shoots (including hair, makeup etc). —> myself to add contrast to the images (helps link to other photos in the mood board)
• lighting: —> mostly artificial lighting as most images are set in a studio, some natural lighting
• how i’m going to do it: using my Sony camera, my polaroid camera and my cheap digital camera to capture an old style of shooting.
• editing idea: print out most photos —> tear them up, paint over them, glue and layer them —> edit them in Lightroom where i can turn them into b&w if need to