Month: November 2019

Hi Vicky, this is just the transcript of the tutorial we had earlier. I barely understand your handwriting and I feel I won’t be able to remember what we talked about without transcribing it.

Practice Based Project: developing tests for incorporating graphics into images (on top of large prints) / gestures suggest movement.

Writing (2500) – AIMS

– Develop an understanding of objectification of models in fashion photography in 2019.

– Explore non-sexual representations of models in fashion photography.

– Develop a new style of analogue photography using research and new techniques.

I developed the photos I will be experimenting with the next couple of weeks.

I took these pictures with the medium format camera (Mamiya) with the help of Fiorella (styling) and Jessi (MUA).

Since the very beginning of my BA I realized the best way to learn how photographers and videographers work was to be in set and observ them working, so I tried to get involved in as many shoots as I could.

I have taken BTS photos for Fiorella’s and Samantha’s films and I will develop the negatives myself tomorrow (will add them to the journal), really excited to see the results. But the main reason why I did it was to learn how their DOPs were filming.

The easiest way to be in set is starting as a runner, which I did and didn’t like; that’s why I tried to get in film sets as the stills photographer. The photos shared below are from different film sets for the last couple of months for Print Room Productions and the fashion news channel CULTED.

I had the opportunity to go to a shoot this morning for a baby magazine at the Conservatory at Barbican. I was not allowed to take any pictures for the blog for obvious reasons but it was a good experience to see how the photographer works with baby models. It was also extremely cute.

Inspirational pictures from Dora Maar exhibition at Tate Modern.

Camera-less photographs. Photograms.

I would also like to share my friend’s reflexion about the curation of the exhibition. Both of us were very surprised about the fact that there were two whole rooms (out of nine) dedicated to Picasso.

I was going through the pictures I took at the exhibition “Implicit Tensions: Mapplethorpe Now” at Guggenheim Museum in New York last February and thought of how he used his models exclusively for aesthetic purposes. This is actually what I am trying to explore with my research for the FML unit.

I rewatched the documentary “Mapplethorpe: Look at the Pictures” (2016) and collected a couple of quotes and images where he degrades his models to the status of a mere object.

“I’m really not a model anymore. I’m just, you know, an object” – David Croland, Mapplethorpe’s model, also his first homosexual relationship.

“I mean, that’s a sculpture to me, and that’s sort of one of the points of making photography. It’s like inventing a sculpture myself with the camera. All I know is that it’s physically attractive to me. Visually it’s also attractive” – Robert Mapplethorpe

“I don’t think it is necessary to tell you who is in the photographs because if the pictures are good then, they will transcend who they are and it wouldn’t matter” – Robert Mapplethorpe

The first woman in this list is in the previous post where I talk about the references Vicky gave me last week, Shae Detar.

The next two women were suggested by Ellie in my tutorial earlier today: Amanda Charchian and Katrien de Blauwer.

I literally just got out of my tutorial with Ellie Tsatsou and I feel really inspired with the feedback and references she gave me. I am gonna write a post to collect them all and explore how I can use them for my project.

https://www.phasesmag.com/ – Online magazine that focuses on international contemporary photography publishing a weekly selection of 3 portfolios on an irregular basis.

Mark Borthwick’s books. Experimental filmmaker, photographer and musician, well known for his award winning avant-garde fashion photography.

https://research.ellietsatsou.com/ – beautifully curated research journal

“How can such a seemingly neutral medium as photography address the incredibly nuanced complexities of gender portrayal? Spanning the Victorian, modern and postmodern eras, the works of Julia Margaret Cameron, Florence Henri and Francesca Woodman provide answers to these questions.

Despite their differing formal approaches, their portraiture evinces a common stance that affords the viewer a journey through the photographic representation of femininity.

The women in their photographs demand to be acknowledged, making photography the space in which identity may be put to the test, where objectification may be escaped and subverted. This book provides a fascinating potted history of the depiction of women by women, across three epochs.”

Julia Margaret Cameron, Florence Henri, Francesca Woodman: The Art of the Feminine

A Female Pheromone Hotbox

https://www.dazeddigital.com/photography/article/38678/1/see-what-the-world-looks-like-from-a-female-perspective

https://frieze.com/article/female-gaze

These two questions are where I am focusing my research at the moment. On one side, for the fashion media lab, I am interested in gathering references on how I can manipulate and experiment with stills and get mixed media LARGE scale prints.

How to combine stills and moving image together and make a project in which both complement each other is the question for the outcome of my final major project.

Talking about stills again, I have been looking into Shae Detar’s work, referred by Vicky in the last week tutorial. She adds layers of paint to her photographs to exaggerate colour, create textures and add surreal elements to the images.

I used to attend painting lessons as a kid and I would love to experiment with the techniques I learnt or new ones on the photos I took for the FML shoot.