Bibliography

Books:


Bolton, R, eds. (1992) The Contents of Meaning: Critical Histories of Photography. London: MIT Press.


Henning, M. Photography and the Human Subject. In: Wells, L, eds., (1997) Photography: A Critical Introduction. London: Routledge, pp. 217-250.


Gimlin, D. (2002) Body Work: Beauty and Self-Image in American Culture. California: University of California Press.


Mills, B. (2005) Television Sitcom. London: British Film Institute.


Pauli, L, eds. (2006) Acting the Part: Photography as Theatre. London: Merrell Publishers Ltd.


Phaidon. (1997) The Photography Book. London: Phaidon Press Ltd.


Russo, M. (1994) The Female Grotesque. London: Routledge.


Tagg, T. (1988) The Burden of Representation: Essays on Photographies and Histories. London: Macmillan Education Ltd.


Thomas, A. Modernity and the Staged Photograph. In: Pauli, L, eds., (2006) Acting the Part: Photography as Theatre. London: Merrell Publishers Ltd, pp. 101-133.


Wells, L, eds. (1997)Photography: A Critical Introduction. London: Routledge.


Williams, V. (1986) Women Photographers. London: Virago Press.


Wolf, N. (1991) The Beauty Myth: How Images of Beauty are used Against Women. London: Vintage Books.



Websites and Online Sources:


Alexander, I. (2011) NYC Photographer Jamie Beck Discusses The Cinemagraph [online] Available from: http://www.filmindustrynetwork.biz/nyc-photographer-jamie-beck-cinemagraph/12173[Accessed 14 Feburary].


Cerulio (2006). Sledgehammer – Peter Gabriel. Youtube [video]. 24 May. Available from:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hqyc37aOqT0 [Accessed 01 April 2012].

Cox, L. (2012) 21-year-old 'Real-life Barbie Doll' Seeks International Fame... But Does She Even Exist?[online] Available from: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2133552/Valeria-Lukyanova-pictures-Real-life-Barbie-seeks-worlds-convincing-doll.html [Accessed 28 April 2012].

Damean, D. (2006) Media and Gender: Constructing Feminine Identities in a Postmodern Culture [online]. Romania: Seminar for the Interdisciplinary Research of Religions and Ideologies. [Accessed 25 January 2012].


Diana Official Music (2011) Diana Vickers Very Commercial [online]. Available from: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQnQ080cFKY [Accessed 15 March 2012].

Film Arcade (2011). Miss Representation: Official Trailer. Youtube [video]. 24 January. Available from: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gkIiV6konY [Accessed 14 February 2012].

Harris, P. (2012) Cod-damn Gorgeous! The Girl Who Works in a Chip Shop Who Has 'Britain's Most Beautiful Face’ [online]. Available from: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2132896/Florence-Colgate-Girl-Britains-beautiful-face.html [Accessed: 28 April 2012].


Mad and Crazy Child (2011). She Takes a Photo Every Day: 4.5 Years. Youtube [video]. 12 May. Available from:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1IIHXUfEdrl [Accessed 14 February 2012].

Marbles, J. (2012) How to trick people into thinking you're good looking. Youtube [video]. 09 July. Available from: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OYpwAtnywTk&sns=em [Accessed 14 February 2012].

No Real Pattern (2008). Das Boxende Känguruh (1895). Youtube [video]. 25 September. Available from: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oe5xj4wKuUc [Accessed 15 March 2012].


Quarter Past Wonderful (2009). Her Morning Elegance. Youtube [video]. 19 January. Available from: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_HXUhShhmY [Accessed 01 April].


Turner, C. (2010) Controversial Advertisement: Violence In Fashion Ads [online]. Available from: http://www.fashionist.ca/2010/11/controversial-advertisements-violence-in-fashion-ads.html[Accessed 14 February 2012].


Schmelzer, P. (2010) Without a Face: Izabella Demavlys on Photographing Pakistan's Survivors of Acid Attacks[online]. Available from: http://eyeteeth.blogspot.co.uk/2010/03/without-face-izabella-demavlys-on.html [Accessed 14 February 2012].


Wright, M. (2007) Girls Aloud, Beauty Secrets and Lies [online]. Available from: http://www.thefword.org.uk/features/2007/06/girls_aloud_bea [Accessed 14 March 2012].


Zephoria (2006). Dove – Evolution Commercial. Youtube [video]. 15 October. Available from: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hibyAJOSW8U [Accessed 15 March 2012].

The J. Paul Getty Museum. Agitate Images: John Heartfield & German Photomontage, 1920-1938 [online]. Available from:  http://www.getty.edu/art/exhibitions/heartfield/ [Accessed 1 April 2012].

Flipbooks

I have eventually found a company that will make my flipbooks for me because printing companies do not make them.  I decided to get them made professionally because it would have been impossible to make them myself as I do not have the equipment to make them look perfect.  I got them back today and I am really happy with the outcome of them and will use them in my exhibition.   

The Beauty Myth by Naomi Wolf - Book

The Beauty Myth by Naomi Wolf explores how since women have gained social power that the standard of physical beauty has increased for women. “More women have more money and power and scope and legal recognition than we have ever had before; but in terms of how we feel about ourselves physically, we may actually be worse off than our unliberated grandmothers” (Wolf, 1991, p.10). Naomi Wolf explains how this standard of beauty in unattainable leaving women feeling bad about their image and needing to conform to these standards. She disapproves of the fashion and beauty industries who she believes take advantage of women. Naomi believes that women should have, "the choice to do whatever we want with our faces and bodies without being punished by an ideology that is using attitudes, economic pressure, and even legal judgments regarding women's appearance to undermine us psychologically and politically."


A question that Naomi Wolf asked really stood out to me, “Does a woman’s identity count? Must she be made to want to look like someone else? (Wolf, 1991). I feel that this question she asked really helped develop my project because it made me think that by women looking through magazines (forms of media) it can influence them to change their appearance to look more ‘beautiful.’  Thefore trying to look like other ‘beautiful’ women shown to them. However this may leave women losing their identity because they are trying to conform into a different person, by changing their appearance. Once again the images covering the girls face in the photographic shoot show how a woman’s identity may be lost due to the media’s representation of women, the ‘beautiful’ ones.

Television Sitcom by Brett Mills - Book

'Television Sitcom' by Brett Mills strongly influenced my project. Even though it discusses television frequently it also relates heavily back to the media and the representation the media portrays of women; the “media creates the perfect woman, setting standards very difficult to reach (and even more difficult to preserve) and promotion women who seem to match this ideal” (Mills, 2005, p.92). Brett Mills discusses how the media produces idealised women which set a high standard in which women need to aspire too, leaving some women feeling inadequate and overwhelmed. Brett Mills explains that the media does not also represent how women really are (‘perfect’), “there is seen to be some disparity between the way media characterises people and how they ‘really’ are...” (Mills, 2005, p.103). It can be said that not all women look like these idealised beautiful women that are shown through the media, such as magazines, and in reality a lot of women do not look anything near these images shown to us.

A quote that also influenced my photographic shoots and the idea behind them was; “In the contemporary society, identity is strongly mediated by images provided by the mass culture, offering ideals for modelling one’s personal identity” (Mills, 2005, p.89). In the photographic shoots when the images cover the women’s face I want to symbolise how some women may lose their identity because they are trying to conform to these standards of beauty which the media set. Their identity potentially influenced by images of other women shown to them by the media, for example in magazines.

Final Piece 3

For my third final piece unfortunately it did not turn out how I had hoped and imagined. There were many problems and I tried many attempts to fix them but it did not work. The video above was the best film that I managed to make. The problems that I encountered were that when the eyes were stuck on they did not stick properly, so it took many attempts until they did. When the eyes are placed on each other’s face I had also tried to stick on lips, but it did not look right. Therefore in the end I decided to just apply the eyes.

My sister and I face the camera to show that we are twins and not just one person imposed. We mirrored each other making sure that our hair and clothing was almost identical.  We tried to look like a mirrored image to show how people try to conform to the same ideal image of beautiful women, potentially losing their identity.  When we place the eyes on each other it is to symbolise us changing our appearance and conforming to what the media represents as ‘beautiful.’  The eyes also symbolise how women see what constitutes as ‘beauty’ differently but the media sets the standards high to what is seen as beautiful.  At the end we did turn back to the camera but the eyes started to fall off so I edited it out. I decided not to make this photographic shoot into a flip book because I did not think the viewer would be able to see what we are doing as it would be too small. I am really upset it did not work out how I had hoped but I am pleased with my other two final pieces.

“In our culture individuals learn to see themselves through the eyes of the others. They discover that their image is more important than their experience or knowledge. Since the others will judge them by the products they own, by their outfits and their personality, they adopt theatrical view of their own ‘performance.’ The postmodern world pays a great deal of attention to superficial images and impressions, to such extent that the individuals become almost impossible to distinguish from their surface” – This quote really stood out to me and relates to my project that we may be judged by others because of what we look like, making some women feel the need to change their appearance.  

I think for the exhibition instead of using the clip I could use a photograph instead, but this is just a thought to break up the videos.

Roxiita Guzman Photography

This image is by Roxitta Guzman who is a fashion photographer. This image caught my eye because the woman looks like a doll (almost like Barbie). I found it related back to what I have been saying about women looking idealised and almost perfect, like the Barbie doll.  Showing such ‘perfect’ looking women in adverts and magazines can make some women feel insecure and inadequate about their own personal image.  With some women feeling the need to change themselves to look more alike these ‘beautiful’ women they see frequently shown in the media.

Liu Bolin Art

These photographs come from Liu Bolin’s ‘Hiding in the City’ series.  Liu Bolin is an artist who paints himself so that he blends into the background of various places and scenes.  These images really stood out to me because it made me think of my project and how women may lose their identity by conforming or trying to conform to the beauty standards that the media sets.  For example Liu Bolin clearly merges into the background and loses his identity. 

Exhibition Blurb

"Standards for feminine beauty are inherently inconsistent and impossible to meet” (Debrah Gimlin). What is seen as beautiful? My work explores and illustrates the suffocation and claustrophobia women feel due to the expectations of beauty that is presented to them through the media.

Real life Barbie Doll

This article relates to what I have been commenting on about Barbie being seen as the ‘perfect’ women, with perfect hair, the perfect face and the perfect body. Valeria Lukyanova has been referred to as a ‘Real-life Barbie doll’ as she demonstrates an almost identical resemblance to the doll. At the young age of 21 she has clearly been strongly influenced to look like this, even though the article does not say the reason behind her choice to look like Barbie. The eerie images make the woman look like a plastic real life size doll but in fact it is a real person. The woman portrays in her appearance the desire to be ‘perfect’ by altering and changing her appearance to achieve this.


http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2133552/Valeria-Lukyanova-pictures-Real-life-Barbie-seeks-worlds-convincing-doll.html

The Girl with the 'Perfect' Face

“The 18-year-old student is blessed with what is described as the perfect face. It matches an international blueprint for the optimum ratio between eyes, mouth, forehead and chin, endowing her with flawless proportions” (Harris, 2012).

For many women it can be said that some search for the ‘perfect’ features by changing their appearance or using drastic measures such as cosmetic surgery to achieve this, but Florence Colgate apparently has these which match Leonardo Da Vinci’s blueprints of the ‘perfect’ face.  Demonstrating the near perfect eye, nose, face ratios that he describes as the perfect face.  In the article it describes how 8,000 women entered a competition to find the most 'beautiful natural face', which this girl won.  It made me think that people are so desperate to find out what ‘beauty’ really is and what it consists off, there are even competitions searching for these beautiful qualities.  

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2132896/Florence-Colgate-Girl-Britains-beautiful-face.html

Horst P. Horst Photography - 'Electric Beauty'

I came across this photograph in the photography book ‘Acting the Part: Photography as Theatre.’ This constituted of essays by Lori Pauli, Marta Weiss, Ann Thomas and Karen Henry.

Horst P. Horst images can be seen as similar to John Heartfield’s work, because they share similar backgrounds. Horst P. Horst’s photograph was produced in 1939 and John Heartfield’s was produced in 1930. They both originated from Germany and worked with photomontage’s, clearly trying to make a statement with their images, "socialist photographers like Heartfield use photomontage to make invisible social relations visible, advertisers have used montage to conceal 'reality" (Wells, 1997, p.179).  Horst photographed costumes for Salvador Dali and created ‘Electric Beauty,’ drawing on surrealistic ideas himself. This photograph (advertising) above shows a portrait of a woman who is undergoing a beauty treatment:

“her face covered by a heat mask with one small breathing hole. Electrical cords snake around her entire body, which she holds an electric nail buffer in one hand and steadies the overhead lamp with the other. One leg is lathered with hair-removing cream while her other foot rests in a tub of soapsuds. The analogy with the figures who animate the backdrop, a detail from Hieronymus Bosch’s painting The Temptation of Saint Anthony, is not all that far-fetched” (Wells, 1997, p.126).

What I interoperated from this photograph was that women feel the need to change themselves in order to find what is seen as ‘beautiful,’ where the woman (in the photograph) looks like she may accidently harm herself in order to achieve beauty. For example being strangled by the electrical cords or being electrocuted. I felt that this image related to my project and photographs because the woman’s face is also covered up and being suffocated by the beauty treatment, where the woman loses her identity. It also portrays the extremities women go to in order to achieve beauty.

Final Piece 2

In my photographs I want to show the suffocation and claustrophobia that some women may feel due to the media’s representation. This is shown by the images either being placed on the women’s face or appearing covering the girl completely.

For my second final piece I used a different technique from the previous photographic shoot. Instead of the arms placing the photographs on the women’s face, they just appear. I wanted to create a narrative within my final pieces. For example in this one I positioned the girl as if she had been flung on the floor and this is why her hair is spread over the background. This is to symbolise that she feels exhausted by the media’s representation of beauty and the standards that one has to try and live up to can be draining.



Towards the end of the video when the girls face starts to be covered completely by the images I created shadows to symbolise the pressure she feels suffocating her. The woman is not wearing a top to show her vulnerability and the images in the background show her blending into the background, losing her identity among the images of all the women.

Final Piece 1

This extract is taken form ‘Body Work: Beauty and Self-image in American Culture’ by Debrah Gimlin: “They control women by preoccupying them with efforts to change their inadequate appearances and by draining them of self-esteerm. Because standards for feminie beauty are inherently inconsistent and impossible to meet, women must struggle with bodies and appearances that ineviably fail to measure up.Yet many women focus enormous energy on molding their bodies into the closest possible approximataions of the female ideal” (Gimlin, 2000, p.17).

My photographic images are trying to suggest that a women may lose her ideneity because of the pressure she feels from the media’s representation of women, women who are beautiful and almost idealised. Making it hard or impossible for women to reach these standards. By the arms suddenly appearing from the sides and placing the images on her face where she does not fight back is to portray the media’s representation of women can be very powerful and influential on some women. I wanted to create an overwhelming sense of claustrophobia and suffocation by the images covering her whole face, whilst the girl does nothing.  This is to show the pressure that some women feel to change their apperance becuase they feel engulfed by what they see in magazines of other beautiful women.  Her eyes move from side to side creating an eerie feeling to the photograph that the girl is powerless to what is happening to her.

After learning from my mistakes from previous photographic shoots I made sure I did not make them again. For example no sleeves or braclets on the arms. I also decided this time to paint the hands finger nails red, because I wanted to portray how the meida can glamoroize beauty (red representing this). Using ‘beautiful’ models in magazines, can make some women feel the need to confrom to these ideals. I also decided to make the girl move her eyes from side to side in panic, because the arms are covering up her face with images of other women. I am very happy with the final image and there is clearly now a stronger narrative than from the previous photographic shoots.

John Heartfield Photography

John Heartfield was an innovator of photomontage in the 1920s and 1930s. He worked in Germany and Czechoslovakia between the two world wars. “The impact of Heartfield's images was so great that they helped transform photomontage into a powerful form of mass communication… Photomontage allowed Heartfield to create loaded and politically contentious images. To compose his works, he chose recognizable press photographs of politicians or events from the mainstream illustrated press. He then disassembled and rearranged these images to radically alter their meaning” (The J. Paul Getty Museum).

The photograph below “was a staged photograph rather than a proper photomontage. To create it, Heartfield covered a mannequin's head with pages from two newspapers, Vorwärts (Forward) and Tempo. As a result, the figure is literally blinded by the prejudices of these newspapers. The blurring at the left reinforces the idea of impaired vision” (The J. Paul Getty Museum).
I feel that this photograph related to my images, foremost because it has symbolic meaning behind it. The way in which the newspapers ‘blind’ the mannequin remind me of my images where the magazine cuttings ‘suffocate’ the women, covering her face completely.  The person in John Heartfield's photograph and the women in my images lose their identity.  There is also a feel of suffocation in his photograph not only from the newspapers covering his face but also from the strap across his chest constricting him.

Pixilation

Throughout my project I have been experimenting with making pixilation animation’s, which is a stop motion technique.  I have achieved this in my videos by using hundreds of photographs which are then put together to look like a film.  Below are some examples I found that use the same technique.  The reason that I decided to use this stop motion technique was to bring my images to life, to show in time, in this moment how some women feel beacuse of the pressure the media exerts.  Above are my final pieces that show this.

Her Mornin Elegance - Yuval and Merav Nathan 

Sledgehammer - Peter Gabriel 

Robert Hammersteil Photography

I came across these images in “The Photo Book,” where it explaines Robert Hammerstiel’s inspiration behind his photographs:

“Doll’s outfits packaged in transparent plastic are part of everyday commercial reality. They introduce children to adult’s patterns of consumption. Hammerstiel’s tactic is to photograph and reproduce such miniatures on a scale to large enough to make them objects for thought. His strategy in general is to show how what we think of as reality is produced and to demonstrate that there is little which is natural about it – hence his interest in the presentation of goods, as well as in the goods themselves. In the Made it up series, to which this photograph belongs, he includes portraits of dolls variously made up, as well as studies of packaged outfits.” (Phaidon, 1997, p.194)

These photographs interested me in the way in which the minature images of clothes are perfectly laid out.  It made me think of how chlidren grow up looking at images of ‘perfect’ women at such a young age and can be influenced but what they see in magazines and television. The photograph of the doll emphasises how the media portray women as idealised, like Barbie who is described as the ‘perfect’ women which I discussed in my blog last term. The way in which these clothes and doll are not ‘real,’ made me think of how the media portrays images of women who are unrealistic to others (unachievable beauty), but push women to believe we may need to change and alter our appearance to become more ‘beautiful.’

Final Piece Thoughts

For my final pieces of work I want to show a sense of claustrophobia and containment by how the media portrays women in a controlling way, with the images almost suffocating them. I have learnt through my previous photographic shoots what looks good and what does not. For example I need to be more precise, make sure there are no sleeves, or bracelets, plain clothes and background, etcetera.  Therefore the audience can focus on the women and the images. I want to create narratives within the images, to point out the pressures women feel in their lives due to the images of beauty and other women’s appearances that is shown to them through the media.

Final Piece 3 - Idea's

Final Piece 2 - Idea's

Final Pieces 1 - Idea's

Experimenting with Images

For these images I used some stills from previous photographic shoots to experiment with the images floating onto the women’s faces. This was a very long process, as I added the images in Photoshop, moved them all a tiny bit, saved the image, then started again, and carried that process on. This was so that when the images are played they looked like they were floating onto the girls face. I wanted the images to look like they were floating out from the laptop (top image) onto the girls face.

I prefer the earlier photographic shoots where the images are stuck onto the girls face instead of inserting them in Photoshop, because the images (going on the face) look too flat. It is also obvious that they are added on in Photoshop. I am now going to go back to my original idea of sticking the images on the girls face and start composing my final pieces. I will now be focusing on creating narratives within my images to create a story.

Photographic Shoot 6

For this photographic shoot I used myself and my twin, where I placed the images on her face. The aim of the photographic shoot was to show how a woman may feel the need to conform to the media’s representation of women and the standards of beauty. “In the contemporary society, identity is strongly mediated by images provided by the mass culture, offering ideals for modelling one's personal identity” (Damean, 2006, p.89). Thefore someone may lose their identity because they may feel the need to change their appearance, which I wanted to portray in my photographs. I used myself and my sister to make it look like a mirrored image, and that the girl was putting the images on herself. The two things that would have made this photographic shoot better would have been to put my hair behind my back (so it looks like a mirror image); and for my sister to have stood up taller so we looked the same height. I will try and make sure this is achieved if I decided to use a similar image for my final piece.

Rosie Hardy Photography

Rosie Hardy’s photography has had a strong impact on me because I feel that it relates to my work, with the feeling or suffocation, restriction, change, etcetera. For example this is shown in the photograph where the woman is wrapped in cling film trying to break out and the woman behind the sheet. One’s identity is obscured, like my photographs where the women’s faces are covered up, losing their identity. I really like the photograph of the woman on strings like a puppet, being pulled around. For me I linked this to my project, in the way in which women may be altered or changed by the media, because of its representation of portraying beautiful women; leaving some women feeling the need to conform to these standards of beauty.

 

Photographic Shoot 5

For this photographic shoot it was just an experiment to test out my idea before the real photographic shoot. Instead of the arms removing the images I am experimenting with the images appearing on the women’s face. I was not sure how it was going to look, so I just tried out my idea on the floor. For this I put all the images on the floor and then removed them one by one, taking the photograph before I removed it. I did this for every image to get the final video.


 

 

I decided that I liked the idea so I tried it out on the girls face by completing the exact same process as I did with the floor. I really like the final result because it looks as though she is being engulfed but the images of beautiful women.  Throughout my photographic shoots I also want to emphasise that I am trying to portray that these women may lose their identity because of the media’s influence on them and the pressure these women may feel; therefore feeling the need to change their appearance.  The images appearing and covering their whole face is to show the women losing their identity because of what they see and read, but at the same time not necessarily knowing that they are being influenced, for example by reading magazines. The way that the images are either controlled by the arms or just appear on their face is to represent that the women may not necessarily have a choice or opinion in the way women are perceived and represented by the medial; and that these images of ‘beautiful’ women and what beautiful women look like are forced upon them.

 

In previous photographic shoots the girls have been either sitting or standing up, but because I needed the girl to lie completely still, I laid her down on the floor and placed the camera on a tripod so that it was in the exact same position every time. Otherwise if the camera or model moved a lot it would have made the image stutter, because I had to take the image off, take the photograph and repeat this until all the images were removed.

Final Piece and Exhibition

For my final piece and exhibition I would like to make my final images into flipbooks and also have them on a white monitor. I have been trying to look up companies that can make the flipbooks for me so that it looks perfect except at the moment I cannot find any, but I am going to keep searching.

I thought that I would look up the history of the flipbook and where it originated from. The flip book is a form of animation of still images that is flicked so fast that it creates a moving image. The flip book was patented by John Barnes Linnett in 1868, and Max Skladanowsky who showed his photographic images in a flip book in 1894. Below is one of Max Skladanowsky’s first animation film with a man boxing with a kangaroo made in 1895.

David Ayer Photography

I like Davis Ayer photography because he projects vintage images onto women’s bodies of landscapes. Davis makes the body form match and link up with the women’s body making the images stand out and look very artistic and carefully planned.  These images made me think of my project, in the way in which I use images and place them on women.  I realised that to produce a successful image that I should make sure that the images I use fit the body well, for example precisely covering the bare skin so that no skin can be seen.

Advertsing Beauty

I have also looked at advertisement of products and how they can make the audience believe that if one purchase’s these products it can help change their body features or make them look more 'beautiful'. For example, I came across this advert by singer Diana Vickers for her clothing line by ‘Very’. It stood out to me because she says that the jumpsuit that she is wearing can also make you look “taller and slimmer.” It can be said that the consumer will feel that buying this product will make them look more beautiful or make them feel better about their body. It is also modelled by Diana Vickers who is a very pretty, young, skinny girl.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQnQ080cFKY



Dove - Evolution Commercial

I also found the ‘Dove Campaign: For Real Beauty’ clip called “Evolution Commercial” which shows a pretty but ordinary girl being transformed into a stunning billboard model. It is a time lapse sequence showing her having her make-up and hair being done by experts. The sequence then moves to Photoshop where the girl’s features are being altered more, even though she looks beautiful. For example her neck is made longer, her shoulder curves are altered, her hair and skin are changed, and her mouth and eyes are made larger. The final shot goes to the woman on the billboard looking stunning but unrecognisable from before, saying after, “No wonder perception of beauty it distorted.” It made me think that in magazines, television programmes, etcetera, the media ends up altering women’s real identity by changing their appearance to make them look more ‘beautiful’ because of what is seen as stereotypically ‘beautiful.’ Which can thefore put pressure on women to aspire to look like these women in order to find happiness and beauty.

Photographic Shoot 4

 
http://www.thefword.org.uk/features/2007/06/girls_aloud_bea


“The smiling, happy faces, the slim, shiny bodies, poreless, glossy, smooth and clean, perfect and proper, beam at us every day. They come at us from magazine covers, billboards, television advertising, shop windows, music videos. We see them and hear the messages they send: ‘You too can look like this’; ‘You deserve to be this’; ‘This is how to look to be happy’”(Wright).

After reading this article it inspired the photographic shoot below, because it discusses how adverts of women seen in magazines sell products promising to make you look more beautiful if you buy them.  It also discusses how the beauty industry and images of women can make some women feel insecure and inadequate and “What they are really saying to us is that we are 'supposed' to be like the women in the adverts” (Wright). Michelle Wright also discusses the myth that women’s beauty is the most important thing for a woman. She explains that the adverts make women recognise flaws that we would have not noticed before, and one may feel that by buying the product it will solve their problem.

Once again I used the scene shoot from photographic shoot one for inspiration. I like the final video because it looks like the images are coming out of the magazine, but if I could change anything I would have made the image simpler. For example the girl would wear plain clothes, have plain bed sheets and the arms would not have any bracelets on or sleeves. I am learning through my photographic shoots how to make the final photographic shoot the best it can be by leaning through my mistakes.  In my photographic shoot I wanted to express that some women may be influenced subconsciously by the images they see of women through the media and not even notice this because they see them so frequently.  For example by watching television, using their computer or reading magazines.  I also want to show that women do feel suffocated by how women are represented leaving them feeling the need to change themselves or buy beauty products to achieve beauty.

Photographic Shoot 3

In this photographic shoot I was trying to incorporate the still images for the first photographic shoot (see below) and the idea of the images being placed on the woman’s face from the second photographic shoot.  Unfortunately it did not work as planned, because I tried to place the girl in the exact same position but as the desk was in the way someone was not able to stand there and peel the images off.  Thefore we had to move the girl so that this was possible.  The photographic shoot did not turn out as planned because the lighting was not very good and it did not look the way I had imagined.  It is useful however to experiment and recognise my mistakes for my final piece.

Ideas for Photographic Shoot

After both photographic shoots I have decided that for the next photographic shoot I am going to incorporate both of them into one. For example I am going to pick two or three settings from the 1st photographic shoot and the idea of the moving images from the 2nd photographic shoot and bind them together. The photographs below are the settings that I am going to use.

'Social Types and Representation' - Photomedia Reader (Second Year)

I have been looking at an article from our second year module Photomedia called “Social Types and Representation.”  This article stood out to me because it discusses how identities are socially constructed.  For example it made me think of the Youtube video I uploaded to my blog earlier called “How to trick people into thinking you are good looking.”  This is because in the video she is altering her image to what she believes is represented as beautiful that has been social constructed by the media.  “We experience our lives and present ourselves to others in ways which have been shaped by our knowledge of films and photos we have seen, stories we have read and so on” (pg 5).  It is reiterating that we believe what we see and what we are taught, but it does not necessarily represent reality, but are representations of what the media believes it to be.  This is what I am trying to portray in my photographs that representation of women (in the media) is not necessarily reality, for example all people don’t look like certain images of women that are produced, but feel pressured to change their appearance to achieve what they see in front of them.

I want to show through my images how powerful the media’s representation is, “No representation is simply a representation of reality: it is always a reality sense from a particular perspective or subject positions” (pg 7). For example shown through media images such as television, magazines and photographs. Stereotypes’ are another form of representation, they define people for example women’s appearance and how they act in society. Relating back to the film ‘Miss Representation’ is just shows how hard it is to escape from certain stereotypes of women which are represented in society though the media.

Photographic Shoot 2

“Since femininity is associated with matter, the symbol of femininity is the female body. In contemporary culture, the body, especially the female one, is regarded as an object that can be shaped and modelled to match the promoted beauty standards” (Damean, 90).  After Reading “Media and Gender: Constructing feminine identities in a postmodern culture’ by Diana Damean it made me realise how the media portray certain beauty standards for women, showing them that they can change their appearance to achieve this level of beauty.  However images of women portrayed in the media can influence women to feel suffocated by the representation of these beautiful idealised women. The “Media sets standards for the shape and the dimensions of the “beautiful” body, according to a series of binary oppositions” (Damean 91).  It can be said that the media defines and shows women what ‘beauty’ is supposed to looks like, through women’s appearances in magazines, television, etcetera.  This may leave some women feeling the pressure to conform to these standards; and feeling smothered by the media’s representation of ‘beauty’.  This influenced me for my next photographic shoot, where the images smother her face, losing her identity, shown through the magazine cuttings covering her face.

For this photographic shoot I stuck the images on the girls face and then got two people to peel the images off. I reversed the images so that it looks as though they are placing the photographs on her face. I did this as I wanted to show that she was not making the decision but was being influenced by other people and the media. I then used video software to create the moving image. A tripod was essential for this photographic shoot so that the camera stayed in a stable position throughout the process.

Photographic Shoot 1

For this photographic shoot I was experimenting with the idea that even in our home which is supposed to be a safe place we are still being ‘policed’ by the media in the everyday, without subconsciously knowing it. I tried to portray this by placing the camera high up like a CCTV camera view, watching the girl, but in my tutorial with Michelle though we decided that this was not as affective.  However we did like the shots of the girl in front of the laptop and when she is lying on the bed watching the television because of the lighting and composition. This is something that I will take into consideration for the next photographic shoot and experiment with.

For this photographic shoot I got the idea of the CCTV camera view reading, “Media and gender: Constructing feminine identities in a postmodern culture” by Diana Damean. I found it really interesting how she relates to Michel Foucault that women have ‘surveillance’ and ‘control’ over their bodies and image because of the way the media portrays stereotypes of beautiful women and they fell the need to change and alter themselves in order to fit into these stereotypes. This relates to what I have been exploring that women feel pressurized by the media to conform to what society see as ‘beautiful’. Below are extracts from her book which stood out to me:

“Since the femininity standards are difficult to reach, women are compelled to live most of their lives with a feeling of deficiency, of not being good enough, which means that a severe control over the body can also affect the mind. As it appears, the key-concepts the media discourse operates with are "surveillance" and "control" over the female body, both external and internal. Media use this strategy so as to shape women's bodies as well as to fashion their social roles” (Damean, 2006, p.91). This is where my initial idea grew from.

“Women are prisoners in this virtual panopticon as, once aware they are being objects of the gaze, they apply to themselves the normalizing politics of control and self-surveillance” (Damean, 2006, p.91). – This gave me an idea for my next photographic shoot where images (magazine cuttings) are forced on a women’s face, but she is powerless to object.

Composition

This week’s lecture discussed composition and how important it is to a photograph. An image that was used as an example was of a woman who took a photograph every day for four and a half years and then created it into a moving image. This video worked extremely well because of the composition of all the photographs, as they were almost exactly in the same position every time. Thinking ahead for my photographic shoot I want the composition of the close up of the women’s face to be framed well. I also like the stuttering of the images which I hope to incorporate into my images.