My soul purpose in life ever since
first feeling that satisfying shutter release from my very first DSLR camera, I
knew that I had to create images with an impact. Photographs that meant
something and made people feel the photograph not just look at it, I have been
seeing pictures all my life as they are everywhere, all around us and they
stick with us, well, some of them do. Some images really speak to you while others
simply get lost inside our brains with all the other useless stuff we never
need to relocate again. My goal in life is make my images stick in people’s
brains like a post it note so that they always remember and can always re
access it to enjoy again and again.
Since attending University I have
noticed the difference in each type of photographers, Documentary, fashion,
dynamic, photographic arts, etc. and each category has a completely different
feel to the others. My biggest observation is that fashion may seem very much
alive to the world right now but to me, it’s actually quite the opposite, dead.
I look through fashion images day after day and notice no matter how different the
photographs may be the majority of them have the same thing in common which is,
the eyes. The eyes of every single model are blank, no emotion no feeling and
no story. This hit me with the most horrible feeling of dread as I knew that I
must never produce such images with such lack of emotion and feeling and soul.
Then I look at images that are documentary and dynamic, all of them have a
story, a tale to tell and feeling that is given for free when looking upon thus
image. This is what I want to create
within fashion. I want to be the person who combines fashion and documentary
and create a complete and obvious fashion image with the feeling and story of
documentary. Now there are obviously people who have already mastered this as I
am not stating that ALL fashion images are dead and lifeless, just a wide range
of them. In the essay I wanted to expose the observation that I have made and
to show people the different types of photography and what effect it has on the
consumer. A picture is an identity whether that is for the photographer or for
the model or the brand. A photograph is really nothing if it hasn’t got any
emotion in it anywhere, yes it might bring customers to your brand, or
followers to your twitter page but it won’t make a truly strong impact on a
true consumer such as a photographer or an artist who seek emotion, feeling and
passion in everything possible.
Thomas Ruff created a beautiful series of headshots in
a book called, ‘Thomas Ruff – Centre National de la Photographie’, he placed
his model against plain backdrops, sometimes a simple off white colour and sometimes
bright colours like seen here.
This project by Ruff stood out to
me and I found that I was drawn to the warm skin tones, the clean even lighting
across the models faces but most of all I was intrigued by the emotionless
stare they all wore. Each photograph was emotionless and all sported a blank
stare. Not one glimmer of feelings or thought can be found in any of these
models’ eyes throughout the whole series of images.
This interested me and I have
always noticed it subconsciously whilst viewing the majority of fashion images.
Fashion is such a forced feeling and is blank behind the images. No meaning, no
story and no emotion is actually within the models no matter how hard they try
to portray the perfect acting skills to meet their photographers needs that
day. At the end of the day they are still being told what to do.
As beautiful as
this image is by the famous Richard Avedon, titled ‘Darkness and Light’,
again...the fashion industry has published image after image like these with
beautiful first glance material but when you really look deeper into it and
into the models eyes, there is nothing to be found, no true meaning to the
image and thus we have, the blank stare of fashion.
This image is beautiful, gorgeous
soft lighting with mysterious deep shadows, the eyes are glistening with
catch-lights but the soul meaning behind them is dead. There is no story being
told here because it is a strong portrait that has nothing going on around the
background, no story to tell and no obvious purpose to the image.
This image by Avedon on the other
hand is where the blank stare actually works. This image is meant to be
confusing and lack rationality and meaning, but it works. It works because, A)
It is Richard Avedon and he has built his career up by creating beautiful
pieces of art so he is then allowed to do this type of thing because he can
back it up with some moral or meaning, and B) It works because the image is
confusing yet emotional in other ways, i.e. the honey bees. To me the message
of this image could be the thoughts of this man’s head buzzing around like a
bunch of bees; it could be the number of times he has been hurt in his
lifetime, each pain a sting to the flesh resembling a bee’s sting. It could
mean anything and that is acceptable because Avedon has built up his reputation
to allow himself to do that. I quote Richard Avedon as he says,
‘My portraits are
more about me than they are about the people I photograph.’ – Richard Avedon
This is the
perfect quote to the issue that I am arising. Avedon has built up his identity
and fame by putting himself into his work, not literally but conceptually and
sometimes subconsciously.
In the fashion
industry models are plucked from the ever growing lists of categorisation and
placed where they are told best suit them, such as wedding models. Wedding
magazines consist of young, beautiful, essentially flawless models with long
luscious hair and a bright smiling set of pearly white teeth on every cover of
every wedding magazine. This is categorization at its finest. The editors of
said magazine will pick out women after women with the slightest of differences
to each other all to be positioned, styled, and told exactly how they should be
looking. No true feeling, no true brides to be and still an enormous amount of
after re-touching still to be done after the final shot is taken of these
already flawless women. This is the fashion industry; the images then turn out
to be wonderful to look at and yes catch the eye of real brides to be but are
subliminally sending out messaged to these brides insisting that they need to
look like these perfect Barbie doll like models which are stood posing on the
front of their newly purchased magazines when in fact the models staring you in
the face from the front page don’t even look like that themselves because of
all the re-touching that happens afterwards to make them look like the media
standards of the perfect bride/women.
This type of fashion/commercial photography is a false
ego boosting scam to make brides feel like they need to look like the models
within therefore the magazines will also place in fitness regimes to follow and
diet plans to join and fitness DVD’s to buy all subliminally telling these
ladies reading the magazines that they aren’t perfect enough yet, but by buying
this magazine they will be able to reach the wedding standard of perfection
when in reality it is an endless and hopeless possibility to achieve.
All of
these magazine covers are the same, same pose, same headings, same bright white
smiles and again the distant soulless eyes. This model isn’t really about to
get married or recently betrothed, she is there to make money and get a few
more images in her portfolio. I would love to actually see images of truly
happy bride and grooms, real life situations and for them to actually have the
glowing smiles and the starry eyes that all young couples have on their wedding
day.
Now Cass Bird, Cass was first
brought to my attention whilst looking into androgyny in my previous project,
‘Portraiture – Face to Face’. I immediately fell in love with her images
because a story was being told in every one of them. Cass actually started out
producing dynamic, lifestyle images like these, this one here is taken from the
project she completed in 2003 named, ‘I look just like my Daddy’. Cass Bird then started experimenting and pushing her
limits in photography and found herself broadening her photography style by
accepting photography jobs that weren’t necessarily her starting ‘style’, so
her images started out as very personal and documentary, like we see here, to
then somehow slowly dipping into advertising, branding and eventually fashion.
Here is another image from the series, ‘I look just like my Daddy’.
I see here a perfect example of
androgyny with a true confusion of gender, feminine mouth, cheekbones and
breasts starting to protrude at the sides of her arms just as the image cuts
off, short hair, baseball cap and casual plaid T-shirt opened slightly at the
top. All of these things are the perfect combination of masculinity and
femininity confusing the consumer as to what gender it is they’re looking at
whilst at the same time making them think deeper into that as it symbolises the
expectation of some parents that maybe wanted a boy and they conceived a girl
or vice versa. Cass created these images on top a rooftop in Brooklyn. This
image portrays perfect golden sunlight kissing the face of her friend, Macaulay
and casting a natural split shadow right down the side of her face.
Referring to what I stated earlier
about the blank stare of fashion, these images here are to prove that eye’s and
facial expressions with a true look and a real sense of rawness about them
speak so much more to the audience than just a blank soulless expression, just
a pretty face that has been told how to look. Dynamic photography captures
something within the model, the pain, the joy, the love, the anger, whatever it
may be that they are feeling, the photographer is there trying to capture that
instead of setting up the studio planning every detail rather than just living
in the moment with their camera and perfecting it there and then at the scene
of the story.
Cass Bird now has this amazing
reputation that she has built from these images where now when people who have
seen her work before see one of her new images, they instantly say, ‘That’s a
Cass Bird’. Cass has photographed celebrities, friends, family, and grown from
her documentary lifestyle into this well known artist who can do a bit of
everything whether that be, documentary, advertising, fashion etc. This is how
I would like to be known, I would like people to know that I am able to tackle
anything you throw at me and always know that you’re going to be pleased with
it. Cass Bird really inspires me as an artist and photographer to not be afraid
to make a statement with photography and that you can always have a little bit
of every style included in your photographs. Bird’s identity is created by her
learning and growing as a photographer into an artist and exploring all
different types of genres of art and photography. Her identity now is fun,
quirky, playful yet meaningful, images are always full of meaning with Cass
Bird and there is always some hidden message or a story in front of her lens
which leads us as consumers to believe that she is very good indeed at making
people feel comfortable in front her camera and herself. This influences me to
become this opening and finding out everything i can about my client, model,
friends etc before and during photographing them just so at least I myself will
know the story even if the viewers don’t have time to see.
So far I have discussed the effects
from fashion photography and documentary/dynamic photography but there is also passionate
decisive photography. Passionate photography is images that have been taken
completely at the right time and in the right moment. A photograph that the
photographer had no means of catching but was lucky enough to actually capture
it and is successful. I am referring to images such as the V-J Day image in
times square 1945, right after the war had ended and everyone was out celebrating
and kissing, dancing and appreciating life, right when the photographer Alfred
Eisenstaedt was out trying to capture the atmosphere of this glorious day, a
sailor sweeps this young nurse into his arms, swoons her over and thus the V-J
Day kissing image was captured.
I have always found this image truly touching and full
of passion and it is known for its spontaneity by the world. This is the
perfect example of a truly passionate and
romantic image. Alfred had captured this image right in the midst of all
the commotion, in the centre of Times Square with the most brilliant of
technique. Shot with a Leica llla camera at a low eye level angle and a
magnificent contrasting exposure.
This image along with other create
impact, so much that they find themselves referenced in movies even today, such
as ‘Night at the museum 2’ and ‘Letter’s to Juliet’, where the film opens with
the discussion of the spontaneity of this image and whether it really was
spontaneous or staged, agreeing that yes it really was captured at a split
second moment.
Although the eyes of these two
persons cannot be seen, the passion and excitement can be felt transmitted
through other things such as atmosphere, body language E.g. the nurse bending
her leg slightly in the heat of the kiss, the tightness of the sailors grip on
the nurse’s waist and the pressure of the lips to lips kiss that is visible
very clearly. The identity then was perceived as when the war ended people
would then kiss, hug, dance and celebrate all because of photographs like
these. An identity is created by this one decisive image that this must be what
everyone was doing at this moment in time back in 1945 to the younger
generation that was not there to witness this type of moment first hand.
This essay is concluded by my
observation of these images, not just these alone but the stereotypical genre’s
in general being a mind opening experience of how we actually look at images
and when we are able to truly look at images and decipher the connotations and
denotations, we can then take the step further as to deciding whether the image
is then ‘real’ or whether it is another blank faced pose with a flat meaning to
the overall image. I chose these images specifically because I honestly believe
that they are the perfect examples of the statement made, they are clear and
recognisable and they are all meaningful to me. I come away from this knowing
that my images need to be dynamic and truthful with a challenge of adding the
fashion and arts to this as well thus creating high impact images throughout my
career. Richard Avedon has been a huge inspiration in my few years of being a
photographer along with Cass Bird with her truly exceptional changes in style.
In conclusion images can give the photographer, the model, or the brand a
specific identity; it’s just their job to make sure it is a positive one to the
consumer. This is done by adding life and soul into the image, real life
emotion and a story or meaning to back the image up.
Referencing:
Ruff, T. (1997), Thomas
Ruff, Centre National de la Photographie
