Monday 1st March 2010

Very hectic week last week, getting very tired now. Im still trying to finalize models for next weeks photoshoot. Proving to be hard when you need two girls that will work well together and you can only offer images and expenses.

i had my in term critique last friday and it went well, Paul commented at the end saying i've probably written my 2000 word research commentary already. I do have alot that i have looked at, and it will be hard on the hand in day to show everything i have been doing in the body of work when alot of it is reading. Sometimes i wish i had chosen the 50/50 half photoshoots, half written theory. I think after last terms grades i probably would have been capable to do this pathway, but i didn't believe in myself after finding out it was the hardest pathway. I have a sketchbook of artists that i have been looking at which i document some of my thought process, just i have pages of notes that im stuck on what to do with. This is why in my presentation on friday i crammed as much in as possible so it gets seen. I have decided that i am also going to work on some boards to show a really quick presentation of my journey from photoshoot to photoshoot. I will probably do about 10 boards and i think this could be away of documenting my theory thought process too.

Anway this week on the 3rd i have an important photoshoot and still no models confirmed....very nervous that i will actually get two girls. i have something i really want to test out, the beauty myth and the regulation of female.... i aim to shoot a beauty shot with a girl i found last week at a show, and stage a shot with another two models. We only could get two hours in the studio so i hope i am not being over ambitious. I am planning everything so precisely so that it all runs smoothly. The Beauty Myth by Naomie Wolf has really inspired this shoot. The reality of the Beauty Myth is that all women want to embody it and always will, it will lead to the death of the female. I want to stage a photograph where the models look awkward and lost from their bodies, i am going to play with multiple bodies as i want to try and create an illusion of death through the model abandoning her body. Creating a connection between women, sex and death. Their gazes will not look out of the camera....i want to keep the gaze between the females in the frame. I want the image to have an ambiguity...this way people will question the image instead of just seeing it as something to be looked at. I hope it works..... i don't have alot of time in the studio and need to stage it perfectly so it looks the way i vision it..
After my shoot i catch the train to birmingham for the National Wedding shows at the NEC all weekend. Atleast this will give me a little break from uni work and i can look at the shoots with a fresh eye on monday. Monday i am meeting with my photographer to shoot some of her work and then start editing my images.

Anway need to get going now........

Tuesday 23rd february 2010

Today i am exhausted, i havnt had a day off in 2 weeks with work and uni work. Yesterday i spent editing my 2nd test shoot that i shot myself, styled myself, hair and make-up and edited myself! Shot in my house i moved all the furniture out a room...mum was very understanding. This week i am doing backstage make-up for tunbridge wells fashion week that i was asked to get involved with...so tomorrow and thursday will be hectic...then i have to present on friday. Saturday i will be prepping for another shoot that i intend to shoot next wedneday! i have been consistently emailing agencies to try and get models...so hopefully i will find two models to shoot with next wednesday...i really want to get some final images out of this shoot. i am sure on what i am trying to say now. i want to try and shoot a beauty shot and aswell and some full lengths, adressing the issues of the Beauty myth and the regulation of women in today's society.

So last week i shot with two younger girls.....i have posted the result. I wanted my second test to address the issues i have been talking about from when it begins the start of adolescence, and to almost show the pain this issue is effecting on young girls. I played with photographing there reflections to create an illusion that the viewer is looking at a segment of reality. The viewer and subject are both gazing at the same reflection, there’s nothing beyond the image, it’s a fragment of reality. A truthful pictorial form…there’s nothing fancilful, just two virginal girls, girls who will be scarred by today’s society imprisoned by the negative form of empowerment women are being given. The two girls in the photographs are 14, they are not aware of their sexual desires, they are niave to today’s culture. They gaze directly and vulnerably and the camera, there’s a sensitivity and sadness in their eyes. Dressed in white white shot on a high exposure I wanted to exagerate the exploitation of the lolita effect.. It gives a very different aesthetic to my first shoot. I liked the almost painted feel of my first shoot but I think it did need to be a little sharper. So I played with a shot from my first shoot and 2nd shoot to see if It would work shooting inboth formats to get this idea still of body/soul mind/body seperation.

I want to keep the theme of the white colour palette throughout this project...the colour isn't gender specific, i believe it is a truthful colour and it wont distract the eye from the reality of the image. It also adds to the pain and suffering of the exposure to todays society.

I am really very tired so i am going to go now..... presentation needs finishing...sunday i am going to sleep well!

15th February 2010

Over the last few week i have tested, had a tutorial and arranged my next test. Trying to arrange models is proving to be hard. Last week i tested on my friend and i was pleased with the outcome for a test. I realised that my initial ideas of the aesthetic being really dreamy and overly washed out probably wouldn't work when i have alot of issues i am trying to address. I think it makes the image seem quite shallow, and almost as if im contradicting what i am trying to say.

I have been intouch with many agencies regarding models for testing, but as fashion weeks are hitting there are little models available. Anyway apart from the stress of finding models i have lots of work on....test shoot thursday, make-up job thursday night...followed by early start on friday for the National wedding shows in London where i will be doing backstage make-up all weekend.... Very hectic week.

Today i was supposed to test but i rushed to bluewater as my test shoot got cancelled, stylist ill so i went to organise my own styling. I am testing with younger girls on thursday....

I have been reading Living Dolls- the return of sexism by Natasha Walter. She speaks of the subject matter of young girls and their vulnerability in today's society. The book Living Dolls, has inspired me to test further but with younger girls.
I want to address the issue of this culture that is effecting the lives of very young girl and the way they see and experience their bodies. They are taught to believe through media the way to gain admiration is through the path of their appearance.The way girls are taught and to focus on independence and self expression is sold to them in the narrowest form of consumerism and self objectification. I wanted to address it in a young photograph as it’s the start of rights of passage to adolescence when we start to explore our sexualities.

I will post my first test shots...i played around on photoshop to get the double exposure.....mind over body seperation....i want my images to be as pure and distinct as a letter...truthful...images always have the last word....i wanted to also create a painterly quality to the images, washed out and hazy like a dream.

So i am going to keep on testing...trying not to stress too much. I have my interm crit next week which i also have to prepare for.....so much to do and so little time.

8th February 2010

The last three weeks i have been very pro active for my first tutorial with Paul on friday. This thursday i am doing my first test shoot, we have the studio for only two hours, it's really hard to book it for longer. I have been doing plenty of artist research, and been visiting galleries in London. I visited the National Gallery to view the Hoerengracht exhibition. I really enjoyed the exhibition which is a 3 dimensional tableaux about the red light district in Amsterdam. The life size model of part of the red light district invites you in to become a voyeur over the provocative situations of the 17th century town. The project was about the trading of sex whether for power or social position, a subject long present in the history of art. There is little hint that the girls are human, nothing about love. The wax works of the prostitutes have cooky boxes around there heads to give a sense of mind over body seperation.....it also made me feel that they new they were being watched. I found it all quite disturbing, it definitely evoked a feeling inside me. The dolls, were also overly made-up, lashes thick with mascara.....it was really quite surreal but also real.

This week i have also walked down Cork Street and found some artists that are getting my thoughts flowing.

I am still deconstructing Nancy Fridays book...i find it very interesting how women in the 60's at the hight of the sexual revolution were still playing the inhibited role in their fantasies. Nacncy friday explains this as women's historical sexual role as the desireless virgin.

Fantasies in the book mainly lie around the dreams of being doped, raped, subjected they're are all about overwhelming domination inflicted on the female. Freud and Friday agree on one thing that all sexual fantasies are dominated around frustration and anxieties that we deal with daily in reality. Fantasies are also repeated to satisfy...monologic. An awakening of senses and closing of senses, a progression and transgression of a thought. So taking the above into consideration....womens anxieties of playing the inhibited role in daily life, Friday explains were probably a way of dealing with the idea of females being the submissive sex through-out society at the time.

So im thinking i will play around with this idea in my first test!