The research I have done on this topic over the past 3 weeks has opened my mind and changed my view on gender in many ways. It has also confused me somewhat. There is so much around this topic in today's society and the past hundred years. Why are we forcing these norms into people?
I have explored gender specific objects, fashion, toys, magazines, transgender, gender fluid, what it's like to me a man, what its like to be a woman and all I have discovered is a lot of confusion.
To me, it doesn't matter what genitalia you have, you are a human being with a heart and I won't treat you any different. No matter what clothes you like to wear or hairstyle you like to have, whether you like to play with Barbies or action man, whether you like watching soppy movies about love or action movies with fighting.
What I have realised is that gender really is fluid now. I am not saying that I am what is known these days as 'gender fluid' but what I am saying is that I don't put myself in any label.
I am a woman because I have a vagina and breasts. I like wearing baggy clothing a lot of the times because it is comfortable to wear, I like wearing no make up most of time because its a pain to take off at night time and its awful for my skin! I like to watching romantic comedies, I like looking at the female body because its beautiful, I like to kiss men, I like to climb trees and I like to do a days physical hard work taking up patios and lawns. I love to ride a bike and I used to love playing with barbies (still do!). I wear bright colours some days and others I wear dark neutral colours, depending on my mood. I like to hang out with all people, from all walks of life whether you have a penis, a vagina or both! Some days I want to cry and other days I want to bottle all my emotions up and never let them out. I like going on spa days and getting a massage, I like watching the football and playing it! What I don't understand is why have labels for it, and that, is what I have tried to portray in my work.
By doing research it gave me a wider knowledge on my subject which helped to inform my aims and intentions by establishing facts, opinions and history, by collecting information and carrying out investigations that I could pull together to inform, influence, develop and learn to create an outcome.
The practical and theory work I completed during the etching workshop during my initial research stage enabled me to investigate into colour theory and stereotyping gendered objects and colours.
By looking into a photographer called David Samuel Stern who does a weaving technique that I liked, I was able to take inspiration from his work and try my own version of weaving in photoshop with David & Katy and my photo-manipulations of Beth & Oscar. He related to my theme because while each single image by itself depicts a subject at rest, when woven or manipulated together, the final result appears to be a human figure in motion. I felt this worked really well when looking at my images of transitioning between male and female. Another aspect is that of the creative process which involves blurring the boundaries between one’s self and others in order to try on different identities and their identities to become blurred in the final image, which I felt was perfect when looking at challenging gender norms and identities. In Stern’s own words, these images “are an attempt to bridge dignified, direct portraits with a sort of abstraction that allows their subjects to hide within themselves, and the photographs to be distinct objects. In hiding some things, we reveal others.” This is plain to see in my images of Beth & Oscar, and the slices I used through their faces. I could identify some parts of Oscar and bring through parts of Beth also, weaving their identities together, male or female and making them gender neutral.
I had always been a fan of Terry Richardson’s direst flash photography because of the raw and unpolished look, so I was able to recreate this using my own subjects and ideas.
The research I did on David Hockney’s photo montage’s influenced my practice by taking a mixture of expressions from the images of my models and creating a mixed gender image.
Another artist I researched was Hannah Hoch who addressed gender issues in society, so by doing this I was able to address my own issues within gender norms. I also really liked her collage work and attempted my own collage using magazine cut outs in my sketchbook.
The articles on gender norms really informed my decision to concentrate on challenging gender norms and gender stereotyping as it is such a big problem at the moment in society. Another workshop that helped with this and developing my ideas was did doing the toy sculpture as this enabled me to see first hand, going into shops, the huge issue there is when placing girls and boys toys next to each other and combining them into a sculpture.
The models I chose for these photo shoots all had one thing in common, they all identify as being their own gender but have traits of being the opposite gender too.
Through my concept I produced sets of images using images I took of masculine women and feminine men and I combined their faces to mix their genders. By interviewing each person I made a series along with an article of each person so they could have their say on how they view gender, which I have included in the post of each series.
I recreated my own version of a front cover of a Dazed and Confused magazine using captions from what one of the models used in his interview on gender. This enabled me to examine, question and criticise the relationships between gender and society.
By using many different materials, methods, media, tools and technologies I was able to support my ideas to completion. Examples of these are using photography I was able to captures expressions. By using direct flash I was able to create a certain feel to an image.
Photoshop and 3D weaving were wonderful tools which enabled me to manipulate imagery to convey a message. By doing 3D sculpture I was able to reconstruct and reassemble gender norms. With etching I could experiment with collage and colour. Sewing, cutting, stitching and glueing enabled me to manipulate and reconstruct clothing and fabric using and combine colours and by drawing with pen, pencil, painting with acrylic & watercolour pencils I was able to test colour, texture, shape and tone.
From shooting Dave and Katy first, I was able to find solutions to problems with the lighting and camera settings. When shooting Dave I hadn't quite got to grips with using the speed light yet. Therefore a lot of the lighting and exposure I had to alter in post-production. I also found that with the images of Katy I had a lot of noise in the image due to having to put the ISO up.
I found a solution to this by using a 50 mm lens instead of a 15-85mm lens. However when taking the images of Drag Queen Dave I found that with the model changing positions so frequently I couldn't get the lighting and the composition right every time so I switched back to using the 15-85mm lens. I found that using the speed light on 1/64 and then altering it by putting it up ½ a stop on the flash itself was the best option and I got the desired effect of direct flash with a relatively small shadow round the outside of the subject.
I kept the camera settings to the lowest I could go in terms of aperture at F5.6, the ISO at 320 to avoid noise in the image and Shutter speed at 1/125.
I found that the closer I got to the model, the higher the exposure, so I directed the model to stand as close to the background as possible. This also ensured that the nice thin shadow was visible around the model. I remembered this technique from years a go when I used to shoot in a similar style. It was nice to know that I had remembered these techniques. Even though in this shot of Ffion I do quite like how it turned out.
When it came to post-production, I found the easiest and quickest way to edit the series was to use bridge, 5 star the best ones and then only show those using the filter option. Click and command all the images and open them up into camera RAW. I found a great filter option for each series. I used modern, vintage and variations of these to edit the images of Drag Queen Dave, Ffion, Beth and Oscar. However for the Katy and Dave shots, I hadn't found this option by then so just edited them individually. This took a lot more time so I'm really pleased that I found a quicker way of batch editing. After this process I opened them all up in photoshop by command clicking them all, after changing the exposure slightly on each one if it needed it. The only images that needed retouching in my opinion were the ones of Drag Queen Dave as we realised 50 images, in that he had crumbs on his lips! This was something that I learned from this shoot - to always check the models face before I start shooting! In the end I only retouched a few of his face. The rest were good to go!
I then batch saved all my images by clicking 'Choose File > Scripts > Image Processor' and then clicked the action that I wanted, 'save as jpeg' and saved them all into a new folder. I also realised I could do this by the time I edited shots of Oscar, which was my last series to edit! This is also something I will use in future photo shoots I do.
Having a blank background worked really well for each shoot, this was in-keeping with my original inspiration of Terry Richardson‘s style of shooting with direct flash. Having models that had a range of expressions worked really well and the fact that they all held their own versions of gender was great as it allowed them all to explore this without judgement. I believe they all did an excellent job and I feel I directed and styled them well.
If I had more time, I would have liked to have done a shoot with all of them together in one shot then manipulated their faces onto each other to see how this would look.
My ideas changed and developed throughout the project from the initial research I did into gendered objects during the etching, sculpture and fashion as I began along a line of enquiry into objects. It later developed into using photography through doing artist research and looking at people rather than object. I found people much more interesting and wanted it to be more about the people themselves rather than objects,
The tools and techniques of mind mapping, setting alarms and reminders, writing to do lists, using my blog, sketchbook and notebook all helped me to plan my work and I found they really supported me in completing my deadline. By using mind mapping I was able to see my thought process in front of me and work out how to get from one idea to another. Setting alarms helped me dramatically as I lose track of time quite easily and have quite a short attention span. I was able to take breaks when I needed to, this helped me to stop becoming overwhelmed and thus causing a creative block. I used a diary to note my photoshoots and to do lists that I could follow day to day to make sure I was keeping on top of things. I am a massive planner and very well organised so all these tools were quite natural for me to use and work brilliantly.
Another tool I found really helpful was the ‘what worked well’ and ‘even better if’. This enabled me to constantly reflect and critique my work which then helped me to develop and follow through on my ideas. This ongoing reflection on my blog, in my sketchbook and with peers and tutors helped my decision making and the development of my ideas by helping me to take a step back, discuss ideas and change my thought process to push out of a creative block, open my mind and think outside the box. By constantly assessing, analysing and reflecting on what worked well and what didn’t, I was able to make informed decisions and make sure I wasn’t going off on a tangent. It helped me to pull it back and re focus. Mentioning ideas to tutors sparked off interest into different artists which was really helpful when delving into understanding why I was doing something within my creative practice and how I was going to achieve it.
Through this reflective and analytic process I felt I communicated my ideas effectively and during the presentation of my piece I got encouraging feedback from the group around the understanding of my body of work.
If I was to do this project again I would have planned out my weeks in advance a bit better. I spent too long in the beginning researching many lines of enquiry rather than delving deeper into one area of interest. Through this learning curve I will carry this forward into my future outcomes in Unit 2 by making a plan over the 10 weeks. I will use more time to think outside the box within one or two lines of enquiry and really deepen my knowledge and research in those rather than 6 lines of enquiry! Another thing I will take in to my next project is making more use of my sketchbook in a creative sense using different media as a lot of my project was done on my blog and I felt quite restricted with how messy I could get with my experiments. Although I love photography and photoshop I feel that more experiments and medias could be explored within fine art as this is what I really want to do.
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