RESEARCH: CLAUDE CAHUN

The french photographer Claude Cahun portrayed both personal and political sides within her work while expressing  and playing with the concepts of gender and sexuality.

Each image of Cahun's is portraying a different person, a different gender, often sported with a shaven head. She adapts to each character with almost a theatrical part about it.

“Masculine? Feminine? It depends on the situation. Neuter is the only gender that always suits me.” 



Source



Source



Source

There can be much more to a self portrait, just like with Cindy Sherman's. I can't imagine any of my subjects will go to this much depth to get their 'selfie' but it's really interesting to look into the different ways that a self portrait can be taken as essentially that is what a 'selfie' is.

RESEARCH: REMBRANDT

Rembrandt painted over 100 self portraits during his time as a painter. They are so important to his work collectively and they show and document the artist visually over 40 years. 

Detail from Rembrandt, Self Portrait at the Age of 63, 1669

Source

Source

Source

Source

Its so interesting how different they all are. He almost looks like a different person. It got me thinking about an idea for a future project. All about self-portraits of myself. One a day, I'm tempted to start tomorrow just so I've got them as time span is important - as long as possible, which is obviously shown so well with Rembrandt's work - 40 years! The work is so interesting, and each portrait is so different but they all have some notes that run through each making them all work so well together. 

With my current project, obviously I won't have a large number of pictures of one person (that I know of?! I have told people to only take one photo each but I can't guarantee that that will have actually happened.) so the result won't be the same but it's the idea of how change can appear so drastically in photographs which is what I find so interesting.

RESEARCH: CINDY SHERMAN

'American photographer. She studied art at Buffalo State College (1972–6), concentrating on photography, which she maintained is the appropriate medium of expression in our media-dominated civilisation. Her photographs are portraits of herself in various scenarios that parody stereotypes of woman. A panoply of characters and settings is drawn from sources of popular culture: old movies, television soaps and pulp magazines. Sherman rapidly rose to celebrity status in the international art world during the early 1980s with the presentation of a series of untitled ‘film stills' in various group and solo exhibitions across America and Europe. Among 130 ‘film stills' taken between 1978 and 1980 are portraits of Sherman in the role of such screen idols as Sophia Loren and Marilyn Monroe. While the mood of Sherman's early works ranges from quiet introspection to provocative sensuality, there are elements of horror and decay in the series from 1988–9. Studies from the early 1990s make pointed caricatures of characters depicted through art history, with Sherman appearing as a grotesque creature in period costume. Her approach forms an ironic message that creation is impossible without the use of prototypes; identity lies in appearance, not in reality. In this, the artist has assimilated, even while retaining a critical stance, the visual tyranny of television, advertising and magazines. Works are held in the Tate Gallery, London, and the Corcoran Gallery, Washington, DC, as well as in the Museum of Modern Art and the Metropolitan and Brooklyn museums, New York.' Source - Tate


I will be looking into self portraits and thought a great place to start would be with the work of Cindy Sherman. Although her work is portraits of herself, they are not always defined as self portraits as they don't necessarily show things relating to her personally. She chooses to portray things within her images that relate to different issues within modern world. Even though some people wouldn't see this as self portraiture specifically, it could also be seen as this as she is making the decisions as to how she will be seen in the images - much like the subjects within my images. I don't know what they will be, they could all be normal images of people smiling but there could be a few more elaborate ones in there, dressed up like Sherman's. They might try and portray someone else within the image, but honestly - I won't know. It will be down to interpretation as there is very little information that will be able to go with my images.

Sherman tries to depersonalize her images by naming them Untitled, or as a number to take away from the emotional attachment to the imagery, leaving it solely to the image to portray what she wants.





(source) 


(source)


(source)

'SELFIE' IS OXFORD DICTIONARIES' WORD OF THE YEAR

'Selfie – "a photograph that one has taken of oneself, typically one taken with a smartphone or webcam and uploaded to a social media website" – has been named word of the year by Oxford Dictionaries editors, after the frequency of its usage increased by 17,000% over the past 12 months.'

The Guardian (See more of the article here)

RESEARCH: WEDDINGS

(source)

When thinking about and researching into the use of disposable cameras there was one thing that kept popping up; weddings! This was also the case when I was hunting for the cameras I wanted to purchase for the project, a lot of them were designed to be used at weddings. 

Couples buy a bunch of these cameras and leave them around for people to take pictures with and this is sometimes instead of having a professional photographer there. 

This again is taking the pictures of this day out of their hands and into all of their friends and family. It's the same idea and I definitely thought it was worth touching on because I can imagine there would be a lot of self portraits included!

RESEARCH: ROLLS TOHOKU

'When the earthquake hit on March 11, I was running my art exhibition entitled, "ROLLS of one week."
At that time, I felt so powerless, being in the same country yet unable to do anything to reach out and help directly. However, I realized it was not the time to feel weak. I grabbed many disposable cameras and headed toward the location of damage.
"ROLLS TOHOKU" is a document of the area that was hit by the earthquake, through the perspective of the victims, taken in a certain period.
For reconstruction, it should take much longer than we think.
If seeing these photos make you want to do something to help the victims of the earthquake, please take action.
Using an approach/system that you can trust, please continue to support the victims as much as you can, for a long period of time.'

(SOURCE)

This is a total new way to look at the idea behind each of the projects that I have been talking about and looking into. It's a much more moving and emotive way. It almost feels more real. The project is looked at in a positive way, it is showing these people after such terrible things have happened but they still smile, they still are happy. They're pulling together. It's beautiful to see. 

Although this isn't the same subject matter as mine it is really interesting to see the other ways a project like this can go. It's interesting to see all of the different ways a project can go, when you put someone else in charge of the images and this is what I am really interested to see. 

RESEARCH: TEPSIC MAGAZINE

'Tepsic Magazine (pronounced: TEP-SICK) is a poster-sized music magazine that documents what it’s like to live a day in the life of your favorite rappers, singers, MC’s and groups. All artists’ pictures are taken on their own personalized camera given to them by the magazine. No interviews, no reviews. Just pure photo verité to create your own visual commentary between yourself and the artist.'

(source)

Again this is a very similar idea but through selecting a specific group of people and in this case it is musicians.  I like the fact that there is no text alongside it as it allows you to create your own story around the images which will be the case with mine also.