Week 10:How do children know how to pose? Where did they learn to do it?

above: pictures of taken of girls dressing up to explore the idea of young girls growing up to fast

distortion, body form and mannipulation of images

these are my own images that i have taken:

my own pictures taken in response to research:

Mannaquins and Dolls:

The Body Social-symbolism, self and society

The Body Social by Anthony Synnott talks about the different way we see parts of the body and define parts of the body even going as far as to say how the term gender came about-how do we fine masculinity and feminity and what defines those two phrases. In relevents to my recent research on skin the chapter the beauty and the face is of great relevance and has helped me develop my photos greatly.

a few quotes that i gathered from the book:

1. How much women care about beauty and beauty products can be seen in economic terms-this shows that media and advertsing is a HUGE influence on womens looks

"In the united states sales of beauty aids increased from $40 Million in 1914 to $18.5 billion in 1990" although that was over 20 years ago-imagine what the figures are like now!!!

"the impact of physical appearance is persuasive"

"664,000 cosmetic surgery procedures performed in the united states in 1990"- and mostly all were women

"The beauty mystique, in its simplest form, is the belief that the beautiful is good, and the ugly is evil"

This Chapter showed me just how much women care about appearance and about the way they look-media plays such a huge part in implimenting these ideas-hard to escape!

dont touch me im electric-michelle Henning

Skin Adverts-Make women feel guilty about ageing to the point that it become a 'disease'

Relevent Article: Michelle Henning-'Dont touch me im electric' - quote "i start to display an illness called ageing" p17
Skin adverts portray this idea that all skin should be perfect and if you dont have perfect skin you are an outsider.

Michelle Henning-analysis of estee lauder advert in marie Claire in 1997

In the advert it has a diptych picture one of a polluted city and then next to it a picture of skin cream-although an odd mix as a skin advert-Michelle Henning so rightly puts it

"the image of cityscape is unusual in skinccare ads, but the concerns it evokes-about pollution and ageingm and the need for 'protection'-are not"-FEAR FACTOR PUT INTO KEEPING SKIN YOUNG!

this is something i could explore further in my body form/skin pictures after christmas?????

skin cream- is a cure to this 'disease'

Skin care pictures use glossy magazine pages, or gloss to make the skin look illuminent, new, smooth.

So many of the skin adverts have models that cant be more than 25-gives the impression that a 50 year old for example if using the cream could look like the girl in the advert

In some way sexually fetishise the skin in order for Women to buy the products- media suggesting that being 'perfect' and having perfect skin is the 'hegemonic norm'

Mens Products

I looked at sexual fetishism a couple of weeks ago and thought i would do analysis of mens products that use women to promote products-most all look like barbie dolls-big boobs, tiny waist and all made up with layers of make up-even going as far as car calenders with women spralled over the car bonnet.

What i am trying to say is that throughout this first term i have suggested that it is not just the media that have influence over how women should look but also the male gaze-having said who makes these calenders, magazines, adverts-its still media and advertising, the media show women looking perfect all the time that men believe that that is how we should look and that is where they get their hegemonic ideas from and popular discourses

sex is used to sell products, even when sex is not part of the product-would mens products sell as well if sex wasnt used to sell it, or if the girl didnt look like that-barbie gone wrong?-photo distortion

Week 10: Daily mail article

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2067474/Back-reality-Computer-program-shows-EXACTLY-images-magazine-photoshopped.html

just an article i found whilst looking through the daily mail-interesting that slowly people are realising that the media is not fully truthful!

Jeffery Scott

so as part of my ideas, i have been looking at media manipulation, so what better way to photograph than photography manipulation/distortion-manipulating the way we say celebrities bodies! in my first week i asked the question-are we just all starting to look the same-are we being cloaned

possible idea-barbies, maniquins, real people-photoshop all three together

Jeffery Scott does similar manipulation photographs to the ones that i have been thinking about-he has photographed women and layered parts of machines on their bodies to make them look like human robots/machines-the idea of being controlled

Here are just a few of the pictures he has created:

Research so far and possible ideas from this research

I havent taken any pictures yet simply because i didnt believe i had explored my topic further enough, im not sure whether i have left taking my photographs slightly late however this weekend i have arranged a kind of marathon photoshoot in order to make sure i have a wide range of potential photographs. soooooo here are some of my ideas that i have come up with:

• my first and main idea that i hope will end up being my finals is exploring body language of young children. Therefore i know when i was younger i would dress up in my mums clothes and pretend that i was a 'grown up' however i think in modern society today young children arent just dressing up they are trying to act older than they really are. Sooo im going to be dressing girls up age ranged 9-14 and see how they pose in front of the camera- are they going to pose, will they know how to pose, where do they get these posing positions from. Secondly i will have a second camera to see how more natural the pictures are when they dont no the camera is on them?
• My second idea is to take pictures of people who work at make up counters and use manipulation in photoshop to show how we are all looking the same and all using makeup as a disguise but the media are using it as a way of branding everyone as perfect
• Thirdly i want to simply take portrait pictures of girls without any makeup and then use distortion-nose bigger, skin smoother, air brush but only on half of the face and show how we are being falsly shown what celebrities look like

I have lots of ideas just neeeeeed to be getting on with it really...

Bill Brandt

Bill Brandt who is a famous photographer i have found that is famous for taking nude distorted pictures. i really like his images because they show a different way of photographing the nude female body form. The reason i chose to research is because i want to photograph the female form and then distort it on photoshop to show how we never see the truth in the media in terms of what people really look like.
   I particularly like his work because he distorts the body by just using his camera and a wide angle lens which is something i would like to experiment with. Mostly i like that his work is in black and white as alot of previous photographers i have looked at are colour and i prefer black and white photography.

I particularly like the use of the harsh and dark shadows as it further enhances the distortion of the images. From these photographs i want to use and experiment with distortion as a way of challenging the hegemonic norms of the female body and show how easy it is to distort a body.

Body manipulation and distortion

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2067474/Back-reality-Computer-program-shows-EXACTLY-images-magazine-photoshopped.html

above article: group of researchers produce a computer program that shows what celebrities looked like before the editing of the picture whether it be on a magazine front cover, an advert on tv, fashion shoot, or even spotted at an awards ceremony etc etc

Dover Advert

Real Women-This is what we need to see more of-This is normal- not everyone should look the same-everyone is different!

also found a really interesting article that i think deals with the present arguements surrounding media influence on social construction and image of women

http://www.ourbodiesourselves.org/book/excerpt.asp?id=2

Martin Parr

With photography, I like to create fiction out of reality. I try and do this by taking society's natural prejudice and giving this a twist."

Quote above is a quote from Martin Parr, although i am still experimenting with whether or not I want to be doing documentary or portraiture photography i think that this quote very much ties in with what I aim to do in my proposal.

One of the main things that is suggested on his website is that he like to challenge ways of thinking

Parr photographs things that were once familiar in a new way and make us question why we accept certain norms about society.

In this sense martin Parr is very much to do with my project. Putting theory in to practice with my pictures i may want to people to question why skinny figures, clear skin, lots of makeup are referred to as perfect?

Or why there is only one way or one look for being beautiful?

marianne wex

Week 8: Adverts and magazines

It is not possible to look good all the time- I have tried it and it really doesn’t work. I always feel and I’m sure others do feel under constant pressure to have to look good all the time- because ‘apparently’ like in the movies when we wake up we look fresh faced and beautiful-this is just not the case.

But when we see pictures of celebrities on the front of magazines or even just out shopping and with a full face of makeup and looking nothing but perfect-men and the rest of the world get this idea that women look like this all the time-but being normal and not having personal stylists and makeup artists- I’m afraid I do not have this luxury!

Last week i looked at adbusters and the idea that men products are sold in a sexual fetish kind of way-ad busters plays on this and does the opposite like the Calvin Klein advert. i also looked at the idea of the 'gaze' So this week i am continueing this and  looking at how celebrities that we base our looks around are not always perfect-which is normal! But the media treat it as a huge thing or as a ‘shock’. Additionally this research will help me with ideas on how to challenge the way we should look.

The April issue of French Elle magazine did a special addition featuring European female celebrities posing with no makeup and all pictures were un photo shopped or retouched. The magazines head line was “Stars Sans Fards” meaning without makeup. Why does celebrities not wearing makeup have to be a special addition- its not possible for people to look good all the time yet the media give the impression that it is and then when they are ‘caught’ without any makeup its turned into an embarrassing moment or shock factor-although i would be lying if I said I’m always slightly happy to see it.

In terms of how this relates to my chosen topic-when i was younger makeup didn’t matter, but now i cant leave the house without looking in the mirror and checking my face and I know I’m not alone- whether its looking at magazines covers or these shock factor articles-girls seem to get this idea that if its a shock to see celebrities looking rough its a shock for everyone- makeup has become something we hide behind but so much so that it bring me back to the idea that we are all starting to look the same- the media have made us think that we should have no imperfections, but the fact is even celebrities do, when are they going to start using special additions as every addition? It brings me back to the idea of a journalist and the media being gatekeepers of truth-well then why not show us the truth?