• Setting themselves from that thing that is unworthy of consideration 
• Constructing a formula of dead pan - once expanded but now an extension of the photographic programme 
• Becomes a predictable visual language 
• Flusser believes these formulas created redundancy in images

Woodman (1958 -81) was a photographer who photographed both herself and various female subjects usually younger women in black and white film on medium format cameras. Her work remains relevant even today with critics still referencing her works especially in relation to 'Society fascination with the idea of tormented artists, particularly young female ones' especially interest in woodmans work due to her struggle with mental health that led to her death at just aged 22.

Woodman photographed herself nude, entangled in branches, rotting vegetation, and graveyards often using slow shutter speeds to achieve a ghostly and other worldly element to her images. (linking to the creating worlds project - using camera functions to form altered realities) Critic and curator Katarina Jenric argues this stating 'while Woodman's self-portraits look spontaneous as if the artist is inviting us to witness her at her most intimate and vulnerable, in fact, they were carefully choreographed and staged'

I am thinking about expanding further on this idea by adding further variation to the series to build up more of a 'gully' inbetween by 3 images forming a clearer narrative. These shots won't necessarily feature a subject or 'full subject' per se as I feel like having all 3 images that read very similar would be redunadant in this case.

Cutting yourself out of the image 

Put image you want to use in photoshop 

Remove background 

Press v 

Window arrange vertical 

Try move then proceed 

Show transform tools 

Alt then move

reflecting - whilst the new' remove background' and 'select subject' update did help, I found it too rocky so went in with error tool on a soft hardness to make the image look less 'pasted' I also used the clone tool to remove elements of the subject left behind in the original image to create a more realistic merge of the two image. This was also achieved through editing the colour balance and brightness of he image.

Commerce and photography intrinsically linked  

• Selfie culture allowed women and other marginalised groups to take agency over the way they were captured. Social media allowed this control to some people... then monetized it ‘the face is the key to social medias success, algorithms prove this’ 

Petra Collins - 

‘selfie’ ongoing project from 2013 

It examines selfie culture in teenage girlhood and the ability for young women to create and distribute their own content  

Eng – uses the gully between her images to unveil a ‘true self’ but neither entirely true. two images alongside one another- one an image of ones idealised self and one a portrait she captured. 

Adams 1800s photographer – self portrait, husband destroyed most of her work after her death – demonstrates how the camera has always been a way to capture ones self. 

Claude Kahun – explores ideas of gender and the self through self portraiture – referred to themselves as newter, a German idea for a third gender. Kahun was able to capture themselves and explore their own identity being from Paris and being from wealth – using a camera to explore a radical form of gender – mocking both masculinity and femininity  

Discussions of gender performance in relation to drag - 

‘A formula that has been constructed that is bound by capitalism that constructs drag’ 

1920s – music hall, pantomimes drag is a big part of that, 80s – also big part of tv shows hosted by drag  

• Very much in British main stream culture  

The idea that ‘safe spaces’ are forward but that’s not exactly the case   

Gillian wearing - ‘making herself over into others’ reconstructing images of herself from earlier years or her grandparents or heroes. 

David Wojnarowicz - post stone wall gay liberation – uses the violence suffered in their youth and the fact that their homosexuality separated him from his life  

Mapplethorpe ‘the black book’– reduced subjects to objects – in order to exhibit his own fetishisation legon – critiqued this  

Laurie Anderson ‘fully automated nikon’ realised how difficult going about her every day life as a woman in a city in the 1970s – the camera as a device emboldened her and gave her confidence aswell as using it as a weapon. She then presented then with their eyes blocked out and a completely unpersonal descriptor of who they were. 

Tracy Moffet Heaven – got young women to record male surfers undressing to unveil the female gaze 

‘peacocking’ voyeuristic visual languages  

Does taking power away from these men give power to ‘’the other  

The idea as the camera as a tool for therapy  

Jo Spence – worked in collaboration with others using personal life experiences to confirm how she feels about something  

Recreates her mothers history to draw parallels between her and her mother  

A series where she explored her experience with breast cancer very methodically – to reinsert her sense of self in a medicalised world – explored how her body felt it did not belong to her anymore  

Using the camera to take you through your darkest moments  

Her work wasn’t about the idea of art that has quality and monetary value 

Body identity therapy project -  

brief 3 – child like wonder and views of glamour and how as an adult that no longer exists  

This is due to innocence – then realising its thorny  

Looking at duality in nostalgia as two versions past and present or even future  

Or duality in who you are and the people who made you  

What is authenticity?

Authentic is raw? A stripped back version of oneself? No facade.

How do we strippings back that facade in a visual way?

What every day things do I do that feel authentic to me? How I wear my hair and do my makeup and dress myself? Are these authentic honest things though? Is the truly authentic version of myself unclothed, no makeup, no indicators to tell people who I am?

Key inspiration -Victoria Pedretti ‘Style like U’ interview

• ‘The thing about high school and college- like id be late to school because I was so obsessively fixating on getting my makeup exactly right , I didn’t like the way I looked so I tried to manipulate myself in a way I could be secure going out into the world’

• ‘Everyday my whole self is being flattened in 2 dimensions’ - in relation to social media and the self we are expected to exhibit through these platforms - inauthentic

• When do you feel the most beautiful ‘when I’m decorating myself in a way that’s not oppressive to myself but actually a true impression and extension of what I feel, embellishing what I feel is going on in the inside as opposed to minimising myself or trying to appeal to others’

Studio photo - underwear, clothes and makeup piled on floor or strewn around the room - maybe even hung up? Telling the story of the ‘authentic’ self I construct every day by isolating it from my body

This idea might work better as a tryptic? - a process on unveiling perhaps - I might shoot it with this in mind and select the ‘final’ stage of this unveiling as my chosen image.

This can interact with brief 3 - the self that is actual and the self that feels more truer of a reflection of oneself, not smooch in a polished way meant to appeal to others but an expression of self in a very child like way.

Make a ‘self portrait’(in whatever way you want to interpret that), which engages with the notion of 'identity', as discussed in class, and explores a duality within yourself.

Recreation of childhood photo with Immy or Immy and mum?

Or a super imposed image of me in an old image? (Ps cut out task)

Plating with the idea of ‘past selves’ or the people that form our personhood - generational?

of course, this brief explores ideas of duality within the self. for me duality within myself always centers around past and present versions of myself but also there people who have constructed my very being, my sister is that to me, I am many parts of her and she is many parts of me.

A lot of Jo's images possess a child like innocence, using her images to deal with childhood desire and fear.

Childhood idealisation of glamour - child like wonder - returning to the inner child - how does this not exist as an adult?

Pedretti interview ‘When do you feel the most beautiful ‘when I’m decorating myself in a way that’s not oppressive to myself but actually a true impression and extension of what I feel, embellishing what I feel is going on in the inside as opposed to minimising myself or trying to appeal to others’

Using play through makeup to try and bring about the visualisation of child like wonder through dress up - a topic I would like to continue to explore after my specialisation project which touched on ideas surrounding my childhood imaginings of femininity and womanhood.

I wanted to question what 'authentic' presentation of the self is? so in a way I kind of flipped authenticity on its head wanting to comment on what we as society deem as authentic- is being truly authentic presenting in the way that you feel on the inside through multiple avenues of expression (what we wear, how we use style to present ourselves) or is true authenticity removing the facades of these material exteriors we present hence my concept behind this shoot which features me the subject in underwear reaching for a dress, jewellery and two braids hanging. The idea is to question which is the more authentic self?

I also think there is a lot that has to be said about this idea of authenticity and what it deemed as real and fake. women are constantly berated for wearing makeup and using filters as it is deemed as a false presentation of self used with intention to mislead, 'natural beauty' is therfore highly valued we have seen this especially recently with the rise in 'the clean girl aesthetic'

This image also interacts well with my image for brief 3 'the idealised self' which feels more authentic? 1 is the bare stripped down 'actual' body and the other is a highly expressive presentation of the body.

Allens work is dynamic, differing in style from series to series, I am also drawn to his work focused on composition using various objects to construct still life scenes.

Excerpt taken from Metal magazine interview.

You do a lot of self-portraits. What do they mean to you? In which way is photographing yourself different from photographing other people, still lives, landscapes, etc.?

It ultimately began as a means to take full control of what I was creating. When studying film, I found myself drawn to the ideas surrounding the auteur theory while reading Cahiers du Cinema. That research led me away from film and into photography and wanting to create solely for myself. Since a photo is presented with a sitter, who is fully responsible for the outcome? I felt it to be a collaborative effort between the subject and photographer. I didn’t want that.

He aims to create surreal images with minimal effort, using basic equipment like flash and gels to transform spaces giving them a surreal other worldly look, this is intriguing as his images do look highly constructed. 'my creativity comes from the apperatus I use'

What is A 'back room?'

'The Backrooms are a fictional concept originating from a creepypasta posted on a 2019 4chan thread. One of the best-known examples of the Internet aesthetic of liminal spaces, which depicts usually busy locations as unnaturally empty, the Backrooms was first described as a maze of empty office rooms that can only be entered by "noclipping out of reality".' wikipedia

'dream core' liminal spaces' and 'back rooms' internet visions of uncanny,

eerie but oddly familiar spaces. These images grew in popularity on tumblr

initially but have since been made into a trend on tik tok, with varying responses

some find a sort of comfort in these images, whether that is comfort in

isolation or comfort in nostalgia, especially as these images rely on an uncanny

familiarity. On the other hand, for most these images induce panic, replicating

visions of a nightmare. why do these reactions vary? I think this comes down to

the lived experience of different subjectivities, with the images I have shot recently

I aim to capture the eerie yet familiar aesthetics of dream core within the context

of living as a woman in South London, exhibiting spaces with and without me present

that feel indicative of experiences/ feelings I have experienced in these spaces/similar

spaces.

Part 1 -   

The way in which I approach image-making has definitely shifted over this past term. Starting with the mini–projects, they helped me to find a conceptual direction to my work as well as learning more about how to use the camera as a device to create photographic worlds through the ‘apparatus’ itself. This is something I was able to build upon with my interim work, using photographic visuals like intentional blur and flash, specifically coloured flash to help aid my concepts. Compared to how I was approaching taking photos during the mini–projects and prior, my most recent work has become a much more intuitive process. I have found this has worked well for me, making my work much more expansive and less illustrative. To improve on this process of image making I could have perhaps expanded this further, setting more time apart designated to this practice, maybe even more intuitively and then constructing the images as a series after the fact as opposed to sequencing them and then adding week by week, I guess it's still very experimental at this stage so I will continue to work in this way to see what works for me. In terms of time management, this was a strength for me this term, helped by the mini-projects which helped me work towards soft deadlines, ensuring I was shooting every week, this is something I will be using in the coming term, setting these deadlines for myself.  

Part 2 -   

I enjoyed the concepts I explored with my most recent series of work displayed at the interim show. Conceptually, it spanned across many themes including, the ‘fragmented’ female figure, nostalgia, navigating ‘out of bounds’ spaces as a female subject, video game core, dream core and dark room aesthetics at large. I want to continue to work in the way I did with this project, starting by designating a number of hours each week to shoot with a very general idea in mind and almost using the camera as a device to record what I am picking up on in these particular environments, whilst using the camera as ‘apparatus’ and its functions to mimic the feelings that these spaces are evoking for me at that moment, I will then use these images as a starting point to refine my concept further. Technically, I would also like to return to working with medium format film cameras, inspired by Francesca Woodman's work- I want to see what medium will work best for me and what will complement my concepts best before I decide on a final medium for my degree show body of work. Whilst I am not completely decided on exactly how I will be planning the upcoming 10 weeks, I know that I will start this term off by spending the next 2 – 3 weeks continuing to shoot with my expansive concepts in mind in the hopes that through this intuitive way of image making accompanied with regularly printing and sequencing my images ( a process I found very useful in constructing concepts/ photographic narratives) will enable me to refine my ideas down. In these weeks  I will be shooting both digitally and using medium format. My first ‘mini – deadline' I will set for myself will be the 31^st of Jan – by this point I want to have constructed a ‘mini- sequence’ of images from the upcoming 2 weeks of shooting. From here I will reflect again on my process and concepts and further refine my work. 

Still photography for the REM short film

Plan for coming weeks

Week 2 - Hackney Marshes shoot - Pentax 67

Week 3 - Cemetery shoot

Week 4- South Downes shoot

Printing

• This is why images of 'the abject' disgust and horrify as they exist outside of what is deemed normal and right

  
  

See things.

The guys in the lunch room right?

They bite hunks of their sandwhiches, meat and bread,

And they grind it together in some disgusting paste 

And whatever wasn’t swallowed would just be stuck …

Between yellow teeth and infected gums 

And it’s not just eating.

No.

Ive seen a co worker fall asleep with his mouth gaping open

And I felt sick at the sight of it 

I mean… think about…

Earwax, puss, fingernails

I..I..

Ive seen guys spit on the ground and just walk away 

Just walk away 

I mean were fucking oblivious to it most of the time 

We don’t even fucking see it!

But one day..

I…I started to wonder why that is

And one of the guys, he wipes his nose with his fucking napkin 

Just balls it up, drops it on the plate,

Full of fucking snot

And then very slowly…

It just started to unfurl

All on its own.

As if it wanted to be seen

And I mean that’s when I realised 

Our common seam in each of us

Is our own built in fucking scum.

Our dirt, our grease.

- eg. the feeling of disgust we feel when we see a rogue hair on a bed sheet in a hotel room, the uneasiness that overwhelms us when something is 'detatched' from where it belongs

• another key example is seeing a bug inside a house- we see the house as an emtuty outside of nature, a safe and sterile place, free of dirt - links to ideas of what is pure and clean.

• Why is 'natural' dirty? - links to body hair and mensturation

https://maifeminism.com/the-flying-uterus-from-abjection-to-divinity-in-the-book-of-birdie-2016/

• she frames the abject in a beautiful way

• in doing sp, she alters viewers tolerance to images of things previously abjected

Minter works with both photography, moving image and paintings that feature hyper realistic up close shots of women and androgonous figures often covered in garish makeup, glitter and beads. Minter has been both praised and critiqued for her work, specifically the images she has produced that are more pornographic, slightly harder to look at than her highly aesthecised images of pearls in mouths. I think this combination of images works very well and comments on the phenomenom i aim to explore in my own work - locating the boundary between what is considered socially ok or even 'beautiful' and where that visual boundary is then crossed to the abject, the unacceptable and the grotesque. Interestingly, whilst Minter has critiqued the beauty industry through her work she plays off of typical advertising conventions making her images very easy to look at, because of this Minter has actually worked for a variety of beauty brands, including mac cosmetics.

Technical reflections -

In terms of what went well technically, I am happy with the lighting set up for this shoot, I used two flashes to light the background creating a very crisp white background which was key in terms of the glossy ad aesthetic I was aiming for, completely different look to the images from the 'honey shoot' with the black background, that was much more moody. To light my subject I used a third flash with a beauty dish attatched pointed in a downwards direction so the lighting was coming from above, again creating a crisp light with minimal shadow. For lenses I switched between the 70-50mm sigma lens and the macro lens. The macro lens was great for capturing the close up images of my subjects mouth, hands and face truly picking up on those smaller details that definitley teeter on the 'grosser' side. For the more polished 'seductive' images I opted for the sigma, obviously much wider than the macro it is a great lens for portraits- aiding the more commercial looking images.

What is my project/book about?  My Project Is based around Julia Kristeva's theory of abjection, which explores the concept of something neither object or subject, but more so an experience or a reaction to actions or things that have been perceived as ‘out of bounds’ revoking feelings of disgust. Examples of this include abjection towards bodily fluids/ bodily excretions ie. Menstrual blood, snot and vomit. Abjection is not only a physical phenomenon it also describes the state of being cast off due to sitting outside a ‘norm’ defined by a code of morality. In my project thus far I have been exploring abjection in conjunction to typical advertising conventions associated with food advertising, specifically the hyper sexualisation of female subjects used to sell food. I have partnered the two aiming to create highly sense evoking images that aim to locate the border between the seductive and the disgusting.  

What is the title of the project/ book? Pretty Gross 

List the most meaningful ideas around these images  

Abjection 

The spaces between seduction and disgust  

Hyper sexualization of women as an advertising convention  

How will you display your story/ narrative in book form? (lineal, clusters or narrative?) I want to combine my images with text, it won’t necessarily be structured in a strictly linear way, more so a study combining both up close shots and portraits sequenced in a way that plays with the ‘seductive’ polished images partnered with hyper realistic, macro images that highlight the raw, ‘unfiltered’ and disgusting details of the image. 

What texts will you be including? This project was originally born from reading a poetic monologue from the film ‘foe’ that spoke on the ‘in built scum’ we all have, a highly sensory description that included the chewing of processed meat between rotten gums. I Found this text highly gripping and visceral – and is something I feel would accompany my images very well, therefore I will be attempting to write my own creative descriptions/ poems. 

Please describe your envisioned book? (paper type etc..)My book will consist of around 16-20 pages printed onto glossy magazine type paper (in line with the commercial advertsing conventions I am playing off of) The colouring of most of my images has a pink/ reddish hue to them, so I want the cover to be complimentary to this. 

sequencing my images and learning how to accuratley depict my concept

aided through my modes of presentation. This wasn't something I had had

to consider properly previously as all my images have been printed at the same

size without consideration of where they might sit in a space. Printing the images

in varying sizes presenting sparadically on hyper glossy paper all adds to my

over riding concept/ feeling I aimed to provoke with this installation. It was not

important for me to use high quality paper as I was partially relying on the lo-fi

aesthetics associated with back rooms and liminal spaces - the mapping of the

images in a spider gram/map order too adds to the unsettling, unknown gaze I was

capturing, mimicking a stalker shrine. Overall, I am grateful for the experience

of creating an exhibition, not only because of the knowledge and understandings

gained on the importance of modes of production but also being able to experience

everything else involved in organising an exhibition, from collaboratively creating the flyer

and advertising the event to curating the space, this is something I look forward to

doing in the future as my practice evolves.

Typical advertising conventions

It's well known that sex sells, for decades women have been used to target male consumers relying on archaic understandings of the woman's role in the household as well as blatant objectification. Although we have come far from these struct gendered roles within the household, advertising still remains in the past, relying on these sexist ideologies to sell products. There are two clear advertising conventions at play when it comes to women featured in food ads you have as Katherine Parkin explains 'kitchen work and serving food are mostly portrayed as women’s work which is believed as a demonstration of love for their family. Advertising establishes and reinforces the belief that by buying and making the particular product, women could achieve a social status, a happy marriage and healthy children (Parkin, 2006)' And , moving away from this more wholesome imagery on the other side of the spectrum you have as HAILE VERSAVEL TECLEAB describes 'Certain food advertisements use women as a sex object to transmit sexual information displayed as nudity, sexual behavior, physical attraction, sexual referents and sexual embeds. Women are often seen as having an erotic experience with food in ads. Advertises offer food as a way to relate sexual images to their product creating a connection between the consumer and the product'

Ideally I also want to incorporate audio into my installation. It is important to me that my work is highly sensory, I feel audio would help elevate this. I want to record on the 3DIO microphone, which is specifically for capturing realistic panoramic sound, used in ASMR. The recording would be sounds of milk pouring, squelching beans etc...

This added element plays into ideas I explored surrounding misophonia and also alluding to the hyper sexualisation of women eating food online for ASMR (mukbang style videos)

A series that unveils the space that sits between seduction and disgust. 

‘Pretty Gross’ critiques the way women’s bodies have been visualised in popular media, commodified in a highly sexualised way yet simultaneously refused indulgence that sits outside of a hegemonic, patriarchal gaze. In this series my subjects are invited to indulge in various forms of consumption not often visualised in images that belong to this visual canon. These image conventions were adopted from typical advertisements that feature women consuming food in an aim to parody the visual trope, pushing outside its ‘allowed’ boundaries and forming a visceral viewing experience, one intended to both entice and repel its viewers.