Time Machine task 1

For this task we have been asked to compare and contrast two paintings (The Sleeping Venus - Giorgione and Olympia - Manet)


The Sleeping Venus - Giorgione (1510)

In this image we see Venus, who appears to be in a deep sleep where we are unable to see her conscious expression laying on a white sheet and red cushion framed by an external landscape which is rather an innovation of this time. All of these things produce an air of mystery about the nude and because she is sleeping suggests that she is dreaming which allows us to think that she is in another world. The pose of Venus is important to look at as it echos the landscape behind implying that there is a connection between her and the nature around, there is also a eroticised feel due to her hand leading down into her crotch. This piece was a collaboration between Giorgione and an artist called Titian who was thought to paint most of the landscape, for European art this was very much a central theme. The juxtaposition between the Venus (the light areas) and the landscape (dark areas) cause the painting to look three dimensional.

It seems to me that this piece is more an ideological painting because Giorgione has painted an unselfconscious Goddess, sleeping within her own world, unawares of the viewer and unaware of any dangers that maybe approaching like the building storm in the distance. There is also an innocence about her because of the way that her hand covers her crotch.

Olympia - Manet (1863)

Here we see 'Olympia' or Victorine Meurent, who happened to be Manet's favourite model this painting was also inspired by Titian's 'Venus of Urbino' (1538) which refers to Giorgione's painting above. Within this painting the nude was thought to be a prostitute within her bed wearing a bootlace for a necklace, gold bracelet and orchid in her hair (suggesting a lifestyle of wealth and sensuality which is likely to have been more of a front to to show she was a better class). Unlike Giorgione's painting, Manet has painted this quite flat in the sense of dimensional space and the contrast between light and dark (chiaroscuro) is extremely harsh. There is also a lack of tones, Olympia is almost all one colour which is again different to Giorgione's painting as Venus was painted as an ideological vision of beauty. One of the biggest differences between the two images is the confrontational stare that occurs with Olympia, this and the firm covered crotch indicates a much more dominating character. When this painting was exhibited at the Paris Salon in 1865 the viewers struggled to look at the image in the same way that 'The Sleeping Venus' would be viewed, there was a lack of ease through the painting with every detail being looked at trying to make sense rather than look upon it being in a dream state like Giorgione's image of Venus above. From looking at Titian's painting 'Venus of Urbino' we notice that the inviting gaze is replaced with uneven sized pupils and the loyal sleeping dog is a startled cat which is a sign of infidelity, the braided hair is tied and the softness that Titian creates, that we can also say about Giorgione's painting is changed to something much harder and cold.

Fashion:Constructed Image - Casting Lead

Some more mood boards of the look from the model we are going for:

So first things first, make a search on sites like model mayhem, purestorm and also have a look at the new faces on models1. If this is unsuccessful then I will make some casting calls.

So this is what we are looking for, Female model, aged between 18 and 30 (might be best to go for an older model), in the local area incase we need her for both days of the shoot, really want someone that has a pinup style as this fits best with the suburban 50's housewife, we also are looking for this model to be blonde with medium to long hair and they are also preferred to be white.

I suppose that as long as the model is blonde and suitable look for their age then the rest of the look can be made through the styling and hair and makeup.

Here are some possibilities that are already close to the look we want:

http://www.modelmayhem.com/1869674 Location - Basildon (Maybe too far?)

http://www.modelmayhem.com/1928869 Location - Sittingbourne

http://www.modelmayhem.com/1668351 Location - Southend (again possibly too far)

Profile picture got my attention but other photos in portfolio are very different.

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Bettina-Scarlett/118846518164009 Local, attends the Uni.

Alternative 50's styled pinup model, possibly the closest to the look that we are going for without having to do to much.

Purestorm is a pain as you have to pay to do an advanced search for specific models:

http://purestorm.com/profile.aspx?id=Rachael_C Location - Greenhithe

A nice styling in this image, even if we do not use this model it might be good to keep this look in mind. Similar to Bethan's look above but more of a mumsy feel.

http://purestorm.com/profile.aspx?id=BlondieH Location - Dover (too far possibly and the face is possibly too young looking)

http://www.models1.co.uk/details.aspx?nav=1&modelid=498583&sexid=2&subid=7771&mainsubid=7771&indx=&ltr=&num=7 Location - London (Possible cost per hour)

The Commission - The Portrait Issue

Finlay Mackay 'Road to 2012 - Changing Pace, David Weir'

 The Road to 2012 is a series by Finlay Mackay, showing different athletes and the training that they are going through in the run up to the 2012 olympic games. This particular image of David Weir shows him training on a country road, this gives us the setting which shows us that he is on a journey and has already come along way to be where he is now. So obviously getting to the olympic games is quite a feat and this metaphorically suggests this. This is also enhanced by the placement of the camera as it is close enough to see the athlete (who he is, what he does etc) but also at a distance to see how far he has come. The sitter, David Weir, does seem to be quite small within the frame as you are able to see lots of land and trees around him this suggests to me that he still has a fair distance or training to complete before he will be ready for the games.

Toby Glanville, 'Actual Life', 2002

 In this image we see a school teacher against a blackboard in her classroom, it is easy to understand who she is and what she does because she has been placed in this setting. The subject is lit with natural light as you are able to see the sun coming through the blinds spilling onto the blackboard, because it is clearly a nice day and there are no children in the photograph suggests that they may be outside playing. The teacher is in the middle of the frame which shows that she is of importance and the items around her just further emphasise the setting.

Ulrich Gebert, 'Freischneider', 2004

Like the first image this one has been set outside due to the persons profession which without looking at the series we would not be sure what this is. The 'headshot' includes the safety gear that this hedge cutter wears while out working which firstly gives us the indication of what he does. The man is set against a clear blue sky which has very little distractions, this keeps the main focus on the subject as this is the important part of the image. This is quite different to the other images because it is a tightly cropped image, you only have the things he is wearing to try and figure out what he does.

Will add more to this.

Fashion:Constructed image - group 11

On Monday 30th of January we chose the groups that we wanted to be in for this project and were then set the task of making a presentation (for tomorrow) to show the ideas that we had come up with.


Mood boards. The start of everything. We came up with all of this in under a day.

Our mood boards consist of 1920's-40's black and white films

More contemporary films

Psychological films and fashion photography

The idea of hoarding and OCD

 Make-up and characters

Styling

But having so many ideas and only creating one image at the end of this project meant that we had to narrow things down, we came up with the idea of looking into Duality (Donnie Darko, Fight Club and also taking ideas from Dark City, American Beauty and Blue Velvet).
In our tutorial our tutors gave us Gregory Crewdson and Edward Hopper as references which we all found very interesting and gave us all a few similar ideas of how our set could look.

Gregory Crewdson's sets are extremely elaborate and closely resemble something that you would find in a film.
His main influences for lighting and style are taken from the artist Edward Hopper, Ray Bradbury - American fantasy/horror writer, The Twilight Zone - American TV series and then such films as Close Encounters of the Third Kind and Blue Velvet. Using 'the witching hour' with artificial lights like street lights and lamps within the 'houses' he creates a very strange and unnerving feel to his images.

One of the biggest influences you can see in Crewdson's work is from Blue Velvet, Crewdson even states that he was struck by the film and it's dystopian world beneath the suburban America town.

I have also included a few images from http://www.aperture.org/crewdson/ these show behind the scenes of Crewdson's film like sets and give a better insight into the minor details like for instance the second image of a man putting in or taking out some of the dirt on the window.

After the presentation tomorrow we will move on to start thinking more in depth of our set and how to style it and the character that we want to portray.

A few more mood boards that we have created with a narrowed down idea of character, setting and styling.

Written by Salvador to sum up our idea:

Just so that everyone knows what is going on; the concept of our fashion construction piece is looking into the American dream, more then anything the “Dark side of the American Dream”. The focus of the shoot will be to demonstrate how America – The America of small suburbs of white and pastel wooden houses nestled into a soft landscape of gentle rolling hills, with there well tended front yards, a America where everything is close by, where the high school still looks exactly like it did in the 1950’s. The America where everything is brilliant, what we want to unearth is that everything has a dark side.

What has been rolling across our mood boards etc is that I believe would be best suited to look at the American House wife from the 1950’s with her perfect family, perfect house, her perfect husband that comes homes happy from work, her perfect children that are A*** students. (Character)
(Room/set) - would be the heart of the house where everyone comes together, thus I think the dinning room would be best fitting such as the image I posted up not long ago we have the perfect family coming to dinner together.

The duality that we have been talking about, with references such as Fight Club, American Beauty, Blue Velvet, Donnie Darko etc. Is that the this house wife, has gone into delusion, has basically become schizophrenic, has lost her own individuality by forcing on a “Political correct” face to the public and to her self, and that this character has become so in denial of everything that she is alone, has nothing, this perfect would she has built up only exist within her. Thus the family portraits in the room, are not of her family but other that she wishes to have, she lives in a 5 bed room house, alone, she dines on a table that is set out for the entire family, but eats alone.

The Commission.

A quick introduction into this project: There are three parts, the first part we have to use an analogue (medium or large format) camera to make a series of images (at least three) with the theme of waste, around the Medway area. We are able to look into the photographic genres: Portraiture, still-life, fashion or environment.

The second part is to make a pinhole camera using waste products and then photograph something, again using the theme of waste.

The last part is to make a folder of the things that we would do if we were to exhibit or publish our work.


Initial ideas and research.

My initial idea is to look into the fashion genre of photography and the relationship that this has with consumption. Possibly go to a recycling centre or not be so literal and either look into spacial waste or go into the studio with a model and create some images with the theme of waste and fashion.

A few photographers that I will start off by looking at are:

Melissa Moore

Guy Bourdin

Andreas Gursky

Then following off from Andreas Gursky I will be looking into consumption and all the waste that is created from this.

Recycling in Medway

Fashion and recycling (branching out from my studio idea)

Dress made by Gary Harvey who says "Newspapers are one of the few products that get recycled. Currently too much information is printed on paper that does not get read or recycled". 

So with this in mind I am now thinking about constructing my some clothes out of items that can be recycled things like newspapers (local) and look at charity shop clothes as they are being recycled for other peoples use.

Things to look at 'Fast throwaway fashion', more fashion photographers and designers for ideas on clothes. 

'The flood of fast, throwaway fashion on the high street in recent years has inevitably led to questions about where the clothes are being made, who's making them and in what conditions, not to mention the environmental effects of mass production, and shocking waste'. - Belinda White, 2011, Fast fashion: Is the party over? - Telegraph.co.uk

Fashion photographers

Here Rankin Talks about how he experiments with high end fashion and couture by using cutouts to layer the normal 2d image and how fashion is quite shallow http://rankin.co.uk/videoplayer/?file=http://content.bitsontherun.com/videos/U6xrmmHr-424724.flv it is also interesting when viewing behind the scenes footage because this allows me to see the lighting set up and to see how the images are created. We are also shown the transformation that the model goes through from looking 'normal' to 'being made up' with her hair and makeup done. This is also at least the second shoot as the cutouts would have had to be made up for this, so test shoots and re-shoots should most certainly be arranged so that I am able to explore all possibilities in my work.

So looking into some of Rankin's studio work for inspiration I have come across these:

They are all quite different images but there are similarities between them. So firstly they are all fashion images and the models have been sourced specifically for each shot. The first two images we can see that the light that is falling onto the models is rather bright, it almost completely bleaches out any details. This instantly removes any blemishes and then in post production there will be some retouching that will then remove any irregularities.

Tim Walker

Mert and Marcus

Miles Aldridge