05.05.21 - 07.05.21

Progress tutorial, experimental work, taking photos

After my progress tutorial, and the feedback from gary, i wanted to look into a more informed way of working. I looked into some of the artists that he suggested i research, and for the most part it was really helpful. I think because i was previously feeling lost in terms of researching specific artists, it was good to be given a list to look into. I particularly felt inspired by some of the early works of cindy sherman, like her infamous Untitled Film Stills series as well as the Murder Mystery People series. In my research ive definitely become more familiar with shermans work, and what i really want to channel is her ability to transform her identity in these photos. Im going to use my sister as the subject for this shoot rather than them being self portraits, but taking on the same goal that sherman has going behind each photo, to transform herself into one of the female roles hollywood has decided acceptable. so I decided to do a photoshoot inspired by these photos, as well as the stills that ive captured from Poor Little Rich Girl.

For these photos i want to incorporate a more realistic ‘film’ look, like the stills ive taken, and plan to paint from. I also wanted to use this more posed and unnatural way of shooting, like Sherman. I think im going to try doing both looks in one photoshoot, maybe differentiating with using both flash and regular photography. Im currently brainstorming and designing the way that i want the photos to end up looking, and to get the best blend of the different eras that im researching and looking into, i think im going to get the subject to wear a 60s style outfit, with more 30s silent movie style makeup. The outfit i think im going to draw as much inspiration from poor little rich girl as i possibly can (lingerie, nightwear, stockings, leopard fur coat).

I also found a photographer on instragram that i think could be a huge inspiration for my photoshoot, amber ortolano, shes quite an underground and unknown photographer. Her style is quite romantic and nostalgic looking, definitely inspired by vintage photos. I really enjoy her blurred and layered photos, this could be something that i incorporate in my own shoot, maybe editing and collaging the photos in post. I think including some sort of blurring or abstraction in my own photos (maybe by moving the camera during the flash) could help suggest some movement and support the photo looking like it was taken from a film

Also im definitely going to have to use some sort of soft focus filter to get the old film camera look that im aiming for, ive read that you can cover the lens with plastic wrap and vaseline to get this kind of soft, blurred and blown out contrast effect. I have done a few test shots and this seems to work relatively well, although because the camera lens that im using is so large, the makeshift filter that im using removes a lot of the detail in the photos (which is a good thing) but it also makes the final result of the photos extremely grainy, which im not necessarily opposed to, but its just something to be aware of. In my research into cindy sherman, i read that the first 6 photos of her untitled film stills series were slightly more blurred and grainy than the rest, so i guess all of my photos would fall under this category.

(post photoshoot) the process for this shoot was actually a lot more fast paced than i had anticipated, i ended up brainstorming, planning, designing shooting and editing in less than 2 days total. I think i ended up combining both of my simultaneous aims for this photoshoot really effectively. For the more posed cindy sherman like photos, i used the flash on my camera, which helped introduced a lot more information and ended up with a clearer final photo, compared with the photos directly inspired by film stills, which i didnt use flash for, and they ended up being much darker and grainier and less decipherable (which i enjoy, it ages them)

Im hoping to paint and combine these photos in many different ways, i think also drawing inspiration from judith eisler, and her separate of the ‘girls from the films’, im going to isolate a few of the photos from the order they were taken, and instead combine them in a series with other photos, to create a sort of artificial film strip- doctoring my own narrative?

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