SMART Objective: Photography & Death

This is my SMART Objective for this term.  I will be exploring themes of mortality and the image using images I will make on a Polaroid camera in the manner of Robert Mapplethorpe

Untitled (self-portrait), 1974 By Robert Mapplethorpe

 In my photography project I will be creating this term in Digital Arts a Photo and Text book.  I intend to take photographs using a manual Polaroid camera that I am learning how to use, these images will be black and white and will be on the concept of photographs and mortality.  I will be adding text that will be in the form of poetry or prose that will work in conjunction with the images. I will create a book using Blurb and I will create a Flipbook to go onto my digital Portfolio on my website.  This will be completed by 10th December 2024.

Milanote: Intended Research

 Today I created a milanote just explore my intended research for my Photography and Death project.

Death & Photography

I have added the intended research here which will be the work of Robert Mapplethorpe, Nobuyoshi Araki and Mikiko Hara.  Mikiko Hara's works are new to me and use the snapshot technique, just collecting passing moments, street photography but also photography of objects and buildings. 

Untitled, 2014 from These are Days Dei (#052), 2014 by Mikiko Hara

In the image above Hra captures this empty urban landscape with evidence of a person living in the space with the bed/tent and trolley.  this reminded me very much of Wim Wenders Places Strange and Quiet.  I like the traces of human existence, evidence of life. I will discuss all my research in much more detail throughout the term in relation to my own work, looking forward to discovering new and occult beauty.

Major Project: Initial Ideas

 It is major project time again in Digital Arts!  This term I am unsure what form my project might take.  However, I have been dreaming of the end and I am reminded again of Araki's images of his wife's funeral.  Araki stated in Tokyo Still Life; 'Someone has said that "photography is the medium of death", That as long as you are using photography you are conscious of death. you can't get beyond death' (Araki:2001:5) I think this has been weighing on my own mind, once an image is taken it is death as that moment is gone and the photograph is just a remembrance.

Nobuyoshi Araki (1990) From Winter Journey

In Sentimental Journey (1971)  Araki, through his images, tells of the love story with his wife and this image is shot 20 years later after his wife died of ovarian cancer. United Nations of Photography states of the book Winters Journey; 'One of the last scenes is a close-up of the casket: hands place orchids around the dead woman’s body, and Chiro appears again, on a book cover placed by her head. The photograph manages to be moving and beautiful, but also shocking. Not just because of the death of this lovely and still young woman, but because of the intimacy of the image.' (Hayes, 2016) Intimacy is throughout Araki's images whether it is a couple eating in a diner, a flower, a tree branch or an explicit image of women in ropes.  Araki's images always make you feel part of the image, we enter the frame.  We touch the frozen image

Nobuyoshi Araki(1996-1997) Private Tokyo

I was also thinking of Robert Mapplethorpe's last self-portrait.  Here below, Mapplethorpe's slightly sunken face looms out from the darkness, his hand is strong and holding onto the walking stick with a death's head.  Mapplethorpe died on the 9th March 1989 of AIDS. 'In the three years after his diagnosis in 1986,  the artist organized the Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation to manage his estate, support the medium of photography in arts institutions and fund HIV/AIDS medical research.' (Vin de Vie Wine of Life, 2019) Mapplethorpe lived with the shadow of death after contracting HIV and, at the time there was no cure he spent the last years ordering his estate to support the fight against HIV/AIDs whilst supporting photography and the arts.

Self-Portrait, 1988, platinum-palladium print.  Solomon R. Guggenheim, NY. 

Mapplethorpe's work also has intimacy and beauty his images of flowers with their curves and how the light seems sensual against the delicate petals and stems are beautifully shot, just as beautifully as his images of men, whose curves imitate the curve of the flowers.  Mapplethorpe's Flowers were; 'described by Patti Smith as “worthy conspirators in the courting and development of conflicting emotions. [Mapplethorpe] came to embrace the flower as the embodiment of all the contradictions revelling within.”' (Document Journal, 2015)

Calla Lily (1988) by Robert Mapplethorpe

These images, these still life's, live within the frame but are also the embodiment of death as both the flower and the man will never be as beautiful again as each day we live we walk closer to death.

Ajitto (1981) Gelatin silver print, printed 2009 

These images are my meditation on an idea, a thought that keeps returning  I am thinking I would like to make a small book that has both photographs and text. The text may be poems that are about my own mortality or death in a photographic image accompanied by photographs that illustrate the poems in some way.  I will consider this idea further as I would like to really take photographs this term and go back to where I started in photography to revisit ideas and techniques and look at new ways to see.  I also want to experiment with a manual Polaroid that I have not had a chance to enjoy and learn and see what I can do with an unfamiliar camera.

References

Araki N. (2001) Tokyo Still Life (Text by Adrian Searle), Ikon Gallery Birmingham.

Document Journal (2015). Mapplethorpe’s Flowers by Marcela Gutiérrez. [online] Document Journal. Available at: https://www.documentjournal.com/2015/04/mapplethorpes-flowers-by-marcela-gutierrez/ [Accessed 14 Oct. 2024].

Hayes F. (2016). REVIEW: ‘Araki’ at MNAAG Paris, 2016. [online] The United Nations of Photography. Available at: https://unitednationsofphotography.com/2016/06/30/review-araki-at-mnaag-paris-2016/ [Accessed 14 Oct. 2024].

Vin de Vie     Wine of Life. (2019). ROBERT MAPPLETHORPE:  Five Self-Portraits and a Legacy without Price. [online] Available at: https://vindevie.me/2019/06/28/robert-mapplethorpe-five-self-portraits/ [Accessed 14 Oct. 2024].

Sentinel - Final Advert

 As I was attempting to make my final piece, I continued my search for a woman in armour that I had in mind, depressingly all the images (and there are thousands) are sexy, pretty women in armour, many AI-generated.  I do feel feminism is going backwards and this idea of generating the perfect woman is rather disturbing.  Tomorrow Woman states that as a woman; 'The mainstream pressures of ‘looking the part’ and living up to unrealistic standards has been taken into a completely new realm with AI. We’re no longer dealing with the likes of Photoshop – instead, we’re battling hyper-intelligent algorithms that have no grounding in reality whatsoever.' (TW Diary, 2024) Deepfake porn and AI girlfriends are further evidence of this disturbing new world in which we all now live. I want to create an advert about women's safety and I am confronted by unrealistic images of women as content.  Obviously, if I was to create this in the real world I would have shot the images myself  and ensured I had exactly what I wanted.  After a frustrating search, I finally found a real woman that I thought would work in the advert.  All the images I used in the end were from Freepik with no AI generation!

To start the process I opened Photoshop clicked on New and then on Print, I chose A3, Landscape 300ppi (high resolution for print output) and chose a grey background as I intended to keep this as a frame.

I then used the same image in the background as my mock-up and changed it to black and white simply by clicking in the top menu on the image, adjustments and then black and white. I then clicked on 'select' in the top menu and then 'select all', I went to 'edit' and 'copy' 

I returned to the canvas clicked on 'edit' and 'paste' and used the transform controls to adjust size and position of the background image.

I opened the image of the woman I would use and again changed her to black and white using 'edit' and 'adjustments', I then clicked on the selection tool in the left hand menu and right-clicked to access the object selection.  I clicked on the women and selected her as the object and then copied her and pasted her into the canvas. 

I then used the same method to add the man in the background.  I added text by clicking on the Text tool in the left-hand menu and then clicking into the canvas to add a text layer.  I used High Tower Text at 44pts for the main tagline. I changed the colour to a very light grey and positioned using transform controls.

I then added the QR code I created in the previous post and added further text to strengthen my message.  The QR code works and goes to a guide to women for staying safe.

I liked the logo but thought I could do better so I created this again in Photoshop using bolder text (Gils Sans Ultra Bold) and a stronger image with a tagline as I felt this again strengthened the message.

I added the logo by just selecting and copying and pasting this into the canvas. 

I then cropped the frame and just quality-checked the final advert. I saved the final advert as a PSD and jpeg file.

This is my final advert ...

I was much happier with this than my mock-up - the woman was closer to my vision and was far more like the Joan of Arc character I had in mind. The logo is far improved and much stronger with the tagline and I like it that I have made this big so it is clear what the advert is for.  I think the tagline works. I also really like the working QR ode with real information available to women travelling alone. Obviously, if I had shot the images myself I would have had wider options and it would be far better than this but this gives a good idea of the concept and in the time given this is a fairly good outcome.

References

TW Diary (2024). Pixel Perfect: The Rise of AI-Generated Women and Its Impact on Society. [online] Tomorrowwoman.com.au. Available at: https://www.tomorrowwoman.com.au/blog-posts/pixel-perfect-the-rise-of-ai-women [Accessed 12 Oct. 2024].

Women's Safety Advert: Mock up Process & Final Piece

 I began my final process by looking for images that I could use in my final piece - I looked on Pexels, Pixabay and Unsplash.  

I started with trying to make a mock up as I was looking for women in armour and a train or train environment for my background.

I found these images on Pexels and Pixabay 

Woman in Armour by Kyraxys on Pixabay

Tunnel by Veneet Panchal

Man

I opened Photoshop and created a new canvas at 300ppi with a black background. This was A3 in size and landscape orientation.  I then opened the three images above that I was going to use.  I wanted them to be black and white so I went to the top menu and clicked on 'image' then 'adjustments' then went to 'black and white'.  I went to the image of the environment and to 'select' and then 'select all' in the top menu and then I clicked on 'Edit' then 'copy'.  I went to my canvas and clicked on 'Edit' and 'paste'.  I wanted to add the woman in the foreground, returned to the original image, and then clicked on 'Select' and 'Object 'on the left-hand tool menu.  I clicked on the woman and then right-clicked to copy.  I then went back to my canvas, clicked on edit and then paste and then changed the size and positioning of the woman using transform controls.  I repeated this process to add the man.  I then clicked on the Text tool in the left-hand menu and then clicked on the canvas to add a text layer I changed the font to High Tower Text at 47pts.  Finally, I added the logo that I made on Adobe Express and just used transform controls to position this.  I then saved this as a PSD and jpeg file.

This advert works okay but needs much more information and also I need better images as this was not my vision for the woman in the image.  I have now created information and a QR code to access this please scan the code to see the document. I will add this to my final poster.

Women's Safety Advertising: Target Market

 

The Generations (2024)

In this post, I am going to discuss my intended target market for my advertising campaign on women's safety, this will be millenials.  I have chosen this group as they are the largest target market and also they the most mobile and they have the largest workforce, therefore they spend much of their time using public transport, which is the focus of my safety campaign. Prudential States; 'Unlike the generation before them, lots of millennials had working mothers as well as fathers who helped at home, and even those in more traditional families got the message that equality is possible and important.' (Prudential, 2015) As millennial women do have an attitude that they can 'have it all' they are often very busy trying to juggle home life, children and a full-time job this means they spend much of their time travelling and often alone. 

The Office of National Statistics carried out a survey about the perceptions of personal safety and experience of harassment in the UK, this states; 'more women (27%) than men (16%) reported they had experienced at least one form of harassment in the previous 12 months' (Elkin, 2022) This survey was taken in 2022. This states that women are clearly more often harrassed when out in public places alone.  It goes on to state that: 'more people had stopped walking in quiet places such as “parks or open spaces” after dark in the last month because of feeling unsafe; an increase in both men (from 18% to 24%) and women (from 32% to 37%)' (Elkin, 2022).  this idea that people change their behaviour because of feeling unsafe particularly women backs up that this advertising campaign for safety of public transport is important.  It also makes me consider further what my message is about this campaign.  It is awareness but also I think it needs to offer something, perhaps safety advice and equipment for free, so I will add more so the message and the charity show clearly what they do. 

With this in mind I looked at what was being done already and there is an academic Professor Andy Newton who is studying this issue of women on public transport.  As he stated this is actually a complex issue and there are high levels of underreporting and he states that in 'part of the reason that women and girls don’t report incidents is because they think nothing will be done, or don’t know who or where to report it to' (Walter, 2024). People are also disinclined to involve themselves or help women as they feel if they do they may also become a target. London Transport has a poster campaign already that 'produced a series of posters pointing out what to look out for in terms of sexual harassment, which provides a good template for other operators to follow.' (Walter, 2024) This is a good start but again I do think my own campaign needs to be for not just London but National and that the charity I have created 'Sentinel' could offer something more in terms of advice and safety equipment such as personal alarms.  It is illegal in the UK to carry pepper spray or anything that may cause harm (Richman, 2022). So an alarm is acceptable and you are allowed to defend yourself so perhaps links to local self-defence classes for women. 

Looking at this research has helped me to explore further this issue and think about what could really help women on public transport in the UK.  I will use these ideas for my campaign poster and I do think adding a QR code with further information and help will enable me to give advice and help to women when travelling alone. 

References

Prudential (2015). Millennials and Gender: A Major Attitude Shift. [online] theatlantic.com. Available at: https://www.theatlantic.com/sponsored/prudential-sleeping-giants/millennials-and-gender-a-major-attitude-shift/467/ [Accessed 10 Oct. 2024].

Elkin, M. (2022). Perceptions of personal safety and experiences of harassment, Great Britain: 16 February to 13 March 2022.

Walter, M. (2024). Meet the Academic striving to make transport safer for women and girls. [online] Connected Places Catapult. Available at: https://cp.catapult.org.uk/article/meet-the-academic-striving-to-make-transport-safer-for-women-and-girls/ [Accessed 11 Oct. 2024].

Richman, D. (2022). Defend Yourself Legally | Avoid These Incriminating acts. [online] Stuart Miller Solicitors. Available at: https://www.stuartmillersolicitors.co.uk/self-defence-laws-guide/ [Accessed 11 Oct. 2024].

Advert Research, Ideas & Plan

 This term I would like to go back to creating a campaign for feminism.  I have done this previously however I did not think it was that successful.  This time I want to improve my reach to my target market and I would like to play with further ideas of how to promote feminism this could be: 

• In the workplace - looking at inequality and diversity
• Women's Safety such as on public transport and being out alone
• Women in careers that are not traditionally for women.

                                                                  Glitch: End Online Abuse

The campaign above is about ending online abuse of women, this highlights the new bill to tackle the abuse of women and girls online.  The image shows a diverse selection of women with the aim of targeting women from different cultures. It is also clearly aimed at younger women and girls as that is what it depicts here.  The colours are bright and eye-catching and meant to attract a younger audience. 

London Transport Campaign: Upskirting

This poster by London Transport is actually to explain what upskirting is and how it is illegal.  This also highlights this abuse to men that it will not be tolerated on the tube.  Attacks on women on trains in the UK have risen significantly, Sky News states; 'Violent attacks against women on Britain's railways have increased by more than 50% since 2021, according to new data.

The number of crimes against women and girls rose from 7,561 in 2021 to 11,357 in 2023, according to figures from the British Transport Police Authority's 2024 annual report.' (Sky News, 2024) what this equated to was that a third of women travelling on trains may be attacked during their commute.  The figures for the Tube in London were equally disturbing; 'The data recorded 909 sexual offences, excluding rape, between 1 December 2022 and 30 November 2023, compared to 866 in the previous 12 months.' (Kelly, 2024) This research makes me feel more strongly about creating an advert for Women's safety.

Stop Violence Against Women by Soroptimist International of Weybridge and District 

The advert above is a simple message from Soprotimist Club that; 'started life 45 years ago when a group of young local women joined hundreds of established clubs in Europe with a common aim of working together to improve the lives of women and girls through action, advocacy and engagement.' (Soprotimist Club, 2023).  These sort of groups can be found all over the world as women still fight against violence sometimes from those closest to them and also from strangers.  

Women's Safety Campaign 

I liked this advert It used statistics in the advert and was just showing how women changed their running route to stay safe, this shows how women have to change their lives to be safe and not society that should change to keep them safe. Here the advert shows how men can help women to feel safer. The #dontbethatguy is aimed at men as it is men and society that need to change not women.

With these thoughts in mind I began thinking about the advert I would like to make so I thought about the Beck video 'Up All Night' (2017), the woman in the video is wearing a suit of armour and runs and fights through the party in the armour to save her boyfriend.  The woman looks like Joan of Arc and this idea of a strong armoured woman in my advert I think might work really well.  The Naïve Filmmaker states that the video; 'is full of visual motifs, the magnetic armour, her metal insides, the many levels she appears to be working her way through from what appears to be a lust fuelled orgy to the football team. There is something new to notice with every watch, for example only today I realised that on a number of occasions she rescues other partygoers from themselves by kicking cocaine out of someone’s hand or pushing a girl away from a keg stand, all while remaining true to the mission at hand.' (thenaivefilmmaker, 2021)

I would like to try to use that idea of a woman in a suit of armour and perhaps use a tagline like; 'What does a woman have to do to stay safe?' or 'What clothes does a woman have to wear to stay safe?' or 'How far do you go to feel safe?' I will work on this idea with an image.  I want the image to be clean with no distracting background and a simple grey colour palette.  Perhaps if the woman is on a tube or train then I can be more directive and the campaign name can be 'Safe&Sound' or 'Women Ride Safe'  or 'Sentinel' with the idea of guarding or watching over women to protect them in public transport.  My campaign will be aimed at women and how they can keep themselves safe and how to speak out safely. In my next post, I will show the process of creating this advertisement.

References

Sky News (2024). Violent attacks against women on Britain’s trains up by more than 50% since 2021. [online] Sky News. Available at: https://news.sky.com/story/violent-attacks-against-women-on-britains-trains-up-by-more-than-50-since-2021-13196789 [Accessed 8 Oct. 2024].

Kelly, J.W. (2024). Sexual offences rise on Tube network, figures show. [online] BBC News. Available at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c8829ked1x3o [Accessed 8 Oct. 2024].

Soprotimist Club (2023). Latest News from SI Weybridge & District covering Elmbridge | SI Weybridge and District | SIGBI. [online] SI Weybridge and District. Available at: https://sigbi.org/weybridge/presidents-message/latest-news/ [Accessed 8 Oct. 2024].

thenaivefilmmaker (2021). Beck’s Up All Night: Where John Hughes meets Dante’s Inferno. [online] T H E  N A I V E  F I L M M A K E R. Available at: https://thenaivefilmmaker.com/2021/06/07/becks-up-all-night-where-john-hughes-meets-dantes-inferno/ [Accessed 8 Oct. 2024].