In the first week of Creative Media Production, we are doing an object lesson. This is our first project for assessment and is a one week project. I have chosen for my object a postcard called 'From Pretty Woman, Tokyo, 2017 by Daido Moriyama.
I was drawn to this object as I loved the reflections of life in the glasses lens, the distorted people and the photographer taking the shot inside the lens of the glasses. The image is striking of the mannequin's head with bright red lipstick. The shop dummy, the plastic doll these drew me to this image. The plasticity and materiality of the image - what could I do that is about perhaps materiality. Or maybe it is about the post-modern portrait and the photographer within the image. The passersby look up into the reflection and see themselves within the mannequins 'eyes'.
I created 20 ideas in 20 minutes, and this is the result
I will start with artist within the image, the first thing that comes to mind is Édouard Manet's Bar at the Folies Bergère (1882). The artist appears in the mirror at the corner of the image, some say it is the artist, there are other sources that state he was too ill to be there and worked from his studio; 'Manet was too ill to paint this picture in the Folies-Bergère itself. Instead, most of it was completed in the studio, where he had an imitation bar installed. As a result, the details in the foreground were painted with careful precision. Manet even added his signature to the wine bottle on the left' (Zaczek, 2011) However, The Aesthetics of Photography state; 'A mirror behind her reflects her image, as well as the image of the public, and also that of the artist on the other side of the counter, to the right of the picture.' (Aesthetics of Photography, 2020). I believe that the man is the artist and that he wanted to appear as soon he would not be there at all, all artists want to be present in some way in their images.
The Jeff Wall's post-modern recreation 'Picture for Women' (1979) is interesting as much is written on teh creation of this image, is it a montage? The people, although they are by a mirror, are not reflected. The Aesthetics of Photography states; 'More likely, one can think that the totality of the image, including the young woman and the counter, is composed of the reflection coming from the mirror. We would therefore be faced with an entirely specular image, in which all the objects and characters would have been captured indirectly by the camera, according to the reflections coming from the mirror.' (Aesthetics of Photography, 2020). This was a carefully set up image and the idea that they are just the reflections I really like in this image. The three panels do create separate spaces in the frame and these are distinct and all hold their own meaning. I like the idea of using a triptych this could also work really well with differing stories and reflections.
I like the idea of picking strangers from the crowd, or walking alone in a street. This could be possible and perhaps in reflection even more possible if it was just taking the reflection and my camera pointed to this.
I think I have decided that I will take images, these will be more though in the manner of painting like a triptych or as I said in the original 20 ideas a wall of strangers as reflection. This will be an interesting one to set up and probably will require some patience. I will add my plan for these shots when I have worked out location and I may try to do a quick test shoot to see if it will work - with the longer days this will make this a lot easier and evening sun could good as it is a softer evening light.
After consideration I started to think further about reflection and I wanted to actually break the glass reflection, destroy it and so I began thinking about images of Man Ray and Moholy Nagy, the photograms of Moholy Nagy were fragmented pieces of things so I thought I could perhaps use this idea with my own face.
I created this my fractured and broken face, I liked the effect I used Photoshop to fracture into the pieces that I wanted after I have overlayed the broken glass.
I enjoyed this exploration of reflection and from the beginning postcard as object, I do think this idea has really evolved into something rather different. I would do more of these if this were a longer project and I would experiment with images on glass and through glass as that would be really quite interesting dependent, of course, on the concept. Overall, this gave me further ideas and questions about work I could do next, there is a spark of a greater idea here.
References
Aesthetics of Photography (2020). Picture for Women, Jeff Wall. [online] Aesthetics of Photography. Available at: https://aestheticsofphotography.com/jeff-wall-picture-for-women/ [Accessed 1 Apr. 2025].
Chan, S. (2017). Case Over ‘Heads’ Photo Is Dismissed. [online] City Room. Available at: https://archive.nytimes.com/cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/11/16/case-over-heads-photo-is-dismissed/ [Accessed 1 Apr. 2025].
SINGULART (2024). Picture for Women by Jeff Wall: A Blend of Art and Critique. [online] Magazine. Available at: https://www.singulart.com/blog/en/2024/04/04/picture-for-women-by-jeff-wall/[Accessed 1 Apr. 2025].
Zaczek, I. (2011). A Bar at the Folies Bergère by Édouard Manet. [online] Britannica. Available at: https://www.britannica.com/topic/A-Bar-at-the-Folies-Bergere [Accessed 1 Apr. 2025].
