Photo Shoot: Stages of Woman

 Completed the photoshoot for all the stages of woman, I may reshoot or complete an additional shoot depending on how the images work in the book.  I took around 450 images, I shot these in Black and white using my Olympus OMD E-10 II, I was using a lightbox and I had added additional black backdrops on all sides to ensure that it was a completely black background.  The dolls were different sizes and, at times, quite awkward depending on the way they moved, some were more flexible than others.  The child doll and the aged wheelchair Barbie were hardest to shoot.  As I had 15 contact sheets I will just share a few here.

I shot these on F3.5, ISO 100. 1/125 with adjustments in exposure compensation and focal length.  

I realised I had forgotten teenage barbie so ordered her ready to add next week.

The ones I thought worked best for this shoot were the child and menopausal woman - she has pink hair and I am not averse to pink hair myself!

I may use one of these images for the book cover.

Stages of Woman: First Draft Text for Book

 Please see here the intended text to go with each image - this is the first draft and so it is just an idea of the story I would like to tell

Stages of Woman

Child

Pure child, full of dreams

Pretty dolls and decent things

Watching Mother cook and clean

Mother talking about how we should be seen

Teenager

Awkward times, full of discontent

The girl hides away as her mind and body disconnect

Life beckons and so she steps away

Broken dreams, harsh times, and disarray

Woman

At last, the girl becomes a woman 

Strong, vibrant, sensual, and uncommon

Gives everything she has, marches forward 

Determined, clever, ambitious, and ordered

Pregnant

Met a man, everything changed

Domestic bliss, she feels shortchanged

The time has come for her to bear

Fruit of her womb, bright and fair

Change

Years of work, child-rearing and domestic chores

Nothing gained, and no reward

Body strained, time marches on 

The change is here and a woman’s life foregone

Revitalised

At last, the woman is free

Her body returned to thee

Strong and hopeful, no man needed

She now steps out and feels completed

Age

Finally, the last hours, show their face

She has lived, wishes she could have been in the fast race

But the woman has to take the slow path

Now she withers on the vine

Contemplating the wonder of divine design

Wix Website: About Page/Social Links/Homepage & Mobile View

 Today I began by updating my About Page, in my case I just changed the text on the website to the one I wrote in class so I clicked on the text and then clicked on 'Edit' and the dialog box came up and then I change the font to Caudex 20pts.  

I also checked the mobile view to check this was working correctly all my links to social media and my 'back to top' button worked correctly so I was happy with how this looked

My mobile view on my homepage needed to be adjusted so I clicked on 'Editor' and then on the text itself to edit the text, in the dialog box I used the slider to reduce the size of my text.  I then saved and republished to ensure that this was live.

I then set my social links, I did this by clicking into 'Social' and then I added the icon using the add icon button and then I added my live social link addresses. 

I then previewed my site and tested all the social links and as they were all working I then checked each pa

page on the mobile and checked they all appeared in the footer.  this was all working correctly and so I can now publish again to make this live. 

I then checked the 'back to top' buttons on my mobile view and I added one on the portfolio page as this was missing so I clicked on the 'add' on the left hand menu and then 'button' I choose the style of button that matched the other buttons on my page and I then added the link to the top of the page by clicking on top of page in dialog box.  I then clicked on design and customise on the button and changed the background fill to match the rest of the page. 

I then previewed and checked this worked live and that all the pages were correct on the mobile view. 

All pages are now working and correct!

Further Research: Hans Bellmer

 

Hans Bellmer (1936) Die Puppe (The Doll)

I am looking at Bellmer, who was a surrealist artist and photographer who is; 'best known for the life-sized pubescent female dolls he produced in the mid-1930s' (Tate 2002).  I am looking at this artist as his use of dolls and the female form will inform how I photograph my own dolls and the stages of woman. Bellmer focused on the pre-pubescent form and was interested in girl turning into woman.  Bellmer was often criticised for the exploitative photographs which may consist of a breast, buttocks or thighs of the doll which was often twisted into a strange form to emphasise the doll's sexuality. 'The inspiration for Bellmer's first doll was allegedly his unfulfilled sexual desire for his underage cousin Ursula Naguschewski who was then living with him and his wife. He created the doll from wood, glue, plaster and straw in his studio - obsessively driven to create what he called a "real object to be possessed."' (Hans Bellmer photographs 2022).  This idea of the handmade doll that was made to fufil Bellmer's desires reminds me of why I chose Barbie to represent the stages of woman.  Barbie is an ideal that has been foisted upon the female population since 1959 (1).  Although Barbie in recent years had tried to update Barbie with 'curvy' Barbie and Wheelchair Barbie, Barbie is still an almost impossible woman.

Self Portrait with Die Puppe (1934) Hans Bellmer

Bellmer's dolls often did not have eyes or the eyes faced away from the lens; 'Paul Éluard, French poet and another prominent member of the surrealist group, took note of this absence of gaze in the collection of prose poems he created for Bellmer’s second doll, writing: “It’s a girl! – Where are her eyes? – … It’s a girl, it is my desire!” alongside one photograph.' (Wetzel, 2021).  When photographing my own series of 'stages of woman' I am debating whether the dolls should look directly into the lens (challenging the viewer) or look away from the lens (could be submissive/passive).  It is important that the dolls celebrate woman and the idea is not to be just an object of reproduction or desire but a productive and useful member of society, that contributes to the economy, production, industry, education, and government and is as important as a man. 

Hans Bellmer, Untitled, ca. 1962, in The Doll, trans. Malcolm Green and Antony Melville (London: Atlas Press, 2005), 41.

Looking further at the images and poses of the dolls, the dolls all are damaged, broken, or deformed in some way, this vision of woman, as in the 'Self Portrait with Die Puppe' above shows woman as part human, part mechanical and the idea here of woman as the object is intensified, also the idea that she is unobtainable in the sense of a 'normal' woman and so this dichotomy of woman as a desirable object and available for man's needs and this construction of Bellmer where he makes her unobtainable and somehow inhuman as Eluard states; 'where are her eyes?' is interesting as a conceptual construction.  Bellmer has created in the image a strange, desirable, unobtainable object that reminds me of J G Ballard's 'Crash' (1973).  Ballard created a strange tale of a sexualised relationship with crashed motor vehicles and damaged woman. David Cronenberg's film captures the cold, sexual and sensual relationship of the participants obsessed with the car crash and damaged bodies.  Both are desired equally in this disturbing and sensual film. The British Library states;  ‘Crash is above all a cautionary tale, a warning against the brutal, erotic and overlit future that beckons us, ever more powerfully, from the margins of the technological landscape’. (British Library 2022)

In 1996 this was a warning, now we live in a technological future where people have more connection with their mobile phone screens than other people and it is a worrying sign of what will come next.  

Finally going back to the dolls, the use ofBrbie will work well in my photographs this plastic construction, like Bellmer's dolls will give an objectified air to the images but I will be trying to subvert this in the image creating an image of woman that is strong and through the use of text and image in a book form I think the message will be also be strengthened. 

(1) Barbie, in full Barbara Millicent Roberts, an 11-inch- (29-cm-) tall plastic doll with the figure of an adult woman that was introduced on March 9, 1959, by Mattel, Inc., a southern California toy company. Ruth Handler, who cofounded Mattel with her husband, Elliot, spearheaded the introduction of the doll. Barbie’s physical appearance was modeled on the German Bild Lilli doll, a risqué gag gift for men based upon a cartoon character featured in the West German newspaper Bild Zeitung. (Barbie 2022)

References

Tate (no date) Hans Bellmer 1902–1975, Tate. Available at: https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/hans-bellmer-736 (Accessed: November 16, 2022). 

Hans Bellmer photographs, Bio, ideas (2022) The Art Story. Available at: https://www.theartstory.org/artist/bellmer-hans/ (Accessed: November 16, 2022). 

Barbie (2022) Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica, inc. Available at: https://www.britannica.com/topic/Barbie (Accessed: November 16, 2022). 

http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/articles/1857/hans-bellmers-dolls-and-the-subversion-of-the-female-gaze

David Cronenberg, Crash (1996)British Library (2022) . Available at: https://www.bl.uk/works/crash#:~:text=Crash%20is%20a%20novel%20by,called%20the%20New%20Arts%20Laboratory. (Accessed: November 17, 2022). 

Software Testing: Photoshop

 Today we are testing Photoshop software and so we are going to mock up a portfolio page which is for major project this term.  

I created a new page by clicking on new in the top menu and then using the dialog box above I clicked on 'Print' in the top menu and then in the presets I clicked on A£ and I chose 'Portrait' a white

 background and 300 resolution.

I then had a blank white canvas to work on.  I then added my title 'Stages of Woman' this was 72pts Century font.  I used the move tool to put this in the right place in the right hand corner.

I then added the image which I got from unsplash.  The image I downloaded from unsplash and then I clicked on 'open' in the top menu and then chose the image. Once the image is in Photoshop I used the crop tool as I did not want the distracting edges to the image.  I then clicked on 'select' and then 'all' and then Edit and copy.

I clicked back into my main canvas and clicked paste and then used the transform controls to adjust the picture size and the move tool to place correctly.  I then used the text tool again and the Century font to write my concept section.

I made a logo on Tailorbrands and then I made a snip of this and saved it to my desktop.  I then uploaded this to Photoshop .  I then used 'select' in the top menu and 'all' and then Edit, copy.  I then clicked back to my mock up and clicked on paste.  I used the transform controls and the move tool to add this to the correct place. 

I created a landscape version earlier today as well

I quite liked these mock up ups they worked well as a design and did show what I wanted as a concept.  I may keep the logo but make a new one that I have spent more time on and on the final version I will use my on image. 

First Shoot: Stages of Woman - Pregnancy

 To organise my photographic shoots, I ordered a light box with LED lights and I started by ordering two barbies, one was a pregnant barbie and the other a barbie in her prime - flexible barbie.  I started with pregnant barbie for the first shott.  Pregnant barbie is not particularly flexible so the angle and positioning will be key here to getting the kind of shots I want to exemplify the stages of woman.  

I set this up and used a Canon 700D, I shot in black and white. My settings for this shoot were F4.5, ISO 200, Shutter Speed 1/80.

These are the contacts from the shoot...

I thought these shots worked well and the ones at the end at a slightly low angle I think worked the best as it makes the woman look almost regal, and as a creator of life so she should be!

This shot also had something and I liked the angle and so I may shoot again and consider how they will work together with the other stages of life I will create a storyboard and sketches to work out the framing and poses for each stage. 

Website: About Me Page

Zoe lives high above Leicester, looking down upon the ancient city.  Zoe spends her days reading about and creating obscure photographs. When she is not hiding behind her Polaroid, Zoe teaches Art, Design & Media.  She hopes one day that she will be able to move into academic obscurity by writing a PhD on the transformational image and invoking the spirit of Bataille in an act of sacred sacrifice. 

Zoe has a first degree in Media & English from DMU. She also has achieved an MA with Distinction in Creative Media Arts (Photography) from London South Bank University.  Zoe's film 'Let's Eat Hair' was shown at the Phoenix Cinema in Leicester. Zoe continues to make photographs and writes creatively. 

I will now add this bio to my website.  I went to the left hand menu and selected the About page and then I clicked on the text and right clicked to edit text.  I copied and pasted the text from my blog and then adjusted the colour and size of the text and changed the title to 'Meet the Artist'.  I then clicked on the image and selected change background and I then uploaded my own image.  

I think that this page looks good with the black and white and the black and white photo.  It does represent me and my work.  I may just make the writing larger as I think then it will have more impact.

I then checked my mobile view and here I had to adjust the sections as they were overlapping for this I just used the drag arrows on each section and I dragged the About title into the correct space.

This now works well and is easy to read , it has a 'back to top' arrow so it is easy to navigate.