Photoshoot 1: Gender: Women's Rituals: Work Record

Work Record -

Date: Tuesday 8th March 2016
Camera: Canon EOS 450D 
Editing Software: Photoshop CC 2014
Settings: F/11, ISO 200, 1/125

Plans For Shoot: My plan for the shoot is to photograph a series of objects that fit under the sub-category of gender where I will focus on women and the rituals that they face on a regular basis.

What I Hope to Achieve: I hope to achieve a series of photographs that are composed in a variety of manners, possibly adhering to the grid composition method.

I also want to create a series that somewhat reflects the artistic style of a gender photographer, for example Phebe Schmidt and Sarah Maple with their use of bold singular background colours.

Another hope of mine is that I edit in a way that reflects a professional photographer for example using more difficult Photoshop techniques such as histograms to alter the levels.

My final wish is to create a pragmatic piece of work that arouses ideas about gender within an audience that vary amongst each individual but comply to the ideas about gender inequality faced by all genders within society.

What I Actually Achieved: My first photoshoot was, in my opinion, a success, although there is always room for improvement.

I was able to take a series of photographs of the same subject but in multitude of compositions which I believe may conform to some of the compositional techniques such as the grid method. If I was to improve this, however, I would use the settings on my camera to provide the grid viewfinder so that I could precisely compose my images to attract viewer attention.

Additionally, I achieved a studio set-up that was reminiscent of Phebe Schmidt's work by experimenting with a pale blue hue backdrop which is similar to the pastel colour backgrounds employed by Schmidt herself. Although, due to the studio lighting the colours occasionally became white-washed and of a less prominent saturation which was something I had to amend in Photoshop.

I was unable to fulfil my hope when it comes to experimenting with more difficult techniques on Photoshop but I did expand the tools I used. I started using the 'Vibrance' tool alongside the 'Hue/ Saturation' and 'Brightness/ Contrast'.

Upon sharing my final outcomes for the photoshoot with an audience there were multiple responses about the implications of my work; some of these related to the stereotypes of gender through the use of contrasting colours, the marketing and media representation of gender through products and more simply the everyday life of gender sub-culture.

What I Am Going To Do Next/ Progression: The next photoshoot that I will be doing shall involve men's rituals and to progress I will experiment with a different colour backdrop that will be continuing to subvert the gender norms.

I will also attempt to fulfil my earlier hope by experimenting with harder Photoshop techniques to achieve a more professional outcome.

I also plan to try a variety of compositions that may reflect some of the traditional composition rules such as the grid method or the golden ratio unless the images are not to my liking using these methods.

Least and Favourite Image Evaluation - 

Least Favourite:

Favourite: 

The reasoning behind the above pictures being my favourite and least favourite are for a multitude of reasons. 

My least favourite is so because of a few varying reasons. For instance, the tonally darker patch behind the object shows where the backdrop is bent to accommodate a table-top photoshoot. Additionally, the composition is clumsy and chaotic rather than a precise composition. Furthermore, some of the power within the image is lost due to the fact that the pill casing is not evident as its function due to the placement angled away from the camera.

The second photograph is my favourite of my first photoshoot as the image, as a female myself, I feel depicts the precise chaos of object placement and organisation. There are objects placed on the intersections if you were to create a compositional grid which therefore attracts viewer attention to these items. Additionally, the soft box lighting worked very well in creating an even backdrop which is very similar to the highly saturated pastel backgrounds employed by Phebe Schmidt. The baby blue colour is also an aesthetically pleasing juxtaposition to the stereotypically pink and feminine objects placed in front of it. Furthermore, in editing the techniques that I used created a comic-like or graphic artistic medium to my final outcome which again linked to the serious yet comical work employed by both Phebe Schmidt and Sarah Maple to challenge ideologies about gender.

Meaning -

Denotation: Feminine objects, process of getting ready, chaos and the calm, messy against organised.

Connotation: The association through gender socialisation that pink is for females and the feminine, the rituals of health, beauty and make-up assumed to be linked to women, different types of women for example the unstructured and the organised, the juxtaposition of gender conformity due to contrasting colours of pink and blue.

Context: I am interested in studying gender inequality from a feminine perspective and to teach people that femininity is about equality rather than female supremacy. Femininity is for females, males and all other genders too. I wanted to study how various genders respond to my work due to my interpretation of gender in what I hope is intriguing and entertaining yet serious manner. I wanted to see how all social factors such as class, age, gender and ethnicity shape ideas about gender. I intend to evoke various responses with my work but mostly I want people to understand that whilst we have advanced over the years from extreme sexism in the 1970s to where we are now that there is still a long way to go and that feminists cannot call themselves that unless they fight for all genders such as males, females, trans people, non-binary, gender-fluid and so on.