Oscar Gustave Rejlander

Rejlander is best known for his combination prints, elaborate genre and allegorical scenes made from multiple negatives carefully joined, printed on a single large sheet of paper, and then rephotographed to create a seamless image.

The Two Ways of Life: 1857

The photograph is a combination print, assembled from 30 individual negatives printed onto one large piece of paper. First exhibited at the Manchester Art Treasures Exhibition of 1857, the image proved controversial for its depiction of nude men and women in the same image. Queen Victoria, however, bought a copy for Prince Albert.

 

Jean-Baptiste Gustave Le Gray:

Jean-Baptiste Gustave Le Gray: 1820-1884. Has been called “the most important French photographer of the nineteenth century” because of his technical innovations in the still new medium of photography, his role as the teacher of other noted photographers, and the extraordinary imagination he brought to picture making”.

Combination Printing: Creating seascapes by using one negative for water, and one for the sky… at a time when when it was impossible to have the same together due to the widely differing luminosity levels.

The Great Wave, the most dramatic of his seascapes, combines Le Gray’s technical mastery with expressive grandeur. He took the view on the Mediterranean coast near Montpellier. At the horizon, the clouds are cut off where they meet the sea. This indicates the join between two separate negatives. The combination of two negatives allowed Le Gray to achieve tonal balance between sea and sky on the final print. It gives a more truthful sense of how the eye, rather than the camera, perceives nature.

 

One reviewer for the Journal of the Photographic Society (21 February 1857) wrote:

‘We stop with astonishment before M. Le Gray’s “Sea and Sky”, the most successful seizure of water and cloud yet attempted. The effect is the simplest conceivable. There is a plain, unbroken prairie of open sea, lined and rippled with myriad smiling trails of minute undulations, dark and sombrous and profoundly calm, over the dead below – smooth as a tombstone.’

 

Photography is real…. or is it?

Photographers have always known that the straight photograph is highly contrived, and tremendously subjective… the audience embraces the myth of photographic truth.

Photography is real…. or is it.

A collection of random thoughts, ideas and research topics surrounding the idea of the perceived reality of the photograph.

Some thing or some place we are subconsciously convinced that the photograph is real. “It is exactly so”…  as the photographic document.

It is an illusion, faked made up distorted… we know that… but we still implicitly believe the image is the photographic record.

It is supposed to be real…

The history of photo manipulation is as old as photography itself. It has a long and persistent reality within the medium.

John Murray 1858… retouched negative. …  More realistic looking than the one he had taken.

Gustav Le Gray…   combined image of sea and sky.

Oscar Reijlaender: More like painting… straddle the two: 30 different negative: ways of light.

leBeuge…

Intended to look like something other than photography: closer relationship to art than photography.

Bauhaus, Dada, Surrealism…

Moholy-Nagy:

Man-Ray  “not to record my dreams, but to realize them.”

Manipulated Images… Ansel Adams.. the photographic purist! or not..? Some double standards perhaps?

He manipulated his images via filters…A recognized and taught process for generations of film photographers.

Filtering B&W….Yellow, Red Filters.. etc.  Adjusting the tonal relationships within the image.

Trulzsch & Lehndorff:

Painted nude on a bail of rags, A body painted into the background… playing with the idea of the two dimensional photographic image and the three dimensional world that the photograph must work with.

>This distortion of dimensions is directly relevant to this 4010 project.

Photographers have always known that the straight photograph is highly contrived, and tremendously subjective… the audience embraces the myth of photographic truth.

Thorel: Manipulated Portraits that barely reflect the sitter…

Ackroyd & Harvey: Grass…images!

“If you look at an object and you look at a photograph of the object, you’re looking at a translation, and it is this area of translation or transformation that we are after. …It is the fact that these images are an illusion that is reinforced by the conventions of photographic realism that interests us. Photography has this veracity to it; the sense of documentation of a reality yet the reality we present is utterly an illusion.” Aziz + Cucher

 

 

Mary Price. 1994. A Strange Confined Space

Mary Price. 1994. A Strange Confined Space Stanford University Press. Stanford. California.

Notes and thoughts on: Chapter 6. Mask as Descriptive Concept.

In photography proficiency of execution… (A good picture well shot) may also be a mask?

Does it hide or reveal. Does it hide and reveal?

Concealment of the warts… of harsh reality, or a concealment of goodness.

“We who prepare a face to meet the faces that we meet may be convinced that only surprise will catch a glimpse of the truth.” P117

Barthes: “The mediator of truth.”  The family portrait… “It exists only for me. For you, it would be nothing but an indifferent picture.”

It has studium… but no wound.

That unseen wound invests the photograph with meaning. “Their language directs us to the unseen truth in the photograph.” P117

Camera Lucidia: Reflections on Photography. P73.

The photograph has the assumption of it being the transcription of the real. (A false assumption.) “The photograph thus becoming itself the mask concealing… thwarting confrontation with the real.”

The painting does not. It is painted so it is not “real.”

William Casby (Slave) by Richard Avedon.

The mask is the “essence” of slavery. P119

The picture (the mask) is “the product of society and its history.”

->The essence of the photograph is its mask<- It is a virtual mask over the “real” photograph.

Yet without the picture being textualised.. it would just be a picture of an old black person.. so is the text the mask?

Or in the case of Eisenhower, we know who he is, but he is removed from all contexts of office and power and is presented as “just” a head. That isolation allows the viewer to fell the essence.

Both photographs are isolated contextually, and are mask like in literal form. They also have a virtual mask, and that consists of the captured essence.

Barthes…”Since every photograph is contingent (and thereby outside of meaning), photography cannot signify (aim at a generality) except by assuming a mask.”

Walker Evans with his concealed camera on the NY subway… is at its most successful … “The outer appearance is taken as mask of the true inner being, a mask wrought by the will of the person who displays it but a mask penetrated by the photographer.”

Yousef Karsh: “All I know is that within every man and woman a secret is hidden…The revelation, if it comes at all, will come in a small fraction of a second with an unconscious gesture, a gleam of the eye, a brief lifting of the mask that all humans wear to conceal their innermost selves from the world. In that fleeting interval of opportunity the photographer must act or lose his prize.”

Mary Price makes the observation that the exposed masks of the famous people are themselves obscured by the mask of admiration that Karsh himself displays.

Is that not always going to be the case… unless the camera is set to fire remotely, at random intervals, at random locations…? The photographer will always have a mask that wraps around the entirety of the photograph…? I.e. the camera looks both ways.

Dianne Arbus:  “One seems to be asked to lie in wait wit Arbus until the veil is rent for a second and the trauma both of nature and of the person is exposed.” P126

The mask exposed reveals the indifference both of nature…and the person.

“The oblique suggestion in all of the Arbus photographs is that they are both revelation and concealment. The notion of masks is always present.”

I would also argue that in exposing the masks of her subjects, Arbus… more than most… displays and wraps her photographs in the hint of her own turmoil.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited Disintegration

I definitely have a white balance issue. That will need to resolved before finalisation. What ever balance is used, will need to be consistent across the final images.

The close cropped has power. The final crops will be a vital choice.

More Disintegration…

All the images from the latest photo shoot, shot from start to finish. unedited. The plan is now that the RAW files are in the bag, and backed up… the editing and finalisation of the images will take place at a later date. I have worked on some of the stronger images, and those are highlighted in a separate post.

 

Things to do… Contextual Report

I need to make a start on the contextual report. I have found the notes made last term, and need to construct a structure. I need to formulate a concrete academic idea, and then drive the report towards that idea.

Notes from that lecture are below: Re-reading the notes, it is the critical reflection that needs maximum focus. Process, and history are self evident, and merely a regurgitation of history.

The place of focus needs to be now on Critical Reflection.

Kartini: 3 December 2013.

Contextual Report:

Handed out reports are shorter than what we need, but the evaluative grade is a distinction and the direction we need to go.

Structure of your writing and what needs to be included.

4-5000 words.

“Sustained independent theoretical investigation and critical reflection on your practice presented as formal writing.”

Context:

Historical, Contemporary… theories, theorists, documentaries, artists exhibitions…all tied back to the subject.

Discuss how you arrived at this point via the work done in previous years…

Processes:

What methods and media approaches used… why and how? More than a simple list!  How have you experimented.. how does the technique used relate to your body of work.

Critical Reflection:

Development and progression of the project. What are the key turning points…?

The Report:

‘Tiz a short academic dissertation.

A conversation between theory and practice. Analysis and critical interrogation.

….. ideas for construction and pointers.

Retrace first steps and making personal historical connections..  the journey that got you here.

Declare areas of interest.

Draw in relevant references, and extending discussion through analysis and visual examples.

Remain relevant… do not pad it out with “Wikipedia history and life descriptions.”

Discussion of technique, and why you used those methods.

Experimentation with technique and decision making process.

Use of relevant quotes in relation to analysis. [Harvard Referencing] preferred, but running notes still OK.

Keep quotes short and relevant…  pick the key points out of the block.

Make the quote, develop the quote and reference it back to your work.

How does the audience engage with your work… Justify what and how you are engaging with the audience.

The Open University’s Stairway to Critical Thinking is just one way of describing this set of skills.  It provides a step by step approach to research and critical assessment of a subject:

Process – Take in the information (i.e. in what you have read, heard, seen or done).

• Understand – Comprehend the key points, assumptions, arguments and evidence presented.
• Analyse – Examine how these key components fit together and relate to each other.
• Compare – Explore the similarities, differences between the ideas you are reading about.
• Synthesise – Bring together different sources of information to serve an argument or idea you are constructing. Make logical connections between the different sources that help you shape and support your ideas.
• Evaluate – Assess the worth of an idea in terms of its relevance to your needs, the evidence on which it is based and how it relates to other pertinent ideas.
• Apply – Transfer the understanding you have gained from your critical evaluation and use in response to questions, assignments and projects.
• Justify – Use critical thinking to develop arguments, draw conclusions, make inferences and identify implications.

Provide ample visual evidence charting your practical development. Pull in outside sources, analysis of the used images and how it relates.

Offer a thorough analysis of your work in relation to broader critical concerns.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Seminar: Kartini. 7th January 2014.

Seminar: Kartini. 7^th January 2014.

Images received in a muted manor. So that is disappointing. Kartini response was very muted, and did not like red fingernails or red lips…I currently fail to understand that dislike. It may be to do with the Stephanie images being less surreal, and more “real.” However the subject was painted how she wished to be painted, and was part of an agenda to look very painterly, and mix realities up to the maximum. It was an intent to take a reality… as I pointed out.. with blue hair… and then disassemble that facade.

But mostly liked, and approved of.

Observations:

>Fantastical seems to be good.

>The idea of how the person wants to be painted has legs.  .. as in Struan and Rorsache face.

>Close crop was well-received…so maybe first image a general take, and then the mask removal needs one close crop.

>The images with hands are important…  they seem to signify mood.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE SEMIOTICS OF VISIBLE FACE MAKE-UP: THE MASKS WOMEN WEAR

Semiotic: Relating to signs and symbols.

Madeleine Ogilvie

Student No. 3993195

Faculty of Business and Law

Submitted for the award of

PhD, May 31st, 2005

These are the notes, and random observations made by me, on the body of work by Madeline Ogilve for a PHd.

Findings suggest that women wear make-up to adhere to a strict societal appearance code and from this code they derive secondary benefits such as power, status, sexual allurement, and increased self-esteem. The use of make-up is extremely ritualistic and harnesses the properties of myth and magic to create powerful transformations.

HISTORICAL:

The drive to decorate the body and face has its inception in prehistoric days when initially man used it to camouflage his form from predatory animals and to induce fear into threatening opponents. As time progressed, body painting and tattooing became linked to identity, being used to mark clan membership, as an artifact in ritual celebrations and worship, and as a medium to allure and attract the opposite sex. The role of make-up as a symbolic medium has ancient origins and, whilst the meaning and symbols painted on faces may have changed over the centuries, the myth and mystery associated with facial adornment has not.

“Throughout recorded history cosmetics have been used to create the beauty ideal of each passing age and for centuries a daily routine of beauty care has been an accepted ‘ritual’ within a social context”

Make-up has been used as a sign/symbol for thousands of years because of the symbolism attributed to colour. As primitive people feared the dark and derived safety from the light of day, red and yellow (symbols of the sun) had a special emotional significance for many people. Red paint or dye was often used to represent blood; black paint signified night or more sinister implications; and white colours were used to represent the underworld, death or some spiritual dimension.

Interesting observations on the use of colour. Possible symbology that could be used within the Chimera project…

Make-up, as part of the everyday lives of women, has undergone significant cultural changes throughout the ages and often appears to reflect the society’s contemporary outlook. As the codes of make-up throughout history have changed, make- up practices of the day could often be observed to act as a mirror or social barometer of the society and its values.

20th Century:

The relaxed use of make-up was considered to be more than a beautification process and became a significant statement about personal freedom and rejection of the male-dominated doctrines of the past. Women envisaged make-up as creative, fun and culturally liberating.

In 1952, Revlon launched one of the most successful advertising campaigns in history when introducing a new lipstick and nail polish called ‘Fire and Ice’. This seductive advertisement had remarkable reach and was targeted to communicate with every user of cosmetics throughout the United States. It featured a dark haired model in a silver sequin dress with a red cape in front of a glittering backdrop and included a catchy questionnaire which women would answer to determine if they were made for ‘Fire and Ice’. There were fifteen questions such as: ‘do you close your eyes when you are kissed? Do you think any man really understands you? Have you ever danced with your shoes off?’  If women could answer yes to eight of the questions, then the advertisement claimed that they were made for ‘Fire and Ice’. Needless to say, to attain the seductive qualities promised from the advertisement, most women hoped to score at least eight. According to Vice President Martin Revson, hope is what Revlon were selling and what every woman was searching for. This was the beginning of a new era for advertising glamour, and sex appeal took precedence over quality. As Meyer claims, “…the name of the lipstick was no longer a description of a colour but a promise of excitement and allure”

Make-up becomes a description of lifestyle, or promise of lifestyle. More than a colour.. a symbol of an aspiration. Symbolic of a better life.

THE FEMINIST PERSPECTIVE:

The feminist perspective is quite different in its philosophical outlook on cosmetic consumption and, once again, make-up is the source of a battle ground.

As the historical perspective of cosmetics demonstrates, make-up has been heavily influenced by the changing social landscape.

Advertising continued to link cosmetics even more tightly with women’s identity and the female form, depicted with “…images of flawless female beauty – mostly youthful, white, and increasingly sexualized.”

The ‘Fire and Ice’ advertisement was significant because it began a trend of tapping into the sexuality of the ordinary American woman. From this point on, cosmetics and sexual allure became much more blatantly linked in the advertising dialogue promoted to American consumers.

American critics attacked the cosmetic industry and the patriarchy behind it, claiming that women’s obsession with beauty and appearance was manipulated by a male-dominated capitalist society and was the means by which men maintained control over women personally and politically. As such, so they argued, women were relegated to objects of male visual pleasure.

Naomi Wolfe claims that mass media images of today enforce normalised beauty ideals of young, thin and sexually provocative females which pit woman against woman, young against old in order to competitively succeed. Where value is based on male approval, and young women suffer erotic degradation as they mimic and conform to these sexual stereotypes.

Normalisation:

The normalised image of beauty is one of a “tighter, smoother and a more contained body profile.” This represents the individual’s ability of control, – to keep the body tight, control desires and transformations that are not within the accepted state of appearance and/or behaviour. In this way body and form still indicate one’s social identity and place within society.

Excess body fat has come to represent a weak character and lack of will which demonstrates an individual’s lack of control over latent and infantile impulses.

A similar analogy exists with adhering to the make-up code. Those not conforming are labelled and categorised as more masculine if they are not wearing any make-up, and rebellious and irresponsible if their make-up is considered ‘way-out’. It is only those individuals who demonstrate that they wish to conform to the appearance code, and those who try to, who gain support and acceptance from society.

The use of normal makeup normalises a persons position within society. As an “old” Politics graduate student of the 1970s the following observation is interesting.

In 1953 the cosmetic debate intensified and the ‘Bustello’ controversy, as it has now been termed, became so heated that it caused a split in the Socialist Workers Party (Waters, 1986). This came about as leading feminists debated the use of cosmetics as, either the adoption of capitalistic bourgeois propaganda, or a woman’s right to beautify and break free of the drudgery of house work. This allowed women a means of expressing themselves and creating a new identity beyond the home.

Marx and fellow travelers have some sharp observations on the use of adornment and makeup in general:

…they became fashions and decorations that signified social inequality: the division of society into rich and poor, into rulers and subjugated. Cosmetics and fashions became the marks of social distinction between the classes.

It would be fair to say that how women use makeup is still an indicator of class. “Essex Girl.” etc

The way women consume appearance would therefore continue to be a significant barometer to the social order of the time.

SELF DECORATION:

Academic Claims… as to why women wear cosmetics….

“…the lips remind us of the labia, because they flush red and swell when aroused, which is the conscious and unconscious reason why women have always made them look even redder with lipstick.”   Diane Ackerman (cited in Pallingston 1999, p31)

Seems an outdated analysis. The desire to look younger seems more plausible to me.

Beauty is a universal part of human experience, and that it provokes pleasure, rivets attention, and impels actions that help ensure the survival of our genes. … …We love to look at smooth skin, thick shiny hair, curved waists, and symmetrical bodies because in the course of evolution the people who noticed these signals and desired their possessors had more reproductive success.

IDEALS of BEAUTY:

The debate of what constitutes beauty has previously highlighted the huge influence that culture has on determining beauty ideals for that society.

The use of female beauty in the mass media of popular culture to market products to males and females is extensive, and is mainly due to the assumed linkages of a woman’s appearance and her measure of self worth.

In general, women use make-up and other external facial adornment to influence the non-verbal communications they wish to make. Facial make-up has been used extensively to enhance the wearer’s value and beauty within society. The face itself is considered an important component in measuring attractiveness, and provides a window from which people derive all sorts of information about a person and their role and status within society. (my emphasis.)

Furthermore, the reason for using make-up by women is diverse, and covers the enigma of young women wearing it to look older and older women wearing it to look younger.

TRANSFORMATION OF SELF:

Appearance plays a significant role in shaping and ascribing self-identity. Transformation of form and appearance is often synonymous with a transformation of the self.

One of the key factors in understanding women’s more intimate and private motivations for wearing make-up is that of identity and self. The ‘self’ concept is the cognitive and affective interpretation of the individual’s identity and describes who we are.

This is a vital concept regarding my project. The idea that the subject is painted by me, according to their request, is to explore that transformation. The paint is the signifier of self-identity. The paint is the transformer, and indicator of “self.”  The removal of the paint is to remove the projected self and to explore what lies beneath.

Just as the early markings of man were used to claim clan identity and status, now possessions herald a message about the individual’s position in society, their idiosyncrasies and image of self within the community. One of the more common symbols used in this differentiation process is that of gender. Consequently, cosmetics play an important role in this silent symbolic language.

THE MASK & MAGIC:

The mask is interesting as it is simultaneously an ‘icon’ (or resemblance) of identity, as well as, an ‘index’ that draws on extensions of the signal to create meaning. The mask of make-up has striking transformational abilities. It is often ritualistic and is linked with traditional scripts.

In any ritualistic behaviour, such as the use of make-up, it would seem that underlying myths play an important part in driving behaviours that are not necessarily based on logic but have their source in the myths, rituals and traditions of the culture.

Myths: All advertising can be reduced to four fundamental themes of: comedy, tragedy, romance and irony, the fundamental components of myth. Consequently, myth still holds an extremely symbolic place within the fabric of most cultures.

The myth of romance is by extension the myth of attractiveness and beauty..? However…

The number of respondents that indicated that they would wear make-up for sexual allurement was extremely limited. However, the benefit of receiving compliments from others and, in particular, the opposite sex did tend to drive the appearance outcome for some women. These women felt that maybe they still did subconsciously wear make- up to attract the opposite sex but it was not something they thought about or did intentionally.

An interesting quote. 

“Your make-up and what you wear is a part of that self that you think that you are, and I don’t know whether it’s the self that other people think that I am, but you know, its more like I put make-up on for myself. I don’t actually believe that I put it on for anybody else or for a man, or to look sexually attractive. No, no, I mean yeah, maybe as a result of that you might feel that you look more attractive or whatever but I always put it, I think I put it on for me. (Female34)”

“I put it on for me”

The use of make-up and the transformations that women achieve through its application has strong parallels to magic. Magic is reasserting itself in contemporary consumer culture and is deeply embedded in everyday practices and the transformational experiences stemming from them. The use of cosmetics can be considered as such a transformation and the daily routine of ‘making- up’ is encased in a magical formula as it is performed.

The central theme of magic is that it transforms the individual in some way and then returns them to their original state, in the same way as a woman applies her make-up, engages the world and then returns to her original state with its removal.

Trans formative and cyclical. Biologically diurnal!

Magic is a ritual and a rituals are “agents of transformation” and, whilst repetitive and exact, “are themselves transformed by the histories to which they belong.” (Weddings)

NORMALISATION:

The thesis concludes….

Women are not victims but active players in the consumption of make-up. Through their experiences they learn to understand the appearance code and what it communicates, as well as learning what society values and expects of them.

False signs where extra linguistic signs deceive others and oneself, are also evident with the sign of make-up. This deception includes occasions where people mistake appearance for reality, and what Peirce (Merrell, 2000) terms deception. In many instances women perceived that their face without make-up was a false sign, as it did not represent the self as they perceive it to look. To them, the real image of themselves is one with make-up upon their face. Certain women even prefer to miss an event rather than present the non-self. To present without make-up is like a false icon, as the visual representation is not true to the reflection they perceive their identity to really be.

The real person is the person with the make-up. The false person is un-made-up person..

Women wear make-up because..  The most compelling reason that emerges is women’s desire to conform to a societal appearance code. The code is strong in moulding and guiding facial appearance in every-day encounters and the benefits derived from adhering to this code are numerous. It seems that by conforming to the code the individual increases their chance of acceptance and success within their respective community.