WORK RECORD 1

Shoot 1 -

Research influence - 

Nan Goldin was a photographer who had focused on deeply personal and candid portraits. Her photos acted as an autobiography documenting her and her friends focusing on LGBT and heroin-addicted subculture.

 Nancy Goldin was born on September 12, 1953 in Washington, D.C and had been exposed to tense family relations, sexuality and suicide early in her life. Through her suffering Goldin had then used a camera at the age of 15 to cherish her relationships with the ones she loved, as well as a political tool to inform the public of issues that were important to her. Influenced both by the fashion photography of Helmut Newton and Guy Bourdin she saw in magazines. 

One of her most influential and famous pieces was: 

Jimmy Paulette & Misty in a Taxi NYC - 1991

This was a large Cibachrome photo of two drag queens in a New York taxi cab who both have a direct mode of address by staring directly into the camera. They were framed against the taxis rear and side window and they are cropped just below breast level.  They have a subdued look upon their faces and look as if they have just come back from a party by the way the strap on the right drag queen is slipping off. It could however highlight sexualistation by the midriff showing and the black latex on the left which highlights their features.

Contact sheet - 

Straight images - 

A01 -

My work is linked to my artist research because I have used and focused on the idea of Drag, which was one of the topics Nan Goldin had targeted. My work is showing how someone who dresses in drag may have to hide in the shadows based on the idea that certain parts of society don't except them. When looking at the images above you can see the domestic house chores being completed like cooking, washing and cleaning. It then also shows stereotypes of housewives e.g drinking alcohol. I was influenced by Goldin because of how she too focused on the matters of men in drag and the eccentric clothing styles. In my Opinion I feel that one of the strongest images was the one of Louie washing up as I also had the natural lighting of the window which made the features of the face stand out.

A02 -

Computer experiments 1 -

 In this Shoot I took the photos which I had thought had the most potential and decided to edit them in Photoshop. To the right are 6 
examples of how I edited each picture. To start off with I took my images into the Camera raw filter. This is where I was able to adjust the exposure, contrast, temperature, tint, shadows and highlights depending on whether a photo had a harsh or soft lighting. It also meant I was able to choose whether I wanted my photo to have a warm or cold tint, in which for most of my photos for shoot 1 I chose a cold blue tint with a contrast of a warm pink temperature. This meant that my photos represented a mixture of moods as blue can be associated with cold and sad, whereas pink/red can be represented as passionate or fiery. Therefore it shows my photo to show connotations of both like a alter-ego which for these images is drag. 


For some of the photos I added an extra warm filter or a gradient. This meant that the photo's contrast was less harsh and had the effect of photo films back in the 1950s -1980s. Some photos also had a shadow which I did not want there so I decided to use the Clone stamp tool which copied a section of the image     Computer experiment 2-
and pasted onto the part you wanted to
cover. 













Computer experiment 3 -

                                                                                    Computer experiment 4 -

Computer experiment 5 -

A03 -

My idea for this shoot was to capture the idea of an alter ego and mistaken identity. I wanted to capture the idea of the stereotypical 'housewife' but in the style of drag. I set up my camera in manual mode adjusting the shutter speed and iso to suit the lighting in the room. I then got my model to complete chores a 'housewife' would do and this then led to the start of my shoot. By looking back at my preparatory shoots, it led me to show this glamorous lifestyle whilst still hiding in the shadows of a home. I feel that by having experimented with locations and models in my preparatory shoots it led to my outcome of the 'home' setting with my model being dressed up in drag as i felt this was the strongest outcome. 

When looking through my images I can see that some outcomes weren't as strong as others due to the fact the camera hadn't focused properly or the flash had caused a shadow. The strong images which had a shadow I then improved by using the Clone tool in photo shop to cover up the shadow so that it was no longer there.  I used flash within my images to illuminate and accentuate the heavy makeup to look flawed and make the colours within the jacket light up and sparkle.