Emulation continued...

Last week my friend Charity and I had the pleasure of starting to shoot our "real" women! We had such a blast and learned a ton about lighting and the female form. I shot in black and white and bumped up the ISO to filter out her skin. To be completely honest, it was strange at first, but I got super comfortable and had such a great time and learned a lot. I think our model was super comfortable and loved her pictures. I also took some shots of myself for our emulation project. It can definitely be an intimidating experience taking pictures of yourself. I am wanting to emulate Nan Goldin and Guy Bourdin. I love the honesty and the "not giving a shit"attitude Nan Goldin possesses. Guy Bourdin's shots are sexy and I love his black and whites and colors. I touched upon some of his bondage shots as well.

Our model was amazing and truly a real woman. She feels super sexy in her skin and it was such a pleasure photographing her.

 I think my goal of helping me feel happier in my skin is starting to come to life.

I purchased a remote to take pictures of myself. I love it! These pics are in hopes of emulating Guy Bourdin's photography.

My Nan Goldin shots I am not entirely thrilled with, but I tried to capture the feeling she has in her self portraits.  I will focus more on my Nan Goldin emulation more next blog. Need to channel my inner Nan. Enjoy!!

Emulate...

In our intermediate class we are asked to do an assignment on Emulation.

My top 5 artists and photographers I have researched are...

Bill Brandt
Herb Ritts
Rineke Dijkstra
Nan Goldin
Guy Bordin

My top 5 least favorite photographers are...
Walead Beshty
Jason Evans
Lucas Blalock
Anne Geddes
Eva Hesse

I am basing my criteria for liking my top 5 photographers on my focus interest for class this semester.  I am really interested in focusing on what is considered real beauty in art. Hoping to help real women feel sexy and sensual despite media only showing one type of woman generally.

The common theme in the artists I liked work are nudes. I love the human body and briefly touched on taking nudes last semester. I want to do more nudes and really try to focus on the angles, lines, sensuality, and beauty of the real woman form. Dikstra, Brandt, and Bourdin really did a great job of capturing all different body types. I love that Brandt and Ritts shot in black and white as that is how I primarily want to shoot.  Ritts capturing celebrities out of their celebrity element is very impressive and love how he captured them primarily under dressed. His shots of the muscular male form are amazing and something I hope to replicate. Dikstra and Bourdin's color shots put a more honest look to the art as well as Goldin's. Nan Goldin's photo journalistic style is incredible and I would love to have the balls per say to put myself out there to photograph situations like she did.

 As an artist I wouldn't focus on so much of the abstract nature of Bourdin's photos. While his nudes are incredible, some the shots are too abstract for me. While Nan Goldin's photographs are an incredible testament to photo journalism portraying the dark or misunderstood side of life, I do not think I could have the heart to shoot those situations.

I am basing my criteria for disliking my top 5 photographers on types of photography that I am not interested in. I am not interested in most abstract art of photography. I am more of a on the surface type of person. I do not really understand abstract art. I used to think that taking pictures of kids was something I would love to do. Now, not so much. While babies are little kids are super cute (my girls the cutest of course), it is super hard to take pictures of them in an artsy format.

I think how Walead Beshty stumbled upon his form of photographs is incredible, how ever his art is too abstract for me. While doing research I discovered while still abstract, his photographs have a deeper meaning. That meaning is just something I cannot understand. I would not completely abstract photographs as I like the meaning of my art to be mostly clear. Lucas Blalock does some abstract work as well. Anne Geddes baby portraits are incredible, but just not the style of photography I prefer.                                    

Touching more on redefining beauty...

I was reading an article which was very intriguing to me...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/02/02/nadia-lee-cohen_n_6575970.html

It touches on the subject of 100 photos of "real" women. This subject is what I wanted to focus on for my intermediate digital photo study.  My friend, classmate, fellow blogger, and real woman Charity are actually working on this photo series together.  We both are going through somewhat similar changes in our lives and both came across this article thinking it would be of great use. While the pictures are artistically stunning and taken beautifully, I  don't think it necessarily captures the real woman sensuality I am looking for. If anyone out there in the blogging world has any ideas please feel free to comment.

Anyway, I understand where the influence of Cindy Sherman and Alex Prager came about, but it isn't necessarily hitting the nail on the head for what I want to focus on. We have an assignment on Emulation coming up in class. I will for sure checkout using Cindy Sherman as one of my focuses. More of her to come.

I want to focus on mothers, heavy women, or any woman in general who feels that they are not considered beautiful or photo worthy due to what mainstream media tells us is beautiful. I want to help other women feel beautiful while at the same time hoping that somehow it can help me feel comfortable in my own skin. I know what I want to happen, its just a matter of working hard on the project and finding a way to make it happen...

View my friend Charity's blog here...

http://charityreclaphotography.blogspot.com

Get to know me....

Let me start by saying that I have never considered myself an artistic person. Coming from a background of a family full of artists I always played it off as not caring that they had that quality about them that I did not have. In High School, I took film photography classes and thought my pictures were really amazing. I kept getting C's on all my projects and felt defeated and stopped caring about photography. I realized I had a knack for taking awesome pictures of my kids on my iPhone. I decided to sign up for an Intro to Photo class, and realized that I actually hated taking pictures of my kids in an artistic format. Of course, I still like taking iPhone pics of my kids, but really enjoyed taking landscape photos.

Anyway, now in the Intermediate class I am wanting to focus on semi-nudes. I did a couple and realized it was challenging, but the angles and lines you can create are beautiful. In that respect, I am looking to redefine what is considered "beautiful" in the media and artistic world. Being a mom of 2, my body is not necessarily perfect and I am sick of media defining what that is. Why should I be ashamed of having a "real" body post-baby because US Weekly posts a flat stomach Kristen Cavallari 9 months post baby? It depressing and sad and despite being a generally confident woman, body image is one aspect of my life I struggle with. I want to love and appreciate my body the way it is and the way I want it to become after working on it. I really want to help other "real" women feel sexy and confident and love themselves despite what most photos show.