masks!

So i have been working some some wicked masks for this please follow me brief! They look awesome and i cant wait to get using them for the photo shoot! wicked cool!




Mood= positive!
Pics coming soon!

https://www.facebook.com/Sabbathe84#!/pages/Michelle-Webb-Photography/195889720482691
Like my fb page now!!!

Help Needed!

I feel like death with added snot :(




However, rather than feeling sorry for myself in bed as i originally planned, i have been thinking bout brief 2 for uni and now I have ideas on a grand scale and I need 2 models, a makeup artist and a rather out there fashion designer to make things happen! If you know anybody who wont mind working for free please msg me :)

New Name New Attitude

Michelle Webb Photography is my new blog, follow me there for something a little differnt!

http://michellewebbphotography.blogspot.com/

What now?

(this isn't really directed anywhere, just needed to let it flow a bit)

So, I have finished my first proper year at uni.  It's been......difficult.  I don't really know where to go from here.  I had little motivation to do anything related to photography and even less now I've been off since June. I get 'half' opportunities now and then, like a snippet of luck to do some work for this magazine my sister and her friends run but that gets taken away from me because of people more lazy than me.  People let me down all the time but most of all I let myself down.  My diet has gone to pot, as it usually does after a week or two and so the waist band is expanding again, just another example of letting myself down, yet i do nothing about it all, even despite a nudge every now and then by my boyfriend who, doesn't enjoy the backlash of a moody me when said nudge is applied!   I am fat, I'm bordering on obese, I am an OK photographer, nothing special in that department and I have found that rather hard to stomach through this year of rather a lot of self loathing.  There is one good thing in my life thou, after all this moaning and bitching, Aaron! He is the one pushing me despite me snapping at him when he does.  I would have left uni and given up, as I usually do and would probably be morbidly obese and about 30stone by now if it wasn't for him.  I would still be living with mother.  I would be a poor excuse of a human being if not for him dragging me kicking and screaming back to reality!

We plan to buy a house together in a few years and settle down, which is one of the things keeping me going, life after uni with my amazing boyfriend, in our own house and maybe even with a couple or 3 kids, and so I dig deep and find the tiniest bit of motivation and I scrap it out from within, and I look to him for a hand to pull me along when I falter.

On a lighter note, we have some of Aaron's family coming to see the flat, I've been a busy bee making it feel like 'home' much to his annoyance and depletion of our bank acc.  We have a couple of trips into London to look forward to. One being in the audience of Family Fortunes and the second a comedy night out for Aaron's birthday. I've been working for a few extra quid to help us out. It has been dull and so I have had time to catch up on some reading. I read the first installment of the Game of Thrones series that has been on telly. We didn't get to watch it cos SkyPlus ballsed up but we will catch the repeat that is guaranteed with anything on Sky channels.

I failed my study skills so I have to rewrite a 2500 word essay, which I started on yesterday, this also gives me something to do at work that they can't moan at me for because it will look like I actually have some work to do! I am hoping that by doing this essay now i can hand it in early and forget about it and find some kind of inspiration from it.  I am changing the three images i used the first time around and going for a completely different spin on it all.  I am using these images;

Stephen Shore, Nan Goldin and Richard Billingham and will be looking into the three different types of intmacy expressed in these images and I hope, that this time, after having a browse into its meaning, I can fully understand the meaning of 'critical analyse'.

And so, to  round off a rather random rambling on session, I have one small sentence to finish off.

Aaron, your love stops me from drowning, I love you lots!

Different Faces of Cindy Sherman

The series of 'Untitled Film Stills' by Cindy Sherman are that of pure genius. To use yourself as the model solves a multitude of problems on set, It is just you and the camera and the character you want to portray. The many different faces of Cindy Sherman leads me to question who she really is and the reasoning behind the series. The series ran over three years, 1977-1980 where she photographed herself in many different roles portraying a number of stereotype female roles which range from a giggling youngster and a untidy housewife to a model secretary and a scantily clad pin up. She manipulates every detail of her pictures. It is all staged and everything is planned. Sherman has said that dressing up helped her deal with depression and that dressing up helps you to become to character.

One of my favourites image from the series is Film Still 36, 1979. It is unlike many from the series, it is whispy and silhouetted making it a beautiful mystery. Who is the girl, what is she doing, what is she thinking or feeling? Many of her images make you want to ask the same questions but I find none are as beautiful as this one. The fact that Sherman's images are so mysterious you could ask which one is her? Which image has the real Cindy Sherman behind it and do any of the images portray an emotion of event that she is re-enacting?

I have used Sherman's work many times this year for research and inspiration and hope that, as this is my last blog for this uni project, you can too.

 

Modernism/ Post- Modernism

The term 'post-modern' is confusing. The word post means after yet in this context it is more like anti. Post-modernism leads us to believe that it is the movement after modernism when it is in fact running alongside modernism and reflects everything that isn't modern. 'It resists and obscures the sense of modernism' Post-Modernism, A Graphic Guide to Cutting Edge Thinking – Richard Appignanesie, Chris Garrett, 1995.




Modernism is based on social change and the rapid growth of technology with a passion for all things new and avant garde, where as post-modernism rejects all of these things and tries to create anarchy in any subject. Post-modernism is bout creating things for no other purpose than to create something yet everything created with modernism in mind is usable, it can update Facebook according to where you are and who you are with at any given time. It can record things from your telly even though you are miles away at work. You can read it on the go. You can drive it here and there yet anything post-modern is created to look pretty, to hang on a wall or to be forgotten about, because the freedom is yours.



Reading:

Post-Modernism, A Graphic Guide to Cutting Edge Thinking - R Appignanesie and C Garrett - 1995

All That is Solid Melts into Air - Marshall Berman -1982

http://www2.iath.virginia.edu/elab/hfl0242.html

Art or Porn? Nobuyoshi Araki

So, I borrowed a book from the library because I recognised the artists name from another book. It had an interesting front cover so I checked it out. It was full of naked ladies, which is fine, I am no prude and I have a liking for the female form. I venture further into the book and I find close ups of vagina's. I start to question if I have actually mistakenly found some porn in the library, I continue to flick through and find pictures of a cat, and toy dinosaurs and flowers, by now I really am questioning the artist. I take it home anyway.

When I get home, I look at it in more detail. I notice how certain objects appear in more that one picture, a flower, ropes, a toy dinosaur etc. I think this could hint at a childish side, a side where he can express some level of immaturity. It is also clear to see that Araki is a very sexual person. His photographs border obscene and are highly erotic. He also has a fascination with the Japanese rope bondage called Kinbaku. However, not all of them are about naked ladies masturbating. There are some that show a different side to him. This image shows that he may be more attached to this female, as she is dressed and it is a head shot. This is one of my favourites in the book as I find this woman is beautiful without being degraded like some of the others in the book.

Here are some more images that show more of what I mean and some ladies you might recognise.

Nan Goldin

'People who are obsessed with remembering their experiences usually impose strict self– disciplines. I want to be uncontrolled and controlled at the same time. The dairy is my form of control over my life. It allows me to obsessively record every detail. It enables me to remember.' Nan Goldin, The Ballad of Sexual Dependency- 1986

So, I bought this book for a project on intimate life, thinking I will probably look at the pictures and put it in the bookshelf among the hundreds of other books I've flicked through and forgotten and I almost did, until I started reading the text on the first page and within the paragraph I found this odd connection between Goldin and myself. Something I never realised about myself until I read the words as if they were coming from my own mouth. I cannot say I can compare myself or my work to the level of Goldin's or even to her personal experiences, but I can say that I have a new understanding of her and her work as something I can relate to and look to for inspiration.
 
 

 

One of the pictures in the book that strikes me most is on page 22, 'Self Portrait in Blue Bathroom, London 1980'. In all the other pictures she gets so up close and personal with the people she photographs, from people hugging to one man masturbating, yet in this image she seems physically and emotionally detached or even removed from it. Her tiny reflection in the corner of the mirror that is dwarfed by the blue walls it hangs on just makes me wonder why she might be hiding from view. Does she see herself in the background of her life, watching as opposed to being in the fore front, living it? For me this picture seems almost out of place in this book. Yet it is one of my favourites.

The Taylor Wessing Prize Feb 2011

When I went to the National Portrait Gallery back in Feburary to see the Taylor Wessing Prize, there were a few images that caught my eye. I had seen the winner posted on the BJP website and I wasn't overly impressed by it. to see a child hunting is not nice to see, especially when children are running around killing each other in the UK and this child is off hunting some animal that is probably near extinction.  Some of the runners up I also found a bit lacking, but I’m not a judge.

Not Even Magic Stopped the Genocide- David Graham was one of my favourites, not for its look as an image but because of the writing that sat beside it. I would have never guessed that is what the boy was about. I would have assumed some kid of a dirty estate, but not all pictures can paint a thousand words. The real story behind the image is of a boy called Rafiki, a street child from Rwanda who's father was a victim of genocide. He now lives in a charity run home where he can read Harry Potter books all he likes. The far reach of western culture into Rafikis live was what I think Graham wanted to show.

 

I also really like the image they used for most of the advertising campaigns. Wafa by Felix Carpio was my favourite. This stunningly simple look of this woman from Syria just captures my attention every time I see it, yet I don't fully understand why. Perhaps it is her daring look, and that she is looking right down the lens at the photographer in an almost challenging way. Caprio's series explores the gender roles in traditional communities in Syria.

 

I don't often enjoy gallery visits but I did enjoy this one and I will most likely be looking out for the next one!

Feminism

Modern western feminist movements can be divided into three waves, each of which describes different aspects of the same feminist issues throughout the last 100 years or so. The first wave was in the 19th and early 20th century which included the suffragettes working towards equal working and educational rights for women and children, resulting in women being allowed to study and work alongside men in the UK. The second wave happened post WWII in a time of renewed plenty. The 1960's through to the 1980's saw women seeking to change the inequalities in law and within the culture, and the roles of women in society, no longer chained to their kitchens. The third wave which is still currently going on, since the early 90's is seen as a continuation of the second wave where women are trying to right the failings of the second wave.

So, as a woman you would think I would find the subject easy to write about, however, I do not! There are certain points I agree with within feminism, some equal rights and that we should be respected equal to men, but my general opinion is that feminism, especially today's feminists are using it as an excuse for some women to dress and act like men. Grow some tits ladies and stop burning bra's! A woman has the right to say no when a man asks her to pose naked or to do explicit things, take responsibility for your own actions ladies, we wanted to be treated equally then act respectfully! There are some things you just have to accept will never change!

Former American President or the Devil Himself

'The word Semiotics comes from the Greek root, seme, as in Semeiotikos, an interpreter of signs. Semiotics as a discipline is simply the analysis of signs or the study of the functioning of sign systems.' - Introducing Semiotics, Paul Cobley and Litza Jansz - 1997




So, the science behind the sign, the essential building blocks of language and communications, what does that mean to us? Here I have a standard image of George Bush but what do you see? A harmless middle aged man or the Devil himself come to haunt the world in his human form brandishing his Satanist hand gesture? It is a well known fact that George Bush is the devil himself. He tried to destroy the world with his greed for oil and world domination but did you actually recognise the hand gesture with its true meaning?

In Italy this hand gesture is aimed as a curse to a man with an unfaithful wife, yet in many other cultures it is used to ward of evil and bad luck. There is very little hint at it being used as a sign of Satan worship yet when you have a man with long hair, a beard, who is sweaty and pumped up on the vibe that is metal music and possibly riding in on his Harley Davidson, people assume he is worshipping the devil, a common misinterpretation. So now when you see this sign, what will it mean to you?

There is so much more I could say about Bush and his relations to the Devil, but I hope this gives you a round about idea of what semiotics is about.

Real Men Don't Cry

What I think strikes me most about Sam Taylor Wood's series 'Crying Men' is something I’ve grown up with as a child, as I guess many of us have, and that is that real men don't cry or portray too much emotion as it is associated with being too feminine, too girly. What I like about this series is that these are men who don't often play a role where the man will cry and it is humbling to see them out of character and out of a comfort zone for many of them. How many times have you seen the likes of James Bond ( Daniel Craig) crying because the ladies said no for a change?

This image from the series has caught my eye because, not only is he a famous British actor but because he alone in this stark room looking right down the lens as if to pierce your heart with his sadness. Most people will avoid eye contact when they cry, to hide the true emotions and reasons but Craig hides nothing.

So how about world known funny man Robin Williams, have you ever seen him look so sad? Not even in Mrs Doubtfire when they tried to takes his children away from his did he look this sad! Yet in contrast to Daniel Craig, Williams looks closed in as if his surroundings are almost hugging him, consoling him in his time of sadness. What i think gets me most about this image is that Williams is well know for being a funny man, not a crying man. Most of his roles are films aimed at kids. I remember his iconic voice in Aladdin by Disney and how happy he makes me feel as the Genie! It is a reality that men do cry when they are alone and think nobody is looking even the worlds hardest and funniest men.

Here is a few more of the images that hit me the most for one reason or another...

The Wonders of Stephen Shore and Vintage Armani

Stephen Shore's Vintage Armani editorial for Amica - a well known Italian fashion magazine is one series of Shore's works that caught my eye. Unlike most of his somewhat deadpan pieces from the 70's of pancakes and armchairs this piece stood out to me visually with his use of long vertical lines and soft colours which create a careful balance between model and the setting. This shot from the editorial has more of a connection between model and location than some of the others in the series as she almost looks like she is part of the background. the link between the model, chimney and lamp post which struck me as odd at first but now I can see that it gives the image more depth on many levels. The distance between Shore and the model makes her stand out less, making her blend more with her setting. It is unfortunate however that we cannot see more of the beautiful lace detailing in the dress which helps to give this piece an air of elegance, including the tiny fluffy dog casually walking across the road.

In this image you can see the same relationship between the model and location as before, by the way that Shore has placed the model at the same angle as the wall as if to finish off the line it creates. The wall and stairs give this image a good range of depth of field like in the first image but she looks less elegant and shorter, she has a somewhat diminished look to her in the casual side of vintage Armani. This image feels less warm with more blues and greens to cool the image but as I am already over the word limit I struggle to find why that is important. Overall, although this series is more recent you can instantly guess at it being by Shore, which is something I couldn't do last year!

Behind the Lens?

We as artists pride ourselves on the creativity we thrust upon the people but what would happen if there was no artist- no creator?  Everyday a person somewhere in the world thinks he or she creates art, and that may be true within the confinements of fine art but in photography do we really create or do we just document life as it is in the now to look back over in the future whilst reminiscing about the past?

Surely in photography we understand that no matter how we try to manipulate the scene or the image we create nothing but a 2D physical piece of evidence of that place, person and time?  So why are we so hung up about those behind the lens, the so called artists?  Why should it matter who took an image when all they are doing is documenting something?  Sure the image may spark a reaction in people, a memory relived, but isn't that the point to create memories in their physical form?

OK so bare with me, I am going somewhere with this.  The photograph should not be defined by who pressed the button but what was captured. My reasoning for this is simple.  There is no man in space pressing a button to record the most awe inspiring images known to mankind – AI (Artificial Intelligence) or as close to it as we can safely get without risking a scenario like The Matrix.  The Hubble Telescope is the 'artist' and has been taking pictures of space for over 20 years. It has documented – not created – some of the most beautiful phenomena in the universe but this is not a person controlling the scene this is the scene controlling the image!

 

Photography as an art - or a way to stroke your ego?

http://hubblesite.org/gallery/album/pr1995044a/

Annie washerchops and the effects of the punctum

After being briefly introduced to Annie Leibovitz in class a few weeks back, I can openly admit I wasn’t overly impressed by her work shown. Yet surprisingly enough today, whilst casually browsing through the daily Metro paper, I stumbled across three images which caught my eye. I was hit with a punctum - an interaction to an image on an emotional level.




‘A photographs punctum is that accident which pricks me’ Roland Barthes.



The very thing that had caught my eye in the first place was that the images were of Disney films. As a bit of a fan of the old classic Disney films as child and admittedly still to this day, I was amazed to find these images were by Leibovitz. I instantly found a new liking for her work whilst dreamily gazing at Penelope Cruz as Belle from Beauty and the Beast which is titled ‘Tale as old as Time’. What struck me most was how much they look like paintings. The attention to light hitting the material in Belles golden dress could almost reflect something by some master. Belle is being lifted up by the Beast who is now back to his princely self and couldn’t look more happier.



Of course I have to admit that Belle is by far my favourite character from any Disney film as is Beauty and the Beast the best Disney film so my punctum is of nostalgia and remember wanting to be the girl who was never a princess and didn’t share the same selfishness and vain ideals as the other Disney princesses! There is a beast in us all we just need to find our beauties!



http://www.metro.co.uk/showbiz/857184-beauty-penelope-cruz-gets-a-disney-makeover?ITO=crossref

Subliminally Sublime

Welcome to the world of sex, drugs and rock and roll. Two of these things make products highly saleable and more desirable to the consumers. This advert from Hello magazine shows how sexuality and the fame and glamour associated with such things as the music industry can sell just about anything you can think of, ranging from perfumes and watches to mobile phones and much more.




People who buy this phone may be fooled into thinking that they will become more popular and stylish by the imagery used. The girl, ‘crowd surfing’ whilst singing is wearing some ‘in fashion’ torn leggings and sporting short hair associated with many of the beauties of the celebrity world past and present, such as Emma Watson and Scarlet Johansson, has no link to the phone that Samsung are trying to sell. It is the imagery that tricks the mind in a way we do not always notice, such is the world of advertising. Subliminal messages like these will fool even the most antidisestablishmentarist (if that is even a word) of us all, whether or not the phone is any good.



‘The new, beautifully designed Samsung Wave II’ is a questionable statement. It is hard to recognise how we can connect beauty with mobile phones, yet it is easy to see where they were going when connecting the text and the image. The woman is riding the wave, literally and metaphorically. She may be crowd surfing, but how happily will she be riding the wave of false popularity when another third version of this phone comes along and she is no longer stylish and is no longer in line with the Joneses. You can easily recognise the Samsung logo yet you can barely relate to the imagery, unless you are rich, famous and successful in the art of crowd surfing.



As many of us are aware, it is not only Samsung who are guilty of sexing up their adverts to sell their products, yet I can admit, if I needed a new phone, and this one had good reviews yet was reasonably priced, I too would fool for this gimmic.



Enjoy your consumerisms people!