Alter Ego Photographs
I edited these photographs which I took to create an alter ego-like image. The way that there are multiple faces layered on top of each other convey the idea that people have more than one side to them
Hidden Identity
These photographs relate to hidden identity which isn't something that I have explored much so far in my project. I like that they are quite striking images and easy to understand without needing much explanation behind them.
Can You Read My Face?
Two artists have created a portrait series of people who appear to have had cosmetic surgery. However, the models' nips and tucks are actually cut-outs from magazines. Poking fun at the fashion industry, French artists Bruno Metra and Laurence Jeanson stick images of facial features, cut out from fashion magazines, over the models' eyes, lips and noses to form new facial expressions. The artists say that the project which is called ID, shows how beauty is no longer natural but socially conditioned.
Professional photographer Bruno Metra, 45, said: 'In the media we are bombarded by images of others. Magazines, cinema and television keep creating and imposing codes that become social references. What one must look like, how to wear make-up, what clothes to wear, how to behave. Laurence and I are fascinated by the power of the media and how it influences people's identities. The act of representation has taken over what's real; models erase themselves in order to gain another self. Here we are portraying identities weakened by the diktat of appearance.'
Sexy Beasts, BBC Three
This television programme relates to the idea that people create an identity for someone based on how they look and in this case it is eliminating that aspect so that the people can get to know their date's true identity.
Masculine Make-up Tutorial
Yesterday I did a photo shoot based on the idea of changing your identity, particularly focusing on sex change and dressing as the opposite gender. I looked at runway make-up for inspiration, for example this look from the Erdem S/S14 show. I also looked at the Chanel A/W14 advertising campaign which features a model with a moustache and sleeked back hair. Both designers have used bold, dark eyebrows to create a strong, masculine look so I decided to create something similar for my shoot.
For her hair, I decided to keep within the theme of the runway looks I researched and make the hair very sleek. Therefore, I used gel on the roots down to the middle of the hair and then made a simple ponytail at the back. I then twisted a strand of hair from the ponytail around the hair band and secured with pins. Lastly, I backcombed the ponytail so create a contrast between the sleek, gelled hair and the volume of the ponytail.
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| 1. Create side parting and pin in place. 2. Put gel on top of hair. 3. Backcomb ponytail and finish. |
Masculine Look
These are my favourite photographs from the photo shoot I did yesterday. I think they look more dramatic in black and white. I styled her in clothes which could be unisex but with the makeup and hair it brings the look together to create a masculine feel. The jackets are both 'boyfriend' fit, i.e. structured but oversized. A peter pan collared top and V neck cashmere jumper are also worn.
Peter Pan Dogtooth Top - Next
Cashmere Jumper - Gap
Sheepskin Jacket - H&M
Boyfriend Military Coat - River Island
The Machine To Be Another - Gender Swap
Gender Swap is an experiment that uses themachinetobeanother.org/system as a platform for embodiment experience (a neuroscience technique in which users can feell themselves like if they were in a different body). In order to create the brain ilusion we use the immersive Head Mounted Display Oculus Rift, and first-person cameras. To create this perception, both users have to syncronize their movements. If one does not correspond to the movement of the other, the embodiment experience does not work. It means that both users have to constantly agree on every movement they make. Through out this experiment, we aim to investigate issues like Gender Identity, Queer Theory, feminist technoscience, Intimacy and Mutual Respect.
Hanania and Brunnquell
La Guerre De Fue
The photography duo play 'good cop, bad cop' with their models to provoke reactions which links to the idea of dual personalities or alter egos - something I am exploring in my project.
Katarzyna Szetelnicka
Szetelnicka's photographs focus on the idea of people who have split personalities and she has captured this by blurring two images together - one of a person who looks happy and the other of a person who looks sad. The images are very powerful in terms of looking at schizophrenia and other mental illnesses which have this kind of effect on people.
Leland Bobbé
New York-based photographer Leland Bobbé has put together a fascinating series of portraits that examine the idea of gender fluidity by showing New York City drag queens in half-drag. The series is called “Half-Drag … A Different Kind of Beauty” and has earned Bobbé several awards and exhibitions, along with some well-deserved press attention.
Sarki - Burlesque Compere
Similar to Leland Bobbe, Sarki has captured 60+ portraits of glittering female/male Burlesque stars, shot naturally and in their performance outfits as before and after photographs.
“I have come to believe that Oscar Wilde was correct when he said “Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.” So I think a person’s true being is captured physically when they are natural and have no hair or make-up, no mask to hide under. And then a persons true emotional and intellectual being is captured through interaction when they are wearing a mask. So my diptych portraits of each scenario in this series are trying to show a human at it’s most complete state. Obviously this is not possible to show a human’s completeness through two photographs, but in the figurative sense I hope the idea translates.”
Grayson Perry
Observers have said that his alter ego - which cannot be ignored - straddles performance and persona.
Perry describes Claire as an "Essex housewife up to town to do some shopping" and "a cross between Katie Boyle and Camilla Parker-Bowles".
She is "a fortysomething woman who lives in a Barratt home, the kind of woman who eats ready meals and can just about sew on a button".
The artist was indelibly marked as a child by his mother's affair with the local milkman. His own engineer father moved out, the milkman moved in, and he was bullied by the new man of the house.
He became interested in wearing women's clothes as a teenager, and speaking about the compulsion recently, he said: "It is quite complicated.
"I sort of see it as that when one is a child one is born with a full deck of emotions and one has full access to them. But if for some reason, while growing up, certain emotions are felt to be inappropriate in the setting and they are suppressed, in men, they become transferred, eroticised and fetishised.
"As a child we have quite a crude metaphorical language - we don't have access to subtle psychological thinking - we don't think, 'Oh I feel vulnerable or sensitive, but I can't express it' - but you see that girls can express those feelings and they wear frocks - so that is maybe how it happens."
Hana Pesut
Switcheroo is an ongoing portrait project by Canadian photographer Hana Pesut where fashionably dressed couples are asked to swap clothing for a pair of portraits sent against an identical backdrop. While the premise is pretty simple, the results are often highly amusing because of all the subtle details and unusual juxtapositions. Giant feet crammed into tiny high heeled shoes, the seemingly nervous faces of cross-dressing in public, or even the genuine grins of subjects who clearly enjoy the project as much as the photographer.
"I think the project shows how far we've come in regards to what is acceptable for men and women to wear, my mom recently told me that when she was in high school she had to wear to a skirt or dress and wasn't allowed to wear pants and now it seems that almost anything goes. With several of the shoots I noticed that a man could be wearing a dress and heels in a public place (or a woman in a suit and tie) and no one thinks that it is strange -- people barely even stop to look. People should be able to wear what they want to wear, not what they are allowed or expected to."
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