Man Ray on : 'The Body'

Man Ray was one of the first photographers that I learnt about around 4 years ago in college.  He is an American artist but spent most of his career in Paris.  He was described as a modernist and played a big part in the Surrealist movement.  In my previous post I mentioned how Bill Brandt was an assistant to Man Ray, so therefore his work could come from and have significance to Ray's work.  Man Ray is best know in the art world for his avant-garde photography.  He produced work in a range of medias but considered himself a painter, he was also a renowned fashion and portrait photographer.  He is noted for his photograms, which he renamed 'rayographs' after himself. 

This large image is one of Man Ray's most popular images for nude photography and almost every photographer has seen it before.  It's one of those images that you just always remember.  I think it looks very elegant and holds a peaceful sense of calm, much like the instrument that this female model looks like.  

Nude art has remained an essential focus of Western art, artists from the seventeenth century to today, have privileged the nude form and made it an endlessly compelling means of creative expression.  Expression is key when photographing a nude in this case, as the expression of the overall image will determine whether or not the image is aesthetically pleasing. Man Ray, quite clearly uses the shadows and shapes well in some of his nude images, but you can almost definitely see the surrealism within each one.  The nude itself is quite prominent with his images, the top half of the female nude seems as if it is the most concentrated part of the body whereas other nude series looks at all parts of the body, saying this I do think with Man Ray's work your still do not feel as if you are looking at a naked body, You see the art side, whether it be by the positions, or editing. 

After looking at the nude's of three famous photographers, Sally Mann, Bill Brandt and Man Ray, I definitely know what makes a 'nude' a 'nude',  I still find all of the images fascinating from all three artists, and still want to test out some more nudes of my own.  Looking at the body is really helpful to my ideas, for all different positions, angles, shapes and these can all be used in my body movements work. 

Bill Brandt on : 'The Body'

As well as the previous blog post about Sally Mann, I also want to look at Bill Brandt's work again.  This work always inspires me and make me want to get creative and work on nudes again.

Bill Brandt had once been called England's greatest modern photographer! He was born in germany, launched in Paris and is still called a great English photographer.  Bill Brandt was a studio assistant to Man Ray.  He started documenting class differences in England during the depression (1936), he produced two series of night out, one is Paris (1932) and one in London (1938), and then got jobs at a number of publications.

Brandt moved on to a very avant-garde view of European painters and sculptors, these photographs seem to be more like studies of sculptural form than depictions of the human body.  So, he started as Man Ray's assistant in the 1920's, and post-war and after Surrealist interests started his role as a photographer - he stopped doing documentary style photography and started creating more imaginative, aesthetic images that led to concentration on the female nude as his principal theme.  I have shown some of his nude images here below that I think look very sleek, unique and sophisticated.

Throughout all of his nude images there is a slight distortion with the human form, he shows the body through camera angles and manipulation of the arms, legs, feet and fingers and shows poses and positions that resemble objects in Surrealist painting and sculpture.

Because of the manipulation of the body parts and figure, the nudes look like studies of sculptural form.  I find that the images have a quality thats irresistible.  Knees, arms, fingers and toes acquire a shocking aesthetic interest. His black and white photography brought some of the blackest blacks in photography and is simply smooth, and elegant.

I love all of the above images and think that they do the female body justice to look beautiful, The positions on the rocks look great and the shadows look great to pick up detail and shapes.  But my favourite Nude images by Bill Brandt are these five images below. I think they look beautiful and sleek and smooth.  I was very thankful to get quite a lot of praise on my nude images I done, but I would like to try out this technique and try using the body to create different shapes.

I particularly like the centre images of the knees and elbow, it almost seems as if they are rocks balanced on top of each other, rather than being body parts, to be able to get the look of something, almost like a landscape is a great effect.  The two females sitting on a rock at the bottom left also look like two rocks, they way the sun light is shining on their backs gives off such a smooth look.  Female legs are great to use in nude photography as you can do quite a lot of positions with them, they can create straight lines as well as curves and bends to, like said earlier, create images that looks like sculptures.

I was close to creating a sculpture for my Mixed Media assignment and Bill Brandt's work would have been a great source for that.  But as far as my ideas on my major practical, I am still looking into the body - all images from all my inspirational photographer's will help to give me ideas for my 'body' images. I know that I can consider looking at different shapes to create great effects.

Sally Mann on : 'The Body'

I have written about Sally Mann's work plenty of times throughout my photographic life so far.  There is so much to say about all of her series of work and especially about the large format camera she uses too.  She has worked with a rage of different subjects but the most popular being her family album series'. Because I have written about her and her work so many times, I'm keeping this blog post short.

This first set of images at the top is from her 'Proud Flesh' series.  This is a moody black and white nude series of 'Larry' and his form.  Photographed using an 1850's method of collodion wet plate, creating a large-format negative image on glass, not film.

"It's almost oneiric, it's almost dreamlike the way we move; each one of us knew what we had to do and we weren't talking," Sally says.  "But there was something very quiet, very loving about the whole process - his willingness to go through it and also his encouragement of me." 

She says she's like the opposite of a lot of photographers because she doesn't like everything to be in focus, she wants it out of focus and wants it to be mysterious.  This series 'Proud Flesh' is great for that because there is a milky light and shadow playing across her husbands body.  She says she was showing a love story between her and her husband, not because of the illness he had.
I think the images are very interesting, especially being wet plate collodion, because like she says, the effect on the glass is very mysterious and extraordinary. I like the look of these as nude images and I think she works really well with the human body as a form.  She has a way of making it look so peaceful and calm.

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The rest of the images on the blog post are of her family from the series 'Intermediate Family' and 'Family Pictures'.  She had taken all of these images at her home over the years and then had an exhibition held for all of them - not knowing the media attraction she was going to have with them.  The photographs are mainly of her three children, Emmet, Jessie and Virginia.  To her they were maternal photographs of her children but to others they were of child pornography.   This series 'Intermediate Family' shows us situations that happen throughout childhood. Mann chose to explore the concept of childhood and 'growing up' using sensual and reality.  

In most of the images the children appear nude or partially nude. In some images where she has the 'child' in full frontal nude some people have commented on there being a huge difference between the gender, but they caused a lot of controversy, and many chose to ignore the images rather than read titles and understand from her point of view. I personally agree with some of the controversy about these images and agree that all of them could be taken out of context by first glances, but I think it is a beautiful series and when I start to think about my childhood, certain image remind me of my own, Sally had only shown reality, but most viewers think and speak too soon. 

I like that within this series, and although it is capturing her own children's childhood, she also lets them have their own voice in the images, you can definitely tell that it shows each of their own personalities in the images.  I think some of her images can be said to be too much to the public eye and they do not like to link the child pornography into it, but if you jus think about the images themselves, I think Sally Mann definitely has a great technique of capturing the 'body' and can show this through emotion and reality. I have included quite a few of her images in the blog post as I think you really get the whole picture when seeing more of the series.

These three bottom images are lovely, I have actually written a short essay on Sally Mann's issues about the child nude controversy before and agree and disagree to many things said about her work, but these three images are just beautiful.  Ironically, I had to discuss the image to the left of Larry, her husband from 'Proud Flesh' series in my Interview to get into University. I think the picture quality is great and the way the lighting has been used for all three looks stunning.  The positioning and thought behind each image is there and she knows how to take a good photograph.

Overall, the way Sally Mann captures the body and pays so much attention to the human form, for me is inspiring. I would like to take away some thoughts from her works and put them into my own, When I photograph the body for this project, wherever my ideas take me, I need to pay attention to how the body moves and how the light will fall.

The History of the 'Nude'

So, still thinking about what was said in my feedback e-mail, I need to focus on my main point of interest for this project.  The whole general idea for my major practical project and mixed media is about the body and body movement.  I have looked into this as a topic many times but want to over-run things so that it is all fresh in my head for ideas for my final work.  I have produced nude images before and it's a genre that I think can be quite fascinating, looking into the nude and the body itself is my aim.

Looking into the History of the Nude can really benefit me to find out how many images of the body positions and compositions actually came about.  History dates back quite far when it comes to the 'Nude' image, and it has changed one hell of a lot through the years up to today.  There are thousands upon thousands  of nude images today but all separated into different genre's,  there tends to be a fine line when it comes to the debate of it being art, or not art.

Images of sexuality and nudes date back through history, but there are people today that do not think nudes art art at all.  Some people class nude imagery as porn, while some people think an image of the naked body is un-nessecery.  I personally love the human body and think it is a fascinating thing.  Our physical form can produce so many unusual shapes and movements that I think (with a healthy body) can look amazing.  The way we function and move and do different things in our lives can be beautiful in photography.  

Photography is a subject I have studied for many years now, and have learnt all about how the form was started, the deguerrotype was created in 1839, and this is thought to be when photography was born.  The earliest and oldest 'photograph' was technically by Niepce in 1826, the deguerrotype was the first practical widespread process.   As far as nude photography is involved, the first nude photographer is not really known, but N.P. Lerebours (1808-1873) photographed artist's models in 1840, a year after photography was initially created, so is the first nude photographer.  In 1841 Voitlander was producing faster lenses that reduced the exposure to 1.5-2 minutes and later in the year new emulsions were developed that allowed exposures of only seconds, this is how the field of portrait photography started, and also the right technical side for nude.

Eugene Durieu was one of the first photographer's is actually try out nude photography, he was commissioned to shoot nudes for Delacroix (a painter in 1850).  Durieu was a french man and lived right through the beginning of photography from 1800-1874.  Many painters thought photography was a threat to their art works, which is understandable and photography was the new thing, but Delacroix recognised that there was a big difference between the camera vision and the human eye vision.  Photography was soon to be a great benefit to art and to artists and lots of artists found it easier to paint from the photo than from life.

Nadar was a French photographer who was well known for photojournalism, began taking pictures in 1853, he did quite a few nude images for different artists.  Other photographers in the nude photography field were  Baigneuse-Auguste Belloc,  Bruno Braquehais - Reclining female nude -1850s and Julien Vallon de Villeneuve.  The links all show at least one of their nude images, they look so good for 1850's nudes, because nude photography today seems like it has a completely different vibe to them whereas the work from these photographers show a sense of calm and peace. Here below is a selection of these artists nude photographs.

After these established photographers has created nude photographs for some years, the era of 'the naughty "French Postcards" was around.  The naughty postcards was from 1900-1920.  The golden age of picture postcards from Paris, this came some of the naughtier of nude's.  I would love to get my hands on one of these old vintage books that show all the old postcards and who made them and how they were produced, it would be so interesting to see how nude photography was in the 1920's.  Photographers from this period uncover the relationship between postcard eroticism and magazine illustrations, decorative art, and primitive cinema.  Attention is paid to the use of sexual symbolism that many of the cards show, valuable sights into the mores and fashion of Europe at the beginning of the century.  Some images show popular themes and styles, dis-robing for their baths which brings in seduction (which is a whole other side to nude photography).  I think they look fantastic, and was a great idea into the way nude photography was changing. Here below are just some of the naughty french postcards.


Gaudenzio Marconi (1841-1885) took over the studio of Belloc and began shooting nudes for the sculptor Rodin.  There is a lot of people that think that Manet's famous Olympia was painted from a photograph, rather than from life, this would mean that no credit would be taken for the photograph itself but for the finished painting, so viewers wouldn't even know it had been taken.
Eadweard Muybridge was producing multiple exposures of nudes by the late 1880's in his various scientific researches into motion.  This is a topic that I have looked into many times before, and am particularly interested in for my ideas.  Around 1900 Wilhelm von Gloeden and W.Pluschow rejected the Pictorialist soft focus and produced their nude works in a precise and sharp focus and erotica was born.  Von Gloeden was mostly known for his male nudes posted in Homeric themes.
So, by the early 1900's the figurative nude was well established.  Because of this, something new was bound to come along very quickly, a new technical age brought advances and new art movements were beginning to affect how the nude was presented.

Man Ray, of who's work I love, embraced surrealism which had a tremendous affect on photography and produced amazing works of art.  Andre Kertesz, Frantisek Drtikol, and many other photographers were experimenting with distortion, solarisation, and abstraction in the nude form.  Edward Weston at around the same time focused on lighting the body in his images, he works on form and light are legendary.  Here are some photographs below of the mentioned photographers.

Andre Kertesz (top), Frantisek Drtikol (middle), Edward Weston (bottom)

And finally, by the 40's nudes, pin-ups and figure photography was as varied and complex as any other art movement and most of the work in todays nude photography are established by these photographers.  Although in todays world there is a fine line between the pornographic and art, there are still many photographers that capture the nude in beautiful ways. This genre has changed dramatically through the years since it started, but all for the good, and some believe the bad, but now anyone can express a nude image in the way they want to.  All nude body imagery are the way they are today from these photographers that made the path to the way we see them, over 100 years old and you can now take almost any kind of nude and it could be acceptable.

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What I like about Nude Photography
In an earlier post I wrote a little about Klaus Kampert, who's nude work is absolutely stunning because of the simplicity of the body movements that can give such amazing shapes.  His lighting is perfect and the way the skin shines in different lights, shadows and shapes is what I like to see in nude photography.  If I was to say what I like in photography, it would probably be everything that Kampert shows in his.  I love how creative he is with his nudes and how the lighting falls on the body throughout different movements.  Movements of the body is also what I have and interest in, and it had a huge link with nude, because of showing how the body moves is easier in nude.  I also like how Kampert's work is different yet simple too.  His work has a big link into dance photography which is also what I am looking for in my research as dance nude is something I have considered.  My nude photographs that I have taken before are of a ballet dancer. I chose to keep her ballet shoes in each image and have her in a dance position, I would like to extend on these and produce more in a similar style but using some inspiration from Kampert's nudes. Overall, the shapes, movements, shadows, form, elegance that nude photography can create is what I like so much about it.

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Nude photography is a genre that I have been interested in for a long time, I had always wanted to try it and when I did, It came out with some great results. When I was studying my BTEC National Diploma in Photography in College I wanted to do nude's but thought it would be inappropriate for the assignments but in University, for Open Briefs is was the perfect opportunity.  In my first year in my 'Introduction to Photographic Studies' I produced an essay which was about Nude.  I was looking into why the human body has fascinated many photographers and how photography has explored the human form in the nude.  I enjoyed writing this essay, I explored the differences between 'a naked body' and 'nude'.

A simple documentary image of the naked form, even if very beautiful will not look like it is a piece of art on its own, it needs more to make it an art piece, where the body looks appealing, through the skill of the photographic artist.  A quote I used within my essay;

"To be 'naked' is simply to be without clothes, whereas the 'nude' is a form of art" Kenneth Clark, Ways of Seeing.  

Nude is a study that can have so many different sections to it, they way people see it, how it is art or not, nude or naked, eroticism, and more, throughout my essay, I explain all of these and studies of what defines nude and how photography has explored the genre.

This fits in well with my Mixed Media project as I am also researching about the body and the way people see the body/human form.  Both of my projects have such a wide variety of research backgrounds, but I still need to narrow this down into a theme and style for my final ideas.

Book : The Body in Contemporary Art

So, after my feedback from my Tutor I was told to buy this book from Amazon called 'The Body in Contemporary Art' by Sally O'Reilly Thames & Hudson world of art, because I got told it would be helpful to my research into the 'body' in photography.  I have found the book very interesting and will always be a great book to have in my photography book collection, but there are only a few artists and images that I felt were relevant to my ideas and are very helpful.  Here is my copy of the book below;

 

So, Since I have had this book, I have briefly read about every image in the book and have selected the ones I feel I like the most.  I have chosen images that are relevant to the 'Body' and the images most relevant to my ideas of body movement. Some of the images within this book are rather grotesque and some are quite disturbing once read about, so I have chosen some of the calm images as research.

The first image that I thought was relevant to the 'body' was Edouard Manet's Olympia, 1863 (above left), because it shows the beginning of the female body being portrayed. It says in the book that, "the name Olympia was commonly adopted by prostitutes in the 19th century". The name is used to show the scandal of what was going on around her. Quite interestingly, the female in this painting was the 'type' of female that was considered unrepresentable.

I have chosen to put an image by Yasumasa Morimura Portrait (Futago), 1988-90 (above right) next to Manet's painting, and quite obviously because it is a re-creation of Manet's painting. Morimura slips into various historical, social and racial roles in re-staging a series of Old Master paintings.  I think the idea of re-staging old paintings is quite interesting but only if the though of the exact role is considered. I have re-staged an old painting before and it's something I would consider doing again.

The next image in the book related to the 'body' is Dorota Sadovska, Corporalities, 2003 (above left). It shows breasts "demystified and abstracted", but it also is an attempt to show how de-nuding them of sexual potency by treating them as a sculptural matter, reminds us of the medical necessity of self-examination. I think that it is a quite interesting concept and shows the body/nude in a very unique way.  I think many nude images can be said to be de-nuding the body by hiding away certain body parts. It is definitely something to think about when I next do nude photography.

The image next to this is Bettina von Zwehl, Alina 1, 8, 9 and 11, 2004 (above right) which is more to do with body language than the body but still interesting. In this series of portraits each sitter is sat at a table in a darkened room and a piece of music is played, there is a single flash used to capture the way they react. They all sit with arms crossed in a white vest but whilst music is playing they all involuntarily look downwards. This could be an interesting subject in my ideas of what do dancer think about whilst dancing? which is my mixed media project ideas.

Rineke Dijkstra is a photographer who's work I have looked at and studied a lot. The reason I have used her as inspiration before is for her 'deadpan' images of portraits on beaches. The simplicity also gives so much to think about when concentrating on the subject. Here her images (above left) are Tecla, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, May 16 1994, 1994, and Kolobrzeg, Poland, July 26 1992, 1992. In her beach series the clothed body out of the sea, shot against a neutral featureless seascapes, many of the subjects appear obvious to nationality stereotypes. The differences between sassy California swimsuits to prim dresses in south England, each are quite different and stereotypical. In the series of women who have recently given birth, she captures moments of vulnerability, and expressions of pride and relief after birth, Dijkstra manages to show expressions from her subject without even asking for it.

The image next to Dijkstra is by Katy Grannan, Austin, TX, 2000 (above right). This images shows how whether consciously or not, the language of the representation of the body influences our behaviour in front of the camera, Grannan approaches her subjects in public places like parks and asks them to pose as nudes  and say what they think about 'art photography' then they arrange their bodies how they feel is right. This could work quite well for finding the differences in each person, is a way of showing that specific personality in a way.

This image (above left) is by Vanessa Beecroft, VB.45.107dr, 2001.  Beecroft see's live performance's as a commercial framework, this instillation of 'girls' as she calls the models, shows us her view on idealised beauty in real time and space. She draws on the feminist dematerialising strategies of the 1970's, although her outcome shows subjects in nude. She has done other installations of long-limbed slim beauties lounging among Louis Vuitton handbags which brought up feminists and anti-capitalists.  Beecroft is involved with the fashion and beauty industries and the art market.  The thing I personally find interesting and is mentioned is how the live installations last for hours, so therfore the models wilt and therefore show the lie to their image perfections - cracks to show the real body. This same idea could be portrayed in photography too, if shown the differences between idealised body types.

The image (above right) is by Robin Rhode, Untitled (Rings), 2006.  "Serial photography animates these drawings on tarmac, so that they become dynamic events activated by the artists body. I really like these images and think that it is a really thought out and successful idea. It is something that I would like to try if I could get above my subject in the same way. The work was done to signify the worlds of street culture and graffiti, these rings drawn on the ground could be mistaken for road workers instructions, until the artist performs an illusion that transforms them into gymnastic rings. The stretches and flexes in real time and space show how it could look in real.  New lines are drawn to almost look as if it is a storyboard animation, showing previous movements that are still visible.
This piece of work above right (robin rhode) is probably most relevant to my ideas of the body movement and how we see the body move.

This image by Mona Hatoum, Pull, 1995 (above left) "subverbs our expectations of digital jiggery-pokery". With this installation the audience are invited in the tug on the hair braid hanging down, which is underneath a screen that shows the artists head upside down.  With each tug on the hair the face shows shock and pain. I would think and as well the viewer thinks it would be a clever software editing  that interacts with viewer and artwork but it is actually a live feed, the hair is the artists own hair attached to her head still and is sensitive. I think it's a great idea, really confusing the viewer and makes us think, but not the thought of someone tugging too hard!

The last image that I have decided to show from this book is by Jerome Bel, The Show Must Go On, 2001 (above right). This image also fits in well with my ideas of body movements because it is a dance show. "The performers wear everyday clothes and display an array of body types that are not expected to move with particular litheness or circumstances.  Bel's choreography has more in common with banal, everyday gestures than the hyperbole of ballet. Here the performers have slumped to the ground to the soundtrack Killing Me Softly.  Dance is a great way of showing how the body moves and many different body shapes and positions. This is why I have linked dance with my ideas. Here shows them all on the ground because of a particular piece of music, I would like to use a similar technique in my work and ask dancers to move in a certain way to music and see how their body moves. This artist, choreographer and images will be more useful to my Mixed Media ideas more-so than this module as I am linking the two ideas, but producing a film for mixed media.

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Out of this book I have come away with 10 interesting and helpful ideas for working with the body. They have each different in their own way but have given me so many ideas to work with in the future.  Some have been very relevant to my idea of movement, mostly:

Robin Rhode for actual body movements, shown in different ways, and
Bettina von Zwehl for the how the subconsciousness mind affects body movements.

But overall this will be one book of many to help me along with my research.

Feedback from my Module Proposal

In December I had to hand in a proposal of what I was going to do for this module and what my ideas consisted of, also what I intended to do for my final images.  Here below shows a small copy of the proposal I gave in. In this proposal I mentioned ideas that I have put onto this blog at the start and how my ideas started by working with Nude's.  I talk about how my ideas from Nude changed into linking dance with the body (all ideas mentioned in previous posts).  I also mention ideas about making a theme of 'Elements' Air, Water, Earth & Fire in which I embarked on a lot of research into, only to find that it wasn't really fitting into my original ideas of dance and the body. 

The worst part of this proposal is that there were so many mixed ideas and not really a set idea, this is due to it being right at the start of the module and shows my journey on to how I came to my final ideas.  I have had a lot of changes since handing in my proposal and there are many things that I would like to change.  I have had my whole initial ideas kept the same but have finalised what will be my outcome. 

After the Christmas break I received an e-mail feedback from my proposal and what my Tutor thinks about my ideas and what I should do to improve it.  Here is a copy of the feedback, so that I can look back on this blog post and see what I needed to do to improve and add to my research. 

My Tutor has mentioned some helpful advise on what I can do to improve the project and I will bullet point the important notes to take from this...

O  The first thing mentioned is how it is an interesting area to work with. 

O  Inter-linking with my Mixed Media project could help to create a portfolio for the future. 

O  I need to think about a title because it will make a big impact on how the project is read. 

O  The general area is good but I need to refine MY visual Style.

O  I need to refine and narrow down the research I am looking at, so there is a theme. 

O  Find an exact path to follow and stick by ideas relevant to that particular idea. 

O  Read about the 'Body' (which I have now done on the blog post before this!!) 

O  Buy the linked book: "The Body in Contemporary Art". 

O  All ideas can work, I just need to think of what best fits with what I am trying to communicate. 

O  Think about my Mixed Media ideas of 'the thoughts of the dancer'. 

O  Think about the commercial/fashion side and research into it a lot. 

O  Make sure technical side of things is thought about in depth. 

O  Plan plenty of shoots and re-shoots to get it right. 

O Get shooting my ideas !!!

With all of these bullet points to work from I need to get up-to-date with all of my ideas in my head to show my main idea and what I think my outcome will be. 

First Proposal

Print Name:  SUZI RAE SLOUGH

Blog URL:  suzi-rae.blogspot.co.uk

Provisional Working Title:  Dance Portraits

For this assignment being my Major Project in my final year I knew I wanted to carry on a genre and subject than I have always been interested in. I would ideally like to be working into fashion/portrait photography in the future and would like to work towards it but for this to happen I need a lot more practice of location lighting to get my technical skill to the right place it needs to be.  My original idea came from a series of images that I created in my first year but did not submit to any assignments, which are my black and white location nude portraits.  I used natural lighting for these and they worked really well.  Because these worked really well I have had many projects come to mind to extend on these, I have always had a fascination with the human body and working with the different shapes than it can make.  Nude photography has always interested me, and even more so after I had done this series.  I first started looking into nude photography for this assignment but my ideas all changed once I decided to mix in a similar idea to my mixed media assignment to make it a little easier for me.  For my mixed media assignment I started looking at movement and dance to create a short photographic film and it started me looking at dance portraits and from this research I have decided to go down a fashion, location, dance portrait route to create a series that shows elegance and maybe movement.

I have researched into the body and how the different shapes of the body can be photographed and this has really interested me, I think dance is the perfect way of showing how the body can be captured in different ways.  I think ballet is the most elegant form of dance and can be very beautiful in a photograph but any contemporary dance can show a great form of movements and shapes whilst in the air.  The first photographer that really interested me was Klaus Kampert who has a huge selection of series on Nude photography and looking at his stunning images some of the images are hard to believe that it is a body, which I think is fascinating. When I was originally working with nude this was the standard I would be aiming for but I now have been looking at many different photographers and their dance portraits and it has sparked of ideas on how I can make them interesting and my own. 

One other idea that came to my mind also links the dance theme and location dance portraiture but including my brief from professional practice which is Elements.  The four elements of Fire, Water, Earth and Air can be included into my emotive dance portraits in a way using location to determine which element it is, i.e. a dancer in position in a river or stream to signify ‘Water’ or a dancer on a cliff top with a material blowing in the wind to signify ‘Air’.  I would still use the same ideas and techniques to create a dance image but include a subtle hit of each element within the image.  This would challenge me to use props and experiment with the movements to a theme.

What fascinates me the most is how the mind works whilst dancing and the movements we can make with our bodies.  One of my most recent ideas for my series of dance portraits is working with movement and blur.  This is something that I have only worked with a couple of times but I have taken a few images of blurred people and they really make you intrigued and leave you thinking about the emotion of the person.  I propose to link the mind with my dance portraits and within my research to show an emotive dance location portrait. 

The movements and blur within dance can be very effective and will be a challenge to show emotions and body shapes.  It makes dance portraits more interesting and keeps a viewer intrigued, especially if there is a story behind the dancer that can show the emotion they receive whilst dancing.  This is now what I would like to propose as my final idea but I will also try to produce some still dance location portraiture that also show elegance and emotion.

Identify the RESOURCES you will require to undertake the project.

The resources I will require are my Nikon D80 and a location lighting kit.  I have some lights, softboxes, reflectors, umbrellas and trigger at home and all I need is a battery pack so that I will be able to use my kit on location.  I will also require some model release forms for every model I will use.  I may require a Canon 5.50D from the University so that I can film the movements to help me in choosing a still image.  Resources such as books, journals, articles and short films, I can get from the University Library or another Library. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY / INFLUENCES:

My main influences towards the original idea of nude photography is photographer Klaus Kampert, whose work I love to look at but my main inspiration for the dance portraits comes from a photographer called Ella Ruth, I look at her work a lot and really admire the style she has throughout her fashion and dance work.  Lois Greenfield is a very professional dance photographer and had stunning and brilliantly captured dance images in big studios. Bill Wadman is also an inspiration of mine for this idea, after seeing him dance portraits it has made me want to work with movement even more. Here below is a small bibliography of some websites that I have used for research and have used for my blog.  I will have a lot more and a more in depth and strong bibliography by the end of this assignment, as I really am interested in this topic and genre.

http://gavinbambrick.com/GalleryItem/exile/

http://www.klauskampert.com/index_en.php

http://ellaruthc.daportfolio.com/

http://www.loisgreenfield.com/index.html

http://www.danceshortfilms.com/

http://www.mymodernmet.com/profiles/blogs/dancers-in-motion-15-photos

http://echographs.com/oliver-endahl-dance-photography-echographs/

http://www.bertil.co.uk/naturally

- The Body in Movement: Degas, Dance and Photography, Degas Symposium

OUTPUT / ARTIFACT:

The output of this assignment will leave me with more location lighting experience and techniques that I will be able to use in all-future projects.   It will also give me a stronger portfolio of a style that will be recognisable to me. The artefact at the end of this assignment will be a final series of dance portraits aimed at 10-20 images to fit the brief.  

The 'Body' in Photography

I think that the body in Photography plays an important role for any genre that is including a person. The body has to be positioned to the way the photographer wants to show a certain perspective.  The body can be many things, but when used in the right way in photography, it can be very beautiful. The body itself can be photographed in a countless number of ways, and the different parts of the body can be shown from different angles and compositions to show very unique ways of seeing the body.

Obviously the 'body' in photography has a huge link to Nude photography and it is a perfect way of showing the body, but this is something I have briefly looked at in a previous post about Klaus Kampert (click his name for website), and is also something I will talk about in a later post that will be about the history of the Nude. To start, I would just like to focus in on 'body' photography as it has always fascinated me.  Here below are some images I have found whilst browsing for just body photography.  It is interesting to see how each photographer has used different creative ways to express their way of seeing the body.

Most images of the body make me want to explore photographing it even more. When I worked with my model for my nudes that I shot, I really was working to see how lighting would hit different parts of the body and how sections of the body looked in certain ways.
Lighting plays a major part in body photography, it depends on whether the photographer wants to see everything or to hide sections with shadowing. Showing the body shot on a plain black or white background is the most common and effective way way of showing body part close ups. It is the easiest way to block everything else out apart from the main focus.
Compositions & Posing of the models is also important when it comes to the body and it is very interesting how in certain lighting, the body can look like something different and in some cases can almost confuse the viewer as to what part of the body it is.  But it really comes down to testing it out in the lighting conditions you want and seeing how different positions can work.

I used natural lighting when I have worked with the body previously and I like this effect especially with nudes, but using artificial lighting can also work really well and is something I will try out with the body in the near future.  If I were to choose my favourites from the images above I would definitely say the first colour image because the shape of her back is beautiful and the shadow where her spine is really define's the shape, lighting is simple but the colours are really soft, but in contrast to this, I also like the black and white image of the back with the shoulder blade sticking out, as it it really makes you wonder about the different shapes we can create with out bodies and the fact that the greyness blends together and that to be it almost doesn't look human.

As far as my research goes into the subject for this module, I will be working with the body and how the body moves, this can be portrayed in photography beautifully and most definitely in nude. Working from the body first will give me a lot of inspiration in to how I will shoot my models in a creative way. I have decided against nude and have been looking into how the body moves with dance and have found many interesting images to share within my research. Later blog posts will include how dance plays a great part in body shape and body lighting.

The History of Motion Photography

Since I have decided to create images using motion and movement photography for my Major Practical Project, I thought it would only be helpful to re-read previous research that I have done about motion photography, at the same time I can learn more and research in depth, the real history of the motion photograph.

Nude Descending a Staircase
Marcel Duchamp's Nude Descending a Staircase shows a human figure in motion, in a style inspired by Cubist ideas about the deconstruction of forms.  The image does not show an exact nude but shows abstract lines and planes. The lines in the image show the static positions of the body and create a rhythmic sense of motion and the shaded planes give depth and volume to her form.  It is only in our own mind's in which we see the motion and the nude.
This piece of art was one of the earliest attempts to try and depict motion using the medium of paint. It's conception owed something to the newborn cinema and to photographic studies of the living body in motion, like those of Marey and Muybridge. Cubist paintings around this time were necessarily static and this was the Cubist theory, but instead of creating a piece of work that showed a subject's multiple views at one moment at a time, Duchamp created a piece that showed a subject from one view at multiple moments together. Marcel Duchamp gave the Cubists 'vitality' in the movement which no-one apart from Muybridge had done before.
Duchamp did not mean to mock Cubism by 'deconstruction of form' but was trying to show a new way of seeing, the piece was rejected by the Salon des Independents because members of the jury felt that he was making fun of Cubist art, but viewers didn't just dislike the painting, they saw it as a threat - un-american. American's presumed paintings should be of historical scenes, presidents etc, there was nudes too but they were realistic depictions of lounging women with big breasts. Duchamp's painting hit boundaries with the people and they weren't able to handle the fact he re-defined what originality was and changed the dead academic language of painting. He brought rebellion to art which made viewers think, but because the art piece caused an uproar which both outraged many people, it also made Duchamp famous in America.

His piece of Cubist artwork is here below alongside Eliot Elisofon's piece mimicking Duchamp's work.

Marcel Duchamp, Nude Descending Staircase No. 2, 1912
Eliot Elisofon, Marcel Duchamp Descending a Staircase, 1952

Motion - Eadweard Muybridge
I have looked into the work of Eadweard Muybridge a lot before in previous projects. I was very interested in the motion work that he produced and it really made me want to know more. Here below is Muybridge's interpretation of Duchamp's Nude descending a Staircase, but taken in different frames in photography.

Eadweard Muybridge, Nude Descending a Staircase from
Animal Locomotion, 1887

Here I have added a screen shot image of an essay that I completed in my first year about Eadweard Muybridge's work. I can use this as my research to re-read about him and his work.

Muybridge in 1872, was the man who questioned whether when a horse galloped, does all there feet leave the ground at one time. Therefore came up with an idea of using multiple cameras to capture a galloping horse in action. Using roughly 16 cameras, he proved his point that whilst galloping a horse lifts all four hooves in air at the same time.  From 1884-1887 he used the same technique but with human movements in motion.  This is a technique that is very simple in todays world, but were extremely technically skilled back then. 

Because of his work using different frames per second, this technique has been improved each generation to bring us to where we are today, anything that creates a motion can be captured, in very different ways too. 

I will experiment with my motion photography but will pay particular attention to the way the body moves, and will look into the background of the body.  With looking at history of movement as well as history of the body/nude I can work towards an interesting piece of work including both.