A Constructive Summer

As I have now more or less finished for summer I am now busying myself with plenty of cultural ‘to dos’ yesterday for instance I caught up on a couple of errands then I went to one of my local charity shops and decided to do some volunteer work until I get another job (I was made redundant 2 weeks ago :( ) So this is exciting.

But today however, I visited one of the biggest local galleries I live near, to see the new exhibition showcasing Robbie Coopers work surrounding the idea of peoples behaviour in terms of when they are on a computer game, watching a film or the TV. I read a couple of weeks ago an article in the Sunday times magazine discussing his work and since then I have been fascinated to see the exhibition, ‘Immersion’ to see the imagery and a VT showing, mainly children, during their time of ‘leisure’. The VT I watched was quite creepy really, the emotions of the kids are so placid considering the games they were on (Call of Duty, Grand Theft auto) and the films they were watching (Saw, Peppa Pig). Also when watching the VT you yourself feel quite exposed. It’s a strange experience. The images at the exhibition, physically, were huge also, again really bringing in the onlooker into the world of the subject. I’m quite mesmerized with people, I like to understand them, I’m a big people watcher so this exhibition I really enjoyed.



Another exhibition I saw whilst at the museum was Simon Roberts, ‘We English’.

An exhibition of the ‘investigation of the English at leisure’. It was quite ironic really I had just come out of the Pictureville cinema after watching ‘I am Love’ a hugely Italian film, then onto ‘We English’: the exhibition brought me back to my ‘English-ness’. The images in the exhibition were a mixture of Roberts’ alongside images from the Nation Media Museum collections and a few Martin Parr images which is obviously very fitting considering Roberts’ concept. Roberts shot his images using a Ebony 45S camera (a large format camera) to create these immensely large images. This is what caught my attention firstly the shear size of the images adds that little extra for the viewer, you almost become part of the photograph. With Roberts’ images placed alongside images dating right back to the early 1990’s you realise that English leisure hasn’t changed massively: the exhibition although somewhat voyeuristic celebrates English-ness in an amusing way.




If you have time to visit the Museum do so, because being a student it’s great to get things for free, and both these exhibitions were free entry. It’s obviously free to sit and home and relax but its much more entertaining seeing some lovely, inspiring work than sat at home watching a screen, why not watch peoples expressions whilst they do the TV watching for you: it's much more interesting.

Rankin: Seven Photographs that changed Fashion Photography.

Yesterday we had a lecture where we were given our new project brief for fashion photography,which I will post about soon, but firstly I just wanted to talk about the documentry we were shown before the brief was explained.

We watched 'Rankin: Seven photographs that changed fashion'. I haven't seen the documentry before but I had come across the images that Rankin recreated, I had seen them in the Sunday Times Magazine a while back now, and when I saw them then I didn't really (although I should have!) known the background of the images so im really pleased that we were shown this documentry.

The 7 photographs which Rankin recreated included; an iconic Cecil Beaton image taken in 1934 'Hat Box'; a 1950's Vogue cover by Erwin Blumenfeld; a 1955 image shot by Richard Avedon of 'Dovima with Elephants';a 1963 image of Jean Shrimpton captured by David Bailey; the iconic image of Helmut Newton's, Rue Aubriot, Vogue 1975; Herb Ritts' 'Fred with tyres' taken in 1984 and finally the brash photographer Guy Bourdin, 1970 'Untitled' fashion photograph.

Cecil Beaton
1934
Hat Box

Rankin chose to use Sophie Ellis Bexter as his model as he believed she had a simliar look to that of Elsa Schiaparelli, the original model way back in 1934. Rankin spoke of the fact that when the original was shot, technology of the time wasn't as it is today, respectively, so when looking at past images the final image will be heavily influenced by this fact. For this particular image, the use of a 10 by 8 camera was utilized, which shows the photographer an upside down image, so it proved that little more difficult than using a digital camera. Also, with using the 10 by 8, Rankin wasn't able to see the final image, something which is so simply apparent today, so he took the photograph with digital also to understand how the image is looking. I think the final image turned out very well, but like Rankin states in the documentry the 10 by 8 image works better when looking at Sophie's expression and the camera alone evokes this nostalgic sense.

Erwin Blumenfeld
1950
Vogue Cover
For this image, Heidi Klum was used as the face for the cover, for her uncanny resemblance to the original face in the image. Watching the shoot looked like it was fun, playful and quite simple. Heidi took on her role as the character really well but added her personality into the image aswell which I loved. The original image is heavily influenced by the surrealists: it portrayed initial links that fashion and art have, but with Rankin's recreational element for this image and Heidi's cheeky character Rankin gave the image a modern twist.


Richard Avedon
1955
Dovima with Elephants
When I saw this image in the Sunday Times magazine, this one struck me the most, I think it was the sheer size of the elephants against the pale, slender Erin O'Conner that grabbed my attention: I liked the literal contrast. Richard Avedon is known as one of the first celeb fashion photograghers: he grew in the golden age of fashion photography which is really evident in this image. This image as Rankin states, 'Introduced drama and specticle' it's seen as something very special even with todays modern ways of thinking. Rankin cast Erin O'Conner as the model which was quite ironic given that Avedon himself said to Erin, at the naive age of 19, that she was the modern version of what the image embodied. Gorgeous image and very cute elphants....it was quite funny to see the shoot too, Erin towered over Rankin, they had a good giggle.


David Bailey
1963
Jean Shrimpton
For this specific image Rankin cast his girlfriend, Tuuli a professional model, as the model for this shoot, don't really understand why as she doesn't look anything like Shrimpton, she is blonde with long locks and has fair skin, maybe Rankin did this to show a modern twist of the image or maybe because his girlfriend is out of work, who knows, anywhoo...the set up for the shoot was very simple which was surprising as the final image that turned out was stunning. Bailey was on the set the whole time too, which was nerving for Rankin, but just looking at the final image, we're unable to see the nerves.


Helmut Newton
1975
Rue Aubriot Vogue
I have come across this image many times, with my love of androgony, so it was quite exciting to see if Rankin could pull off the original. In the documentry too, we were introduced to the original model from the fashion image, which was great as she spoke of the image from its first time around and described how Newton was in his work and as a person. The recreated shot was shot in the same street in Paris, the Rue Aubriot, which gave the recreated image that little extra nostalgic feel. The recreted image is stunning and almost identical: one of my favourite images out of this series.


Herb Ritts
1984
Fred with tyres
It was nice to see a stark contrast from the romantic streets of Paris to the scrap yard in london, but the image recreated really works. Rankin, through post production, recreated the tone of the image really successfully.


Guy Bourdin
1970
Untitled
Rankin chose the fashion designer/socialite/model Daphne Guinness to recreate the iconic look of this image, which I felt was quite random as his other 'recreational models' have had some similarities, but for Guinness, I'm not too sure. The set choice really resembles the one from the original, I don't really like though, the use of the red hoisery against the pink back drop, I think it would have worked that little more effectively if the legs were bare. Rankin's image also references in a way, a kinda of raunchy, s&m feel to it, with the leather waistbelt (or top, I can't really make it out) and with the sexy black heels and red tights which I'm not that keen on, but then again this is a strong reference to Guy Bourdin's work. To be honest this image is my least favourite out of the selection, just because of personal aesthetic choices, but it still really works as an image.


Rankin was quite brave in looking at recreating these images, as the iconic aspect is so huge that he seemed to have a real job to get this right and really show his respect for the original photographers. I believe he shot the images with great success and with Rankin's touch of mdernity.

Banksy. Woz ere. I.D.S.T. 4eva.

Some TAG, some may be seen as vandals and some produce interesting, comical, well thought through, clever artworks.... im talking about, of course, The Graffiti Artist or in Banksy's case Artiste.

Watch Banksy creating the front cover for the Sunday Times magazine.

I love how Banksy's, specifically, changes the space automatically yet so seemingly effortlessly.

Character Profiling

Over the weekend I bought the Sunday times newspaper to catch up on, well, the news obviously but to also get a look at the Style Magazine as I knew it would cover a catwalk report so I wanted to have a good gander.

Anywhooo.....

In the Style Magazine there was a fashion story which proves very useful to my project at the minute, the name of the shoot,'New Tribes' was photographed by John Lindquist and Styled by James Jeanette Main.

The story was basically about 4 types of 'The New It-girl'; the Euro Socialista, the Eco Bunny, the Creative Assistant and the Art Poseur. The stylist, James, really had to understand the character of these types of women and emphasise these types with not only their clothing but with their added accessories and style. This again links back to an earlier post where I spoke about accessories helping to characterise a certain person etc.

My favourite look out of the story has to be the Art Poseur, I just love the mix of fabrics: she wears a Nail leather jacket (made to order by Gareth Pugh) against satin jodhpurs (above). The added quirky hat with a pink flower and oversized handbag to carry her SLR, paintbrushes and her journal all add to this character profile of this type/style of person.

Euro Socialista- always with.....

- latest accessories
- scene grabbing jewelry
- the new blackberry
- starbucks coffee
- celeb friends on speedial
- o and not forgetting a B.A (Bad attitude....well sometimes)


Creative Assistant- always with...
- hundreds of bags, camera cases, tripods
- journal
- next seasons clothing
- their bosses handbags (well they are assisting)
- tit-tape/scissors/memory cards
- o and again not forgetting their bosses skinny soy gluten free milk free no added sugar extra hot extra shot latte



Eco Bunny- always with....
- their grandads bicycle
- a selection of small handheld gardening tools
- very little if at all any product in their hair
- recycled bag, shoes, scarf, jacket,
- o and not forgetting a checklist of the following months farmers food markets

London baby??

London is like marmite- questionable.

I’m as far from an original London girl! i moved down here last September to go to uni to study fashion for 4 years, well 1 yr studying fashion foundation and then 3 yrs studying fashion promotion and imaging and being me i get homesick a lot! So i do go home quite a bit on the trusty old megabus-this is my time to think, seriously. I have so much time on the bus to schedule my week, look at my timetable for the following week, catch up on the weeks news (as i did at the weekend with the huge Sunday times newspaper and the independent for this weeks round up of London fashion week!-blog later, promise..) and coming through London is always interesting. Even though i have lived 30 mins outside of london for a year i still feel like that virginal tourist that’s constantly checking out all the window displays, the very geometric concrete buildings, Selfridges ever changing windows, (which i always hope no London red bus will pull up to the side of my megabus, blocking my view!) the bustle of baker street near the huge blocked Primark store. I’m trying to get to love London because due to the sheer size it annoys me and sometimes terrifies me! Im hear for another 3 yrs, i have to learn! Not only does the size aggravate me; there is a lot of pompous people about too, however weighing interesting people to the pompous, i think 2:1 to the former.

I feel as though every megabus trip helps in some way to enhance my feeling for the city. I love people watching and ldn has a hell of a lot of people to watch, including lots of up and coming students, (the futures work force!) elder women and gentlemen just leaving small, quaint galleries, backpacks and beige sandals included, W.A.G. wannabes, London ‘in it’ girls, cockney geezers, fashion trend setters and followers: i could go on but i will be here for ever and my coffee’s getting cold. Not only are the people interesting, the city itself has lots to offer-lots of exhibitions, The House of Viktor and Rolf at the barbican centre i saw last weekend which was amazing; recently, London fashion week, that is a must for every year (and still will be even though the fashion week has been shook a little this week with the bigger cities trying to kick us out of the fashion circle, have these people ever met the fashionistas of ldn?!) the business guys and gals doing their thing, in monochromatic attire, all the valuable newsagents! Etc.....

well looking at what i have just wrote maybe ldn is a good city to live in, or near to. Maybe i should try and read the Evening Standard every day to really get to know the city, or will this just scare me and make me wanna run away, who knows?!