Gender Ads

The gaze’ is a term used by media theorists to refer to the ways in which people look at images of others in any visual medium. John Berger’s Ways of Seeing analyses the way in which both men and women are culturally represented and perceived. He talks about how women are used in advertisement for the male to view. He talks about how women are capitalised on.The images above is an examples of an advertisements that uses the male gaze to make the man want to buy the product. If the picture makes the male excited he will subliminally like that excitment with the product. 

Alter Ego task

My alter ego is my call of duty character. My gamertag(name) is DeEmuFamer I came up with that name six or seven years ago and haven’t changed it since. I play as a female character for purely tactical reasons. The female character is smaller in stature than the male ones and although the hit boxes are the same the player model looks visibly smaller which means I’m harder to spot. I am from the mind of the game developers at sledgehammer games, but I can change the style of my character. I’m part of a group or a clan called ExploitEsports. I was picked up for the team about a month ago after putting up an advertisement on Gfinity.

4 Images

As part of the brief for this years context of practice we had to create some images along side the essay. Initially I intended to do my essay about subculture, i later changed it to The Gaze but i already had my images. These four image respond to subculture and style. There are two sets of two, overall i am happy with them, I am not a fan of taking pictures of people (I get nervous). Here are the images.

Homage-Rodchenko

Alexander Rodchenko was a Russian artist, sculptor, photographer and graphic designer. He was one of the founders of constructivism and Russian design. For me I really wanted to do a homage image of Rodchenko’s because I really love some of his work. He always uses a lot of symmetry and line in his work and often his images are taken from an unusual perspective.

Rodchenko

With its tall shapes and symmetry I really love this image. The use of lines really draws the eye up and through the image. In my homage I want to incorporate this drawing of the eye. 

My Homage Picture

Above is my homage image, I decided to unlike Rodchenko shoot in colour, I felt this added a more modern spin. I wanted to get the really symmetrical lines and the sense you are being drawn into the image and I feel I have achieved that. Overall I am happy with this image.

Homage-Gillian Wearing

Gillian Wearing (born 1963) is an English conceptual artist. The body of work of hers I have look at is called Signs that Say What You Want Them to Say and Not Signs that Say What Someone Else Wants You to Say (1992-93), in which random members of public hold up messages written on sheets of A3 paper. The most famous image of the lot is a man in a suit and tie with “I’m desperate” written on his sheet.

Gillian Wearing-I'm Desperate

Although an interesting series in the sense you can delve into peoples personalities through what they have written on the paper, this series has no real photographic talent behind it, all the images are a mishmash of random scenes. So to pay homage to this image I decided to throw an ironic humorous spin on her images. 

My Homage Image

For my homage image I decided to be funny and take an image of a coconut monkey, I purposefully used a landscape format to take this image to show I am going against Wearing in a way, and breaking away from her norms. Perhaps this image is like my sign and is an insight into my mind just as the writing was for the people. In the end after showing people and seeing them laugh I decided to use this image and I am happy with it. 

Homage-Andreas Gursky

Andreas Gursky (born January 15, 1955) is a German photographer known for his large format architecture and landscape colour photographs, often employing a high point of view. His photos often are commenting on the unsettling nature of globalisation. The repetitive nature of his images is very apparent and for me I really wanted to try express this in my own way using Gursky’s symmetry and patterns. He often digitally manipulates his images to add extra details.

Andreas Gursky

This is a really strong powerful image by Gursky, Its use of scale and detail keeps the viewer constantly entertained. The picture shows the business of society depicting a railway station platforms. This image is digitally manipulated to be more symmetrical and most of the parts of this image have been stitched together and I feel this really works. 

My Homage Image

This is my homage image for Gursky, this image is taken in the Reichstag in Berlin, Germany. I feel this ties in with Gursky's work because of the use of lines and symmetry, I also digitally manipulated my image to have allot more people in it, because the original image had barely any in. I feel that adding people to make the image more busy was a good thing and tied in with some of Gursky's work. In the end I am happy with how this image turned out and although it is not a direct copy of Gursky's style it still pays homage to him.

Homage-Brassaï

In the early thirties Brassaï set about photographing Paris at night. Viewing Brassaï’s work you get a sense of darkness and loneliness. Saying this the way he uses soft light makes his images really beautiful, this gives his images a really contrasting feeling.

Brassaï - Paris By Night

This image of Paris at night is a really strong image. I really love the strong use of the formal elements in this piece with a lovely use of line that pulls the eye from left to right along the beam of light. This gives more depth to the picture. The lines created by the silhouettes add points of interest that also keep the viewer entertained. Taken in the dark using only street lighting gives the image a really nice mood and feel. Brassaï liked to use lamp posts as his source of light in a lot of his photos. Light bulbs give off an orange glow. This gives a very soft light when transformed to black and white. As homage I would really love to incorporate this softness of light and also try incorporate the loneliness in places that would normally be busy.

My Homage Image

Here is my homage image,I feel there are definite connotations to Brassaï. I shot this image at night with a high ISO, to match Brassaï's images I also incorporated the top right flare because I though it made the image more atmospheric this also adds emphasis to the shadows which helps to add interest to the photograph. In the end I was really happy at how my image turned out.