FINALS AND EXHIBITION DISPLAY

new shoot.

I decided to do a shoot with a male subject to add another part to the project like i have spoken about.
It is to make people think that men are also objectified.

here are contact sheets of the shoot.

Artists statement.

I thought i would have a look at the statement generators online first for a bit of a laugh.

This is one I got generated and its actually quite funny because some of it makes sense for this project.

I decided even though this is funny and sounds really pretentious it is at the end of the day I think it would be best to create an artist statement that isn't just complete bull s**t.

This is my statement. 

Alex Poirier is mainly working in photography but also known to produce moving image.

Fashion and documentary being his main influences and focus in the photographic field, work is neither one thing or another. Although using different techniques to produce his work (whether it be in camera, in post production or lighting setups) there is definitely a clear style and is recognisable. 

Often the work includes real life disputes/worriment and breaks conventions making slightly more controversial work. 

Everyday life, common points of argument and avoided/overlooked areas of living are his main influences to create his work, he has visited areas  such as; objectification of women, depression, life of a big city, bodybuilding and sadomasochism.

Because of the fact he works with real life issues or areas un-talked about lot of his work doesn't have a definitive answer and is often shown without a clear objective this makes it down to the audience to form their own opinions. 

Alex has a huge passion for the art of photography and continues to produce work whether it be a series, one off images or a moving image. He aspires to become the best in the business producing work until he is unable to do so.

final images..

I have three of my four final images ready and a shoot for my fourth in the next few days, leaving it a bit late but I feel I need this other shoot to give my series more legs (no pun intended)

My three finals so far are ....

EDITING EXPLAINED!

START

FINISH

To be honest it is very simple editing, firstly i quickly rubbed out some background then created a duplicate layer a selected the liquifying tool just to boost curtain areas and cut down others.

After that was done I changed the image to black and white. 

And to finish it off I just played around with the brightness and contrast. 

Its that simple!!

where I started and where I am now.

Firstly I started with the idea of 7 deadly sins but quickly changed to focus on objectification of women.
I feel that I have had a pretty straight and narrow approach to this project and there hasn't really been any deviation or bumps along the way. My original plan was to crate a body of work to cause and argument and all along the way this has been achieved, whether it be in group crits or feedback.
My original style and way of exhibiting has also not changed over the process of this project, the only real glitches I have had was the light boxes themselves and how to either make them or where to get them from, also I haven't completely adhered to my schedule plan.
I have also decided not to include any text or supporting material at the exhibition as I feel it is not needed and detracts from the idea that people make there own arguments and decisions.

Exhibition display!

For the exhibition I decided to display them on light boxes ... Because they are quite an expensive investment I have started to make my own.
I had quite a few trips to b&q buying wood etc to create these.


      I stared with a bit of wood and cut them to A3 size.

After than I screwed them together to create a frame.

          












   





     I then cut out a back from a bit of wooden board.

   
    
     Stuck the board on the back to complete my box.
    I am now in the process of paining them white and          
                                                                        getting the lights.


I also tested out what to print the images on, I found that printing it on a 120gsm tracing paper would work best.
Here is my test lightbox

final image from the shoot.

This is the final images from my last shoot. I decided to use the image with the gimp mask on.
This was to add another dimension to the series, like I said in a previous post it is giving the idea of dehumanisation to the model making it seem more like objectification.

Another shoot

This was the final shoot for the women finals of my project. 

I don't think this is my best shoot so far but I did use the gimp mask idea in this shoot and I think that it works quite well for what I am trying to achieve.

Shoot + Exhibition Plans + Crit presentation

I have organised another 2 shoots,
Another one of the women in underwear idea and 1 men for another dimension to the project.

We also had a group crit where I got to talk about my idea and get some feedback from tutors and peers.

The crib went perfectly for my idea, it started off with a short explanation then everyone started commenting on wether they think it is objectification, everyone in the group had different ideas and it created a big debate. This is exactly what my work was meant to do and it has worked already.

Some feedback I got is to rethink about how to get peoples opinions noted down as they thought the book idea wasn't the best way to do it. I got some ideas thrown about and the best ones we decided on were a form type thing and a box for people to put their opinions in, another one was some sort of interactive thing on maybe a laptop or iPad.

Another bit of feedback I had was with the idea of displaying the images with writing of some sort.
The group thought its was a good idea to display model release forms etc.. to prove that the whole experience was fine with the models and I did not objectify the women during the shoot, which is a big thing these days after all the press on Terry Richardson.

Has feminism gone too far?

Ok so the definition of feminism is  "a collection of movements and ideologies that share a common stated aim: to define, establish, and defend equal political, economic, cultural, and social rights for women. This includes seeking to establish equal opportunities for women in education and employment."

With this in mind the word that stands out is 'equal' 

But my question is are feminists actually fighting to be equal or are they wanting to be superior !?

The first thing that got me was when I visited the guardian website there is a whole section for women. 
I argue is this really necessary to have different sections for the different genders 

There is sections for news, sport, entertainment etc then there is this section including feminist views and arguments. Yes I agree everybody is entitled to an opinion and articles like this should be around for people to read if they want to but let me put it like this, if there was a category for black people showing stories where they feel they have been displayed as inferior or people have been racist etc, would that be allowed in a paper? No it wouldn't because issues like that are in the news so why do stories on women have to be different to the new!? 

This is where my argument comes into effect, if it was an equal society then it would be all in one category. Is it going too far and are the extreme feminists out there trying to create a superior segregation to the world we live in? 

Adding more.

 So originally I was only going to use women in this project as it is more apparent that they are being dehumanised.

However I have decided to include a male model in the next part of my project but not quite in the same way, the first idea with the women was to ask weather people consider the underwear shoots to be dehumanising women and making them become objects of sex.
This phrase 'objects of sex' is what I am going to expand on.

Bondage - The state of being a slave

Sadism - The tendency to derive pleasure, especially sexual gratification from inflicting pain, suffering or humiliation on others

Masochism - The tendency to derive sexual gratification from ones own pain or humiliation

This area of sex is completely based around the dehumanisation or sexual objectification of both men and women.

A great example of this would be gimp masks or suits, so the whole idea of this is to basically depersonalise yourself, it almost removes your person from the act and it just becomes a human shaped rubber or leather object of sex.

This is just a deeper look into the realms of .. Sexual objectification vs Art