Project conclusion

I have to say, as projects go, this has been the most fun I could probably get away with. The idea stemmed from my teen years of dressing up inspired by female musicians that I loved and taking my portrait. If I was sad or not feeling to good about myself, I'd sit and listen to the band or singer and spend hours doing my make up and hair, picking outfits and posing like them to the camera. It always distracted me from the thing that was getting me down and funnily enough that was usually my reflection. The photos of myself taking on these women's persona's and self confidence made me realise that I could be them, easily.
I wanted to convey that feeling to a wider audience with this series of images. To me, it relates to the use of imagery in media campaigns in magazines and newspapers and how that is taking affect on all of us, the younger generations especially. It relates to the lack of self confidence in nearly all teenage and pre-teen girls because of the use of image manipulation on the images we see in the media and how through the ages women have been portrayed in these campaign photographs.
I honed in on female musicians because of their clear talent and as a homage to their presence still being felt in the music industry today. I felt that if I didn't concentrate on one talent, the project wouldn't be as direct and the people I portrayed not as recognisable as in this series, if you recognise one musician, you can gather that the rest are also musicians too.
I also wanted to make the images look like they were from the era of the musician. As if they were taken for a record sleeve or tour poster. I used the medium itself to create these different affects.

Over all, this project is really dear to my heart. I am really excited to see it presented properly for reviewing. There is no doubt that I will continue this project in the future. I want to expand to different work groups of women such as politicians or writers. I would also want to experiment in photographing myself as famous and notorious men.

Final presentation

For the final presentation of my series, I have a lot of options to work through.

• newspaper cut outs in frames on the wall and then the spare newspapers turned into a zine
• newspaper cut outs in frames on the wall and then spare newspapers with workbooks
• newspaper cut outs in frames on the wall and then spare newspapers turned into a zine as well as videos looped on a screen
• newspapers turned into a scrap book and videos looped on a screen
• newspaper cut outs in frames on the wall and videos looped on a screen 

I'll have to see when the newspapers are delivered what the final presentation will look like. I'm thinking my videos will just go towards the research as they're not as polished as the final images and I don't feel as confident in them holding their own.

My first idea was newspaper cut outs in frames on the wall and then a zine made from the spare newspapers and I think that's what I'll end up doing.

Ordered finished prints from the newspaper club

I've ordered five copies of the 12 page newspaper I created using their website. The sample paper I got the other day was really high quality so I decided to just go for it! I'm really excited to see the final result. £27.00 well spent

Cyndi Lauper shoot

For some reason I kept putting off this shoot. I have no idea why, it was so much fun! I blasted some Cyndi Lauper tunes whilst setting up and during the shoot to get in the mood. I have so many images to choose from for this ! Here are the choices:

I think it's down to the two images in the middle. But I love all four of these! I've added a lot of grain because the photos I was working from were quite grainy but very saturated. I love the effect that gives to the images.

Patti Smith shoot!

I was dreading the Patti Smith shoot. I look absolutely nothing like her, plus she never wore make up and her hair was never anything iconic, but her look as a whole was very iconic of the beat era. Anyway, I'm quite pleased with these photos!

The first image will probably be the image I send to be printed! I feel like the grain and the lighting echoes a lot of Patti Smith photos, many of which were taken by Mapplethorpe.

Scrapbooks - Archives of American Art

I've been looking at a collection of scrapbooks, held online by the Archives of American Art. The scrapbooks themselves are collections of newspaper and magazine cuttings about the Macbeth Gallery that was open in New York from 1892 - 1952. The scrapbooks range from the date of opening to the date the gallery closed.

I find these old scrapbooks of great inspiration. I love the fact that someone has taken the time to cut every newspaper column and magazine clipping out and stick it into a completely new book. I used to make small scrapbooks when I was little but I think it's another thing we may have lost to make way for the internet and word processing. I really find it inspiring that just from cutting and saving all of the information from a newspaper, someone has single handedly produced a completely new and original publication.
In that single crude movement of cutting and sticking, the author/artist has made the gallery of new and high importance, not only to them personally, but to anyone looking at these documents in years to come. By putting something in print, you enhance its properties; but by having a huge amount of print about a subject together, it creates volume and vastness to the subject, thus raising its importance.

I really want to create a scrapbook effect for my final piece. I think it will give a really good conversation with the images themselves as well as with the audience.

Slater Bradley

When I found this work, I was impressed that someone had already explored my idea but not with female icons, with male musical icons instead. Bradley slightly confuses this notion of someone playing the role of someone else by drafting in an artist to play the role of himself. The artist plays the role of Bradley playing the role of Kurt Cobain or Ian Curtis. This is where the title 'doppelganger' comes in, forming a complex layer of masquerade and male identity.
Bradley also works with the aura of the preexisting images by layering them on top of a gold back ground, linking the male icons with icons of religious value.
'The photographs reveal the intense obsession that teenagers might place upon their idols, and the yearning to not only emulate them but to actually be them'. - Auto-focus - the self portrait in contemporary photography.

I think adding the background in works really well to emulate a new kind of religious icon as well as give a scrap book feel to the image. It feels as if a fan has taken this image and physically made a religious icon out of it, instead of it being given to the fan as it was.

I am already exploring this idea of the fan scrap book as well as taking influence from people who frame newspaper clippings as I think this is the way I wish to present my work. Maybe just framed newspaper clippings or a small scrap book or both. Maybe the scrap books can be handed out and I can create a new celebratory following?!

Tracey Moffatt - Being -Indira Gandhi

In Moffatt's series 'Being - Under the sign of Scorpio', we see forty women of international influence who were all born under the star sign of Scorpio, shared by Moffatt (my own star sign! Weird). The women who were selected by Moffatt all have the fact they all are successful and have 'gone against the grain' to gain this success. They are all in fact 'played' by Moffatt herself which is where the experimentation of finding out how Scorpios 'tick' comes in.

'It's such a powerful and intense sign: Scorpios can "Cross over" into dark worlds and come back unscathed. They are fearless and listen to no-one'.  -Moffatt on her fascination with the star sign Scorpio.

I can really relate and use the influence of Tracey Moffatt's use of 'makeshift' props and studio background. I love the fact she gets the portrayals so correct with only the use of sunglasses, a sheet and a hand gesture.

Yasumasa Morimura - A Requiem

In this series of self-portraits, Morimura explores what the title 'Requiem' means to him; 'The relationship between us and our past', is how he describes the term and also what he shows in these images. Morimura re-writes history, plays with the medium's history with mass media and also suggests that we should reconsider iconic events and leaders with these simple yet instantly recognizable portraits.
I love how these portraits echo the medium of photography by mimicking the age of photography they were taken in. I feel this relates a lot to my own set of self-portraits as I've subconsciously tried to give the feeling of a certain era by the photographic techniques used.

E-mail sent to newspaper club

" Very interested in getting my new project printed by the newspaper club.
The newspaper will be about ten images and maybe some text. I was looking for about 5 colour copies.
My deadline is May 17th so I was wondering, in your opinion, when I should send my images off to you as I've been disappointed by other companies in the past by late deliveries despite leaving a good week between dispatch date and deadline date.
Also, if there is time, can I request a sample newspaper?

Thanks and hope to hear from you guys soon!

Sally Harris "

Back in the game

I'm back to this project after the nightmare that was Institutions. I've also been ill yet again and still am under doctors orders to 'rest'...

I've got the ball rolling by sending an e-mail to the newspaper club and have also requested a sample newspaper.

Newspaper Club

Newspaper club is a company that use the newspaper printers out-of-hours (which is most of the day). I was thinking about using this company to print for my final presentation. Due to the cost, I'm not sure how many I'd wish to print. I was thinking about emulating a fan scrap book with my own images as newspaper clippings. So I'd only have to get one printed then frame them in a haphazardly way.
I think I'll look into fan collections now.. Hmm..

Feedback from formative review

I had quite a decent formative review. I was incredibly nervous that no one will get the idea straight away but as soon as I started the slideshow, people were guessing who I was emulating in the images. The audience guessed correctly all the images that I thought no one would guess which was probably the best feedback I could get.
Now I need to figure out my final presentation of the work itself.

• Originally I was thinking of hand printing 'zines' to reference the music zines of the 70's and 80's. I could print a stack of them and have them for people to take away as well as have a film playing. 

• Another idea I had whilst sat in the formative review was to go back to where I sorted the images themselves on Google image search. I would display the images in a similar fashion to the way they are presented on Google image search, with larger images as the more relevant images to the search content. 

• The idea I had earlier today was that I could send 'Newspaper Club' a copy of what I would want printed and have a run of newspapers printed instead of zines. A newspaper would heavily reference the celebrity culture that is the main subject of the work. I am favouring this idea at the moment.

I'm going to order a few zines and also order a sample newspaper from newspaper club and go from there. ! 

Debbie Harry - first shoot

I struggled with this shoot also. I found it really difficult to get my facial expressions right. I guess looking bored on purpose is actually pretty hard.
These are the few I liked from the shoot.

I think I shall use the second one out of the three to show in my formative review tomorrow.
Only two left to shoot now! Patti Smith and Cyndi Lauper 

Alis Pelleschi

I found this work the other evening as I follow the artist on a micro blog site called Tumblr. I absolute adore it. It's very close to what I've been doing myself so it immediately resonates.
The series of work is titled 'Lonely hearts' and it's based around the idea of lonely heart videos that were popular in the late eighties and nineties. Pelleschi herself is her only model and the characters go by different names. Her portraits are stylized and beautifully comedic that the whole project gives me inspiration to further this project.

 I also love that you can just about identify her own strong features in the portraits and also the amount of make up she's used to become the different identities.
This set of portraits go along side a video piece where Pelleschi forms a 'real' dating tape out of her characters.

It's given me an idea that I could make a video of me miming to the characters main hit song that I'm portraying... I may try it when I do my final shoot tonight before the formative deadline. Cyndi Lauper. Should be fun!

Annie Lenox - Test Shoot

This was by far the hardest 'transformations' I've done, and I think it'll stay the hardest. My body, bone structure, hair, eyes and expressions are absolutely unlike Annie Lennox's. I did my best but I am unsure people will actually recognise who this is.

I couldn't get her expressions right at all. It was quite frustrating really. I do, how ever, think the set up of the shots are successful.

Siouxsie Sioux test shoot

I loved doing the make up for this test shoot, it was so much fun to recreate. I really like how these photos came out, only thing is there is so many different angles and backgrounds to choose from the set.

Janis Joplin test shoots

Again I found this particularly hard as the make up and props didn't feel convincing enough. Especially the hair, that woman had some big hair... Anyway, I tried the method of listening and miming along to her songs like I did for the Madonna shoot and this is what came of it:

I chose to position myself by my window because my curtains are the fabric version of the 60's and 70's... I think they've turned out okay but I might re-do them if I have time.

Madonna test shoot

So after I recorded the video I did a test shoot and here are the results:

These are the edit I made from 30 photos. This was a fun shoot but really difficult. I ended up miming to 'like a virgin' about eight times but eventually got into it.

Filming - becoming Madonna

I found filming this short film hilarious fun and would do it again in an instant! I really enjoy watching it back and it's a very strange experience watching yourself become someone else, especially someone so iconic.
You can watch the video here
I'm thinking of showing this as well as my prints on the wall. I think this would really tie the whole concept together.
I'm really excited by this project and can't wait to film more transformations!

Gwen Stefani test shoot

For this test shoot I took reference from a film still of a music video that 'No Doubt' did for 'Don't Speak'. Gwen Stefani came to fame from fronting the famous nineties pop band. I feel like the video is what a lot of people visualise when they think of Gwen Stefani in No Doubt.
This is the image I've referenced in my test shoot:

This is me channeling Gwen Stefani in No Doubt:

I feel that this was the most successful shoot so far. I felt far more comfortable and confident dressed and made up as Gwen Stefani than anyone else I've portrayed so far. I used my hairbrush in replacement of a microphone as it enhances the reality of the situation. I am just having fun in my bedroom like a teenager would but I am taking it further and turning it into a document, proof that women can easily choose who they want to be in the morning.

Bjork test shoot

After the Shirley Manson test shoot I thought I'd take more influence in the pose and props of the image I'm using as reference instead of getting bogged down with the make up and hair. For this image I took reference from this portrait of Bjork from her album 'Debut' as when I was in tutorial, it was the one most people remembered of her.

My first attempt to channel Bjork;

I feel like the first one is so much more successful than the latter two. With the first one I concentrated more on the pose and how accurately I can reference it in using the space I was in. The last two are more me AS Bjork as a character. I feel comfortable with using the first one at my formative review but can always re-shoot at a later date once I've finished the other images.

Shirley Manson test shoot

Played around with dressing up as Shirley Manson from the nineties grunge band Garbage. I used this image as reference as when I Googled her name, it was the most recurring image on the results.

Here's me channeling Shirley Manson:

I'm not sure a lot of people will make the connection. I will definitely try this again, maybe with a different image. I think the fact that I've changed it to black and white doesn't help and also I've lost all background detail that ties the series together.

Tutorial with David Rule

The tutorial went better than I thought it would go despite me not having a tutorial for this project yet due to illness. I was quite nervous to show the group my images since I hadn't shown anyone the images before and I was worried people might get the wrong idea such as that I think I look like these people or that I look like who I am in the photographs etc. But they didn't!
I had some good ideas put forward by everyone:

• To portray the icons like the media images that people remember of them, like Bjork attacking a photographer or Courtney Love looking haggard and coked up coming off the red carpet. 
• To film the transformations I undertake to look like the icons, like the make up I wear or the props/ accessories that trigger the memory of those people. 
• To just concentrate on Madonnas transformations during her career.
• To look at what makes people realise and think about who I am in the photos - the make up, costume, pose, props and accessories. 

I'm sticking with shooting in my room since it has the ability to ground the images to reality. As if it's saying 'this is what is actually happening'. To make it clear I am just dressing up as these people, not recreating the images to precision.
Overall I'm really excited to get stuck in to this project.

List of iconic female musicians

Managed to form a list of ten female musicians I think people will easily recognise despite being portrayed by me.

• Madonna
• Courtney Love
• Shirley Manson
• Gwen Steffani
• Siouxie Sioux
• Patti Smith
• Janis Joplin
• Bjork
• Annie Lennox
• Cyndi Lauper

 I feel like this is do-able within the time constraints till the formative review on the 22nd of March as long as I stick to using digital and the style I've been shooting.

Second try at Courtney Love

I had another go at channeling Courtney Love.

These definitely turned out better than the last shoot I think. Especially the second shot. I'm excited to try this method on a few iconic females now. I'm feeling I need to make a large series of them to get the story across. Five? Ten? Fifteen? I think I'll try and make a list of ten and see how that goes for now.

Courtney Love test shoot edits

These images are the edits I made from the Courtney Love test shoot. I tried out a couple of different ways and props for shooting and I think these worked the best:

I'm not completely happy with them but I think they're okay for a test shoot. I need to work to find that thing that people recognize as Courtney Love. More stylized images that reference the image I posted in the last post maybe?