Infantillized

Infantillized images of a grown woman is not hard to find in our society. As an example, here is a image of Megan Fox dressed up in a school girl outfit for her movie poster. For some reason, many people especially male audiences are attracted by such representation of woman, and it has been used repeatedly as marketing strategies. I personally believe that reason why some men are attracted to infantillization has to do with women having more power in society. I think some men are attracted to obedient and helpless women figures whom are harder to find in current society where women are illustrated as independent figure with equal rights and power.

Different ways death is addressed.

Images of death has changed from posthumous portraits that cherished the image of dead people to photographs that makes mockery of death. I feel that death no longer is a sacred experience, at least to the public. Now I feel that the explicit images of death are tools to capture viewers attentions.
I feel that images about death, and gory imagery are very often used, and it almost came to a point that I don't remember nice happy good imagery anymore. Artists always use death to create controversies, and try to seperate themselves from normal photographers.

Something Awesome

I feel that workbook.com is a awesome place to find inspirational artists/ professionals.
This website allows people to search for artists based on categories, and often provides links
to their personal websites. I often find very good work on this site, and it saves me a lot of time
when I am looking for professional quality works.

Surrealism and Body as Landscape

I decided to choose two images that belong in a category of surrealism. Both images are by Jerry Uelsman, who is know for creating imageries using darkroom techniques. I believe that those two images by Jerry Uelsman is a good example of surrealism in Europe. Uelsman's images are similar to Andre Kertesz' series of images where he distorted woman's body using mirrors, because surrealism's goal was to surpass painting and no longer illustrate truth in photography. I feel it was clearly fulfilled by Uelsman, because both images have woman as part of landscape, and water to illustrate the characteristics of surrealism. It was interesting to learn that male artists viewed woman figure as an object rather than a character. Also those images are not interested in illustrating truth, but it allows the viewer to interpret the images in their own ways. According to the reading, "1900-1940 Heterosexuality and Modernism,' article, "The female model has no role, no action, no purpose, other than to be observed.' She possesses neither agency nor subjectivity, being subject only to the looks and actions of others. It was interesting to see such theory behind surrealism. I always heard the word, "Surreal," in our studio classes, but I wasn't sure where it came from until now. After the reading, I found that the relationships between Uelsman and Kertesz's work fascinating.
Also I realized that those images by Uelsman had similarities from images that we saw in last week's lecture where a woman decided to become a part of nature by being naked out in nature and submerging herself to the scene. It seems that Uelsman's images falll into the categories of both surrealism, and body as landscape equally well. It was interesting to see the contrast between a body in a landscape of Pictorialism versus where body becomes the part of the landscape itself.

PIctorialism Portrait

Pictorialism Portraits started by creators who hated mass produced goods, and disliked the details of commercial photos. Therefore they decided to utilize soft focus into their images. And infused with fog and shadow. Simple subject, with lots of greytones are another chractersistics of such portraitures.
I tried to create pictorial portrait that is simple, and soft. Also I made sure to make my image be filled with mostly grey tones. Soft focus and noise were added to achieve that pictorialism look as well.

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