Work process - A Man

After deciding to do the project related to self-identity, I kept on thinking about the film Boys Don't Cry, based on a real-life story,where the main character, a young woman struggles with gender identity and wants to change her sexuality.

Taking influence from that film, I have decided to take some photographs of myself dressed up as a man. The photographs are far from perfect, and some of them are in black-and-white, although taken with the digital camera, however I was also using a film camera, so the actual photographs are going to be from film and I'm going to work on them in darkrooms, so the photographs that I'm posting at the moment are just process of work and development of idea.

I quite like this photograph as even though I know this is me and everyone who knows that is me will now right away but I feel that I don't look like a girl in this photograph, and that is what I was trying to achieve.

The composition is not perfect. I don't like the fact that the background isn't plain but I will finish shooting my film tomorrow and process it on Wednesday, so I'll how these photographs came out on film, and perhaps I can get rid of all the bits of background that I don't need in the darkroom.

I quite like the rather plain lighting as I feel it adds to the subject of the photograph, just a "man" in a suit, not passing much of personality to the viewer, however the fact that the sitter is not actually a man tranforms the meaning, which is what I want to explore. How different we can be, what we are, what we show of ourself, and whether it is our true nature we choose to show or a shell we use to hide from people.

I like this photograph. I like the composition and the lighting. Mainly though, it's the subject matter, this typical image of a man with hands in his pockets, top buttons of a shirt opened up, tie undone. I think I have managed to tranform this arrogant kind of masculinity, which I feel is important as here it is challenged through being portraited by a girl, and that for me challenges the perspective on what is masculine and what is feminine, and how it is represented in media and seen in our society.

This photograph I feel is the least successful out of all of the "man" photographs.

I have attempted to create the rock-&-roll kind of look. The cool, bad-boy look, the kind of look to which the female magazines refer as"the boyfriend you would not want to introduce to your parents".
However, in comparison to the other two photographs, I feel this one doesn't transform the message of masculinity, to be more precise stereotypical masculinity. Perhaps, it's the set-up, the pose or the lighting, I am not quite sure what it is that doesn't work about this image but personally I see it as the least successful one.

Ideas for my project

I have decided to continue to explore self-identity from the previous project.
This time, however, I want to concentrate more on how I am affected as a female by popular culture and female representation in it.
My interest is to explore and show how the standards of beauty in our (Western) society are affecting me.
It is many things that affect our personalities and the way we perceive ourselfs. Our families, friends, colleagues, media - all of the above shape our views on self-image, and their views are reflections of knowledge we gain through generations, which sets us into boundaries of what is seen as acceptable and how this can be challenged.
For my research, I want to look at a variety of photographers and artists, such as Nan Goldin, Cindy Sherman, Catherine Opie, Robert Mapplethorpe, Frida Kahlo, Egon Schiele, Francesca Woodman.
I also want to consider movie icons, pop stars and other famous females, whose images we are exposed to in the media now or have been in the previous decades, i.e. Audrey Hepburn, Marylin Monroe, Sofia Loren, Princess Diana, Courtney Love, Kate Moss, Margaret Thatcher, Angelina Jolie, Monica Lewinsky, Gia Carangi, Twiggy.