Portrait photoshoot and working into them

As Kruger works onto portraits, I did a photoshoot of my two friends in the art studio to add some photography to my Component 2. This means I am using first hand sources to drive my experiments forward. I took the photos with a black background as I think this fits better with my theme in terms of the issue of stereotyping still being quite hidden in the dark. Furthermore, this means that my photographs aren't extremely bright and there is a contrast between the complexion of my friends' skin and the background. If I took these photographs on a white background, I think that they would've looked too bright and cheerful. Whereas a black background allows me to capture the duller feel that Kruger's images have. I also experimented with placing a red gel over the lens and over the lights in the studio to give a subtle red tinge to my photographs, therefore still continuing to use the same colour palette. I think these photographs were the most successful as it places a film of colour over the subject's face, which presents how a stereotype is placed onto an individual and someone's perception of another can become distorted because of this stereotype.

I started to work into these photographs using a reductive process, whereby I cut relevant words into them. I took words such as 'kind' to represent a woman as this was a word that I found in an article based on women and their behaviour. In the first experiment below, I wanted to keep the lettering large to make the word evident in portraying the attributes of the lady. This word is not shocking in any way as this is a word that most people would expect to see in align with a female. As the lettering is so large, this mean that I had to arrange each letter not in the usual, straight left-to-right fashion. Instead, I have directed the word down the right had side of the photograph, ensuring that the lettering remains separate from the subject. I have kept these two elements of image and lettering separate to represent how a word can easily be dissociated from an individual and how we have the potential to remove a stereotype from a person. As the white page beneath the photograph can now be seen, a stark contrast has become available and so it draws the attention of the viewer's eye over any other part of the composition. As the text and person are in such close proximity to each other, the link between the female and word is made, therefore, the text leads the viewer to look at the lady in the centre.



After looking at how to include text in my experiments, I have extended this to looking at how shape can help in portraying my theme of stereotypes. In the experiment below I have looked at making line with shape but cutting out rectangles that span the width of the photograph, making sure I don't cut into the subject. Horizontal lines reflect how stereotypes are widespread across society and how they are engrained into us from an early age to aid with identifying a dangerous situation. Additionally these lines reflect how stereotypes are used everyday, whether that be in a good way or bad. Eery person has inbuilt schemas which are unique to each individual. These schemas are stores of information that we have collected throughout our lives regarding a certain situation/person. These schemas help us to prepare and evaluate situations when it comes to being in a new environment. Once a schema is applied to one person, it is easy for it to be applied to other people that have similar characteristics to this individual and so we get stereotyping, whereby people with similar characteristics are thought to behave in the same way. Therefore, although having a schema is a cognitive instinct, this highlights how we have control over who we decide to stereotype. Furthermore, I wanted to suggest how these stereotypes can be challenged and so I had the woman laugh in the photograph as she is opposing the dark mood that surrounds her, which is provided by the black background. Her smile is becoming the main focus of the composition as the lines direct the viewer's eye to the face, as well as the fact that her smile is so wide. This juxtaposition in moods reflects how stereotypes can be broken.