When thinking about the design for my business cards and postcard I was looking for something very stripped back and minimalist as I felt this conveyed a more expensive feel. I do feel as though I prefer my postcard as it has a piece of my work on the back which I feel obviously brands me better.
The Feminine
Here I am looking at the persona that AJ takes on when with his female friends. His behaviour changes drastically to how he behaves with his male friends
When considering how, to tell the story of this persona it was first and foremost important to look at what it means to be a woman. By knowing this I can then have a better understanding of this side to AJ. His persona that he takes on with his female friends, the defining characteristics of women, of which are nurturing, soft and emotionally expressive.
The fragility and strength within us all
I felt that it was important to keeping going back to comparing these two personas of AJ’s. In doing so I have seen that two components that tie the two looks together are strength and fragility. The strength that he loves to express when with his male friends and the fragility that he loves to express when with his female friends. However there are elements of both of these within each other in their own ways. The strength of a man with inner fragility and the fragility of a woman with inner strength, I have thought to display this by having my model in two totally different situations.
In this company he embodies the softness and freedom of these feminine qualities.
Escaping the harsh, toughness that society has reared most males with. As men are seemingly so effortlessly defined with what are considered masculine characteristics, it can be a very difficult to not feel less of a man unless one is permanently maintaining such a front. This is even more relevant when one is gay, life as a gay man is still rife with judgement of this sort.
This story aims to celebrate the ultimate empowerment to a man, a man asserting his freedom to express himself exactly as he wishes.
For this one I was referring to the persona of Emma that is the modern day business woman, a young woman who like many has been inspired by the new phenomena of young women in particular making so much money through Instagram that they have been able to very quickly own luxury properties, cars and clothes. This is usually through running fitness accounts and being sponsored by the one of the huge gym clothing brands. This works in the same way as running beauty or style accounts. This is becoming more and more common as the smart phone is becoming ever more important in our day to lives and the brands have moved with this change from high-street to online.
To begin with I started by examining how Emma is inspired by this, referring back to the way that she brands herself on instagram and maintains her beauty business and fitness posts. Her posts are focused on inspiring others to make financial gain and to break away from the 9-5 ‘trap’ in her words.
I then looked into the world of instagram influencers, looking at the most renowned with the most followers. Starting with TammyHembrow 9.4 M followers, Amrezy 5.7 M followers and KatyaEliseHenry 5.7 M followers. The ways in which they market themselves is similar throughout as they all post very similar posts about having the time and money to travel and talking about how others should aspire to this, as well posting about the material gains that they have made. The posts regarding their free time is actually an incredibly successful marketing technique as time is one of the most valuable commodities. This was big inspiration when story boarding the shoot for this.
In planning my angle towards this persona I obviously wanted to retain the aspect of viewing this persona a fairytale version of it.
On reflection of how everything turned out I am happy with the result, especially as this was really new ground for me in a sense of working with personas. I also impressed myself in terms photography as this has always been a struggle for me in a practical sense, I have always without fail worked with a photographer on all previous projects.
In terms of the story boarding and how well we stuck to this, I am actually very happy with, my only thought with this is perhaps I could have introduced some props or have shot in a wider range of locations to see how this would have helped. However the weather and the amount of time was working against me in this way.
HYPER MASCULINITY
The image that I am conveying, I am looking at hyper masculinity. I am looking at how my friend Alan interacts with his straight male friends as although it is not a millions miles away from how he interacts with his gay male friends, it is very different from how he interacts with his female friends. When he is around his straight male counter parts he lowers his voice, throws his body around in a powerful manner. Retains a strong stance. Partakes in more laddish jokes than he ever would when around his female friends. He carries himself over all in ways that are strongly associated with being an alpha male.
Upon beginning my research into HM, I found that it can be defined by Zaitchik & Mosher in 1993, with four defining elements. These being Toughness as emotional self control, Violence as manly, danger as exciting and calloused attitudes towards women and sex.
Props such as a poetry book and flowers are placed in the following images to juxtapose the male qualities that have been mentioned before of toughness as emotional self control and carefully holding flowers to symbolise femininity and nurturing tendencies towards this as to deflect the idea of calloused attitudes towards women and sex, this is to show that you can be the ultra masculine in a none toxic way.
The ways in which AJ interacts with his straight male friends is different to that of how he interacts with his gay male friends. Although his behaviour around his gay male friends is still much in a sense that of an alpha male, he will also feel more relaxed in freely expressing his sexuality around these friends. This is in contrast to that of how he behaves around his straight friends, his use of language and body language becomes more closely associated with straight male stereotypes.
On further analysis of the way in which AJ is interacting with other men and if it is a negative or a positive trait I came to the conclusion that it is indeed less of a negative thing and more of a bi product of how men have been taught to behave in society and how to assume themselves as men. From knowing AJ personally for a long time and watching these behaviours play out, I have taken the opinion that there are several reasons for these two different situations. Around his straight male friends it is more of a way of identifying with them as it is easier to communicate in this way. For his gay male friends I found through readings on the gay community and hyper-masculinity that males often feel the need to over exaggerate and over pronounce stereotypical male behaviours and appearances in order to convey that they are an alpha male. This is also a bi product of damaging societal views that gay males are lesser men than straight men.
In planning my approach to this topic, it was my intention to of course stay true to the style of the magazine. The magazine is about looking at these personas in a vastly positive light, styled in a very fun fairytale esque style.
As discussed in the breakdown of Em’s Instagram and the different personas which she takes on throughout her personal life, there is a persona which finds power, comfort and enjoyment in presenting herself in a very sexual way, celebrating her body and experimenting with both make-up and cosmetic procedures.
I am looking at my case studies in a manner of almost fairytale like versions of how they see themselves, as well as this I will also be looking at and taking reference from the historical and culture nature of what has influenced these personas.
In the case of this particular one I began by researching into beauty ideals throughout modern and historical culture, such as shrinking of the waist, foot binding and many more. By learning about these and symbolism that each one held such as wide hips and tiny waist to communicate that although slim and healthy, this woman has “child bearing hips”. By combining all of these beauty ideals in one image it was my aim to create what should be “the perfect woman” Combine this with the styling and narrative that I also choose, the story becomes about celebrating women, regardless of what they choose to do to themselves. Further to this it was also my aim to include all of these ideal simultaneously as a comment on how much society asks from us.
In terms of styling and making clear what slant I wanted to take on “The Beauty Queen of Instagram” I kept thinking along the lines of how we should be viewing each other, how sad and reductive it was to take so much notice of how we all look. I then thought in terms of looking up to each other and celebrating each other like we do with any great powerful icon, combine this with ideas of great beauty I happened to start researching into Goddesses throughout history, predominately of archetypal symbolism of love, beauty, femininity and Power. In particular Aphrodite. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09g0k3j ‘Venus uncovered: Ancient Goddess of Love’ is a fantastic documentary that really enlightened me to the fact that the artworks that have been produced of Aphrodite for a very long time have actually been gazing upon her in a purely sexual and reductive light, Bethany Hughes goes on to explain that the ways in which Aphrodite was originally viewed was as an all powerful, multidimensional figure head. Someone who held great powers in love and lust as well as torment, holding the power to destroy the lives. In this way she was greatly respected. This struck a cord with me in the sense that this is what is missing in society. I believe that we look upon each other as such linear beings, forgetting how complex we all are. This greatly inspired me when story boarding the whole shoot as I then set out to tell the story of the many dimensions of a woman. She is strong, she is vulnerable. She is caring, she is distant. She is light, she is darkness. She is human.
I felt that this was particularly inspiring for my shoot that will be looking at the idea of the modern day goddess. Here Trevelyan has successfully created an image that is feminine, strong, sexual and fun.
References:
Anna Trevelyan, V magazine February 2019.
Reference:
Styling by Anna Trevelyan, S/S18 Camper Campaign.
wonderlandmagazine.com
This post has been removed at the request of the artist.