To what extent is it acceptable to control the subject in order to achieve the perfect portrait photograph. Control is having the power and dominance over a person or topic so that you can influence them/it to express your ideas. It has been an aspect of photography for many years within different reasons behind it, whether or not it is shown directly in the photograph or behind the scenes. The theme control can be used through regulation, domination or command. Some artists could argue that making the photograph appear forced makes it less natural and exploitative. Therefore, many artists use the theme of control to express more meaning and to try and tell a story to get an emotional response from the viewer. This essay will analyse the work of Jill Greenberg, Guy Bourdin and Diane Arbus. These 3 artists have used control in their work from different perspectives to present how they achieve their perfect photograph. These artists go to extreme measures to capture the perfect photograph which will portray their intensions to the standard that they desire. However, by doing this they go down a very controversial route which may lead them receiving hate and harsh criticisms from the public. This could mean that they don’t agree with the content of the photo or even the reasons behind to why they photographed it in the first place. Controversial photographs can also make the public feel that their photos might reflect the generation that they are living in, leading to more criticism as it could make the photographer look like that they see the way we live in a negative light. Jill Greenberg is an American photographer and pop artist who is well known for her Portrait and Fine Art work. However, she is also known for her heavy criticisms against some of her work such as the ‘End Times’, which featured crying babies. The photographs were taken against a very simple background of a cool blue. This compliments the message and emotions behind the photograph because it allows you to focus on the main aspect of the photo. It could be believed that the photographs were manipulated in the editing process due to the fact the tear streams on the face and in the eyes are very enhanced to the extent that makes it one of the main elements that the picture features. Greenburg may have convey to emphasise how she is actually feeling.
The project ‘End Times’ struck a nerve through its presumed exploration of the raw emotion of toddlers unable to use their words. The public stated that Greenberg’s work was an act of child abuse. “It’s upsetting to get emails sort of randomly saying I’m a horrible person,” (Greenberg 2013). “I have two children of my own. Crying is not evidence of pain or any real suffering. It’s really just the way children communicate.” Greenberg’s photographs of crying children reflected her thoughts about the US government, however viewers thought Greenberg abused the children to get them to show emotion for her own benefit. “The most dangerous fundamentalists aren’t just waging war in
Iraq; they’re attacking evolution, blocking medical research and ignoring the environment,” Greenberg wrote in a statement. “It’s as if they believe the apocalyptic End Time is near, therefore protecting the earth and future of our children is futile. As a parent I have to reckon with the knowledge that our children will suffer for the mistakes our government is making. Their pain is a precursor of what is to come.” (Greenberg 2013). The catalyst for Greenberg criticism was the fact that she photographed babies in distress in order to fully capture her emotions and deep feelings about her government’s agendas. The public view reflected her art as morally unacceptable, we see this in this quote “It's upsetting to get emails sort of randomly saying I’m a horrible person,”. (Greenberg, 2013). Individuals argue that capturing grieving babies to reflect ones ambitions challenges the moral barrier and can be viewed as child abuse. In retrospect, people have come forward to show that the art work she is producing is controlled by the mother’s permission; this quote shows evidence that Jill Greenberg’s work is authorised by the parents. This subsequently proves Greenberg’s moral innocence. “The moms would hand them a lollipop in some cases, or they would offer them their cellphone— and then just sort of ask for it back. And basically the child was throwing a tantrum to try to get this candy or toy back, sort of putting on a show in a way.” (Greenberg, 2013). Greenberg’s work addresses themes of a political light by her viewers. Her theme is very complex as it resembles something that would come across as obscene to some people, however, if researched her work shows that there is a political statement behind each photograph. The key source for her inspiration is the government as they’re agendas influenced her opinion towards her work which consequently resulted in her retaliation of the ‘End Times’ series. The photographer’s intentions is to convey her subject matter by using children as her method of propaganda. As well as this, Greenberg uses the art of photography to show how she feels about the US governments agendas. Furthermore, her photographs don’t only show her emotions but they also hint at her attempts at propaganda to influence the mind of her viewers so that they see the government the way that she does. Her work communicates the importance of her message as she goes to the extreme lengths of using photos that receive hate towards her, just so that she can put her opinion out to the public. There isn’t a clear correlation between her intentions and the photographs she produce because the meaning of the photograph juxtaposes what is actually seen in the artwork. However, if researched her work has a very ingenious way of putting her point across as she articulates her feelings using the grieving of others. Linking to this, there is an underlying genre of propaganda in her photographs even though it isn’t shown in the aesthetics it is used as a deeper meaning behind the photos and if found the photograph makes a lot more sense to the viewer and exposes her propaganda. The field that Jill’s work specifies in is a very controversial category because of the risk she takes using crying children to communicate her feelings. Guy Bourdin was a French artist and Fashion photographer known for his provocative images. Bourdin would combine his artistic skills and photographic skills together in his photographs to show the true aspects of his work such as the models expression. Bourdin was a perfectionist when it came to taking the right photograph as he knew what he wanted and wouldn’t hold back to capture the image that was in his head. He created impeccable sets when he didn’t shoot in his studio, he shoots in undistinguished bedrooms, on the beach, in nature, or in urban landscapes. Over the years, Bourdin continued to scandalise and surprise his audiences through imagery that used a uniquely dark sense of humor that linked with sex and violence that would have caused a lot of controversy.
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(Charles Jourdan, Spring- 1979)
Looking at Guy Bourdin’s work you can see how his intentions to shock an audience really show through his photography as shown in the images above. In the first image, you can see how Bourdin integrates sinister components such as the photographs of a murder scene which Bourdin knows will cause controversy as this sort of explicit imagery isn’t normally accepted by society. Adding to this, you can see how in his second image the explicit sexual imagery of a lady would cause controversy especially to women because it’s exposing them in an inappropriate manor. In the first photo, Bourdin has used very dark and muted colours, creating a sense of pathetic fallacy in the image. The composition of this image is very simple as there isn’t a key focal point because even though the car in the background takes up most of the image it is shadowed by the white markings on the floor that draws you into the image as these markings are commonly linked in with a murder or crime scene. The image is over saturated to make the elements look clear in the photograph. The dark colours in the murder scene photo communicates that life has been taken out of the photograph, making it lifeless whereas the second image, the colours are very bright and playful. In the second image, Bourdin has taken a slight different approach by recapturing brighter colours in the background. However, with the lighting he has made the centre of the image lighter to make the woman’s body more prominent, making it obvious that this is the main focus point of the photograph. Bourdin’s photographs explore themes of surrealism, violence and explicit imagery. Linking to this, using these themes as a start point, Bourdin created work off it with the intention to shock an audience, he also heavily relies on provocation to get the reaction to his photos that he wants. From the point of view of the audience, they get the image that Bourdin is a very expressive artist but also view him as an offensive and quite misogynistic individual as his images expose woman in a very revealing light which consequently causes a lot of controversy and hate towards his work.
Looking at this piece that Guy Bourdin has done, you can see how the lighting in this is very bright and very concentrated on the models face because it makes her skin look very pale, almost ghostly. By doing this it makes the model look very cold and lifeless so by using red lipstick on the model it juxtaposes the bright lighting and adds a focal point of the model’s face. The frame is filled in this piece because with the models face. This would impact the viewer as all their attention is drawn to the models face making them focus on the lifelessness of the model. I feel that Bourdin is trying to communicate a very strong image here because he has made the model look lifeless and cold, almost deathly, which links in strongly to his sinister theme. In preparation for creating this photograph, Bourdin actually left the model in freezing conditions for some time just to get the photo that he wanted. He went to his level of extent to control what went on in the image to create more of a realistic result. Sally Mann was born 1951 and is an American photographer, who is best known for her large blackand-white photographs—at first of her young children, then later of landscapes suggesting decay and death. In her early career, Mann was a photographer at Washington and Lee University which lead to her publishing her first book. She explored a variety of photographic genres in her early career but found her interest when she published her second book “At Twelve: Portraits of Young Women.” Sally Mann is best known for taking pictures of her immediate family and she published her book with 65 black and white photos of her kids under the age of 10. Linking this to my project, you can see how control plays a big part in this as her kids would listen to their mother and she could tell them what to do so that she could get the photographs she wanted. Sally Mann has received a lot of controversy because of the type of images that she photographs, especially when it comes to child nudity. Lots of people had “largely uninformed responses about child pornography and abuse” when they viewed her photos and because of the nature of the photos, for example, one of her most famous pieces is when she photographed her 4 year old daughter, Virginia, completely nude, consequently publishers found it hard to publish any of her photos as a result of the nude images. The Wall Street Journal ran a photograph of 4-year-old Virginia with black bars over her eyes, breasts, and genitals but it was still refused. Mann’s work challenges the assumptions of childhood innocence by showing that children do have an undeveloped sexuality that they are not yet aware of. That is, they are aware of their bodies, but they do not understand their sexual functions and they do not yet view nakedness and sexuality as shameful.
(Candy cigarette- 1989)
(Virginia at four1989) These two photos share a correlation in colour because they’re both taken in black and white. She uses the monochrome effect quite a lot in her work because I feel like it adds more of a somber effect to her photographs. Adding to this, because of the contents of the photograph I feel as though having the black and white effect on these photos creates a dramatic and brooding mood. In both these photos the composition is quite basic as Mann’s has used the technique Bokeh. By doing this technique it creates the image in the foreground the focal point of the photograph and draws the attention of the viewer to it. The purpose of her photographs was to capture the confusing emotions and developing identities of adolescent girls, furthermore she communicates how girls are vulnerable in their youthfulness which has a strong correlation to my theme of control. As mentioned in the previous paragraph, even though she is trying to capture the maturing process of the girls her audience gets a different view point which has led to a lot of controversy. Therefore, looking at her work there is definitely a hidden meaning behind each of the images but unless it is explored, than the image comes across as very shallow to her viewers. Guy Bourdin, Sally Mann and Jill Greenberg have all used control in their work but have all individually chose a different path to represent it in their work. Guy Bourdin took more of a risky route has he would control the appearance of his models such as leaving them in freezing conditions in order to get the outcome he wanted. However, not much controversy was made towards his work as it wasn’t talked about has much as the others. There is a slight similarity within Sally Mann and Jill Greenberg’s work as they have both used children. However, Sally Mann has photographed her own children whereas Jill Greenberg has photographed children of her friends but even though she had permission to do so, people still saw it as controversial because she was using children for her own benefit. To conclude this, I feel like Jill Greenberg’s use of control is the most immoral out of these artists because the use of crying infants to project her point is unacceptable in this society. The ramifications of her work is an angered audience appalled by her work. Even though her initiative was to put her point across, her audience didn’t see the message she was trying to project as the distressing photographs she published was too powerful of an image that you couldn’t see the true meaning behind it. In my component 1 work, I got the idea to do the mirror images of the models reactions with and without her phone through the inspiration of Jill Greenberg’s work of the ‘End
Times’. Her work has helped me produce the outcomes that I have completed, mainly because I was inspired by how she used a message in her pictures to create awareness about the U.S Government. She used children in her work, which caused a big controversy so I wanted to challenge this idea, by using someone older to show that at any age the subject can be controlled as the photographer has the power over the subject. The consequences that she faced from this was that she received a lot of hate mail and bad comments, saying how she is a bad person who produced child abuse in her work. In my work, I photographed a model with the bottom half of her face covered by a fake expression.
The End Times-2005
(The End Times- 2005)
(Meganwainphotographycomponent1-2017)
The front picture is contrasting the true emotions of the model which relates to Jill Greenberg’s work as she has slightly taken the same approach where she used the faces of baby’s instead of her own. Greenberg, JG, 2011, Jill Greenberg, [ Date Accessed 23 October 2017] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jill_Greenberg Greenberg, JG, 2013, Stunning Portraits of Crying Children That Brought The Photographer Hate Mail, Slate, The Photo Blog, [Date Accessed 2 November 2017] http://www.slate.com/blogs/behold/2013/08/04/jill_greenberg_end_times_crying_children_photos _became_a_headache_for_the.html Bourdin, GB, 2015, Fashion Photography: Guy Bourdin, Phaidon, [Date Accessed 3 April 2017] http://uk.phaidon.com/agenda/photography/picture-galleries/2010/august/16/fashionphotography-guy-bourdin/ Bourdin, GB, 2017, Inside the surreal world of Guy Bourdin, The Guardian [Date Accessed 25 April 2017] https://www.theguardian.com/fashion/2015/mar/05/surreal-world-guy-bourdin Mann, SM, 2016, Sally Mann, Sally Mann [Accessed 11 May 2017] http://sallymann.com/about Mann, SM, 2015, The Disturbing Photography of Sally Mann, The New York Times Magazine, [Date Accessed 11 May 2017] https://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/19/magazine/the-disturbing-photography-of-sally-mann.html? _r=0 Mann, SM, 2015, Sally Mann’s Exposure, The New York Times Magazine [Accessed 12 May 2017] https://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/19/magazine/the-cost-of-sally-manns-exposure.html