Cindy Sherman is an American Photographer and Film Director. She began her career shortly after moving to New York in 1976 when she started her work titled 'The Untitled Film Stills'. This is the work in which she is most known for. These images are not self portraits, but photographs of Sherman posing as B-movie actresses. These photos are called untitled as they aren't a self portrait, but of fictional characters. Below are some examples of work in which she has created during her career:
Untitled Film Stills 1977 - 1980
This series of work contains black and white photographs created during 1977 - 1980. It is classed as one of the 'most influential achievements in recent art.' Within her work Sherman sets up the scenarios and is the actual model within the images, using a cable release.
Murder Mystery 1976 - 2000
The characters with this series of work represent a fictional murder mystery. The images in this series give the audience clues in which they need to spot to allow them to solve or create their own theories. This work is very clever as it allows the viewer to interact with their own creative ways in order to make the series flow. The characters within this work are that of; a photographer, a detective, a female fatale and other witnesses. The photographs for these characters are taken infront of a plain white background such as the Bus Riders series as well, with very minimal props used within the photos. Bus Riders 1976 - 2005
In this series of work Sherman has impersonated many different bus passengers, who realistically represented the American population when taking these images. Cindy has used the simplest of forms of props by having a plain white background and the use of a chair. Within these images she has allowed the shutter release cable to be on show. Sherman yet again was the actor and producer of this work, however her own identity has been hidden by the use of dressing up in order to represent social stereotypes.
Centerfold/ Horizontals 1981
The images for this series of work are set to a large format (24 x 48 inches) in order to represent the double spreads of fashion or 'adult' magazines. Sherman began to use colour within her work in 1980. !981 was when she produced this piece of work which was a response to a commission from the magazine 'Artforum' for a double page spread. In the photographs Sherman has chosen to photograph the the model (herself) from above, giving a different impression of the narration in progress. She recieved a vast amount of negative criticism due to the vulnerability of the characters in the series the 'Artforum' rejected the work.
Clowns 2003 - 2004
This series of work yet again is of Sherman being the producer and yet again modelling within each photograph. The way in which she approaches this series is almost as if she has pushed the originality of the clown, in the sense that it reminds many people of childhood. In her work she has some clowns with long painted teeth, suggesting vampirism, and some which suggest cruelty and bitterness due to the disturbing expressions painted on.
The book I have been given to look into furhter and to emulate the work is that of, 'The Complete Untitled Film Stills'. This book contains 164 pages with 70 duotone plates and 6 duotone illustrations. The layout of this book is very simplistic in the sense that the photographs are placed on the right page and the title of the image is around two thirds of the way down on the left page. I find this set up very simplistic and very easy on the eye as it allows the audience to look further into the images and not be destracted by any other photographs or little parts of information for the photographs. In the first 16 pages of this book Sherman has written a personal essay which explains how the images were made.
This Untitled Film Stills series of work is considered to be one of the most influential achievements in recent art. The photographs allows the public to question the way they percieve their own individual identity. However, are the general public classed as indivudals or are we grouped together?
This work touches the series of roles in which women have in society which were inspired by film stills of movies from the 1950's -1960's. Film stills are not actual stills, they extract aspects of the film. Sherman titled this series of work as 'film stills' 'mostly because I was thinking of publicity stills like you'd see around 42nd Street, in boxes of hundreds of them for thirty-five cents each’ (quoted in Taylor, p.78).
Initial Visual Ideas:
My ideas for my first photographs was to take an image of Cindy Sherman's and take something from those images and try to emulate it within my own. The meaning behind my photos was to take the paranoia that women have in todays society of always looking their best and almost try to be 'perfect'.
Within this image I have used the idea of being obssessed with weight. From Sherman's work I have taken the idea of the model being in a different room to the camera and looking through doorway.
I believe that this photograph wasn't as successful as I intended it to work out. My aim within this image was to throw a load of clothes all over the bed and then lie on top of them to give the sense of obssession with loving clothes. I find that this pose within the image looks too posed and not natural.
This image is meant to represent the way that some girls are obsessed with the way they look before going anywhere. I like how natural this pose looks in the sense that I don't realise that the camera is actually there. I have taken the action of looking into the mirror from Cindy Sherman's image. I am definately going to consider this as a final photo for this series of work.
From the first review I have two ideas/ routes that I could travel down to produce my work. The first idea is to watch many films and produce screenshots from the film then recreate those. The second idea is to keep a recurring theme of mirrors within my work, to tell a story about the paranoia and pressure women have to always look their best. I find that both these ideas are very strong so I am going start off with both of them over the Christmas period to see which one I enjoy the most.
Screenshots
The Ring
Moulin Rouge
What Lies Beneath
The Skeleton Key
Examples of Work
The images below are some of the images in which I created during the Christmas period for this project. For some of these photos I have tried to interlink some of the screenshots within my work, so that there was a purpose to actually watching the films I did do. Not all of these are to be final images but some are ideas which I need to go back and re-shoot.
Final Images
I have used the following four images as my final photographs for this series of work as I believe that these are the strongest. I have used a format of 20cm x 16cm for all the images.
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