Photography Essay

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Photography Essay

• Sandra Barreiro
• Hum 4
• November 27, 2006

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• Still, there is something predatory in the act
  of taking a picture. To photography people is to
  violate them, by seeing them as they never see
  themselves, by having the knowledge of them they
  can never have it people into objects that can
  be symbolically possessed.
• -Susan Sontag

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Paparazzi

• Photographers who follow celebrities, often
  aggressively, in hopes of snapping candid photos
• (The Oxford Dictionary of American Usage and,
  2000. Oxford Reference Online.)
• Waparazzi is a new term for amateur photographers
  armed with mobile phones (WAP is an abbreviation
  of Wireless Application Protocol).
• Wikipedia

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Kate Moss Cocaine Scandal
The cover of Londons Daily Mirror from September
15, 2005. James Mullord, manager of her then
boyfriend Pete Doherty, allegedly took the
photographs with a cell phone or small digital
camera and sold them to the newspaper for over
150,000. Moss lost some of her major modelling
contracts after the photos were published. The
photos expoloit Moss for money, and allow the
public tresspass into her personal life.
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Paris Hilton

• Hilton crying after being denied entrance to a
  2006 MTV Music Video Awards private after party.
  The photograph allows the viewer to be a part of
  (and enjoy) Hiltons moment of shame and
  disgrace. Hilton cannot experience this moment
  in private because she is an object that belongs
  to the public.
• Photo from http//www.thesuperficial.com/2006/09/
  paris_hilton_cries_after_being.html

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Paris Drunk(Photographer Unknown)
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Both Moss and Hilton gave up personal rights to
privacy by objectifying themselves for the public
with modeling careers
Vogue Italy September 1994 - Pretty
CharmingPhotographer Arthur Elgort
Versace Photos 2006
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Mark the Cobrasnakehttp//www.thecobrasnake.com

• Mark the Cobrasnake takes pictures of the
  Hollywood club scene for LA Weekly. Sometimes
  his subjects volunteer to be photographed and
  sometimes they drunkenly fall victim to his lens.
  Sometimes club goers want to have a good time,
  but with the cobrasnake lurking around you never
  know when he will strike and catch you in an
  embarassing pose and post your picture on his
  webpage for the world to see. The cobra, a
  predator, stalks his victims.

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The Cobra Strikes!
My moment of fun (and maybe embarrassment) is
made into an object to photograph. It becomes a
possession for Mark to post on his website.
December 15, 2005. Mark the Cobrasnake
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cobrasnake.com
The subject on the left becomes a disgusting
object. Mark often takes pictures of drunk
people, the girl passed out is completely unaware
she is being photographed.
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Vice Magazines Dos and Dont of Fashion

• Vice Magazines street fashion critique.
  Pictures are taken either by the creators,
  Suroosh Alvi, Gavin McInnes, and Shane Smith, or
  submitted by the magazines readers. Sometime
  the subjects of the pictures are aware they are
  being photographed and other times they are not.
  Captions are written about each picture that
  either heralds subjects for keen fashion sense,
  or features fashion takedowns funnier and more
  evil than Joan River's snarliest criticisms. The
  latter can be quite gruesome and cruel, and thus
  is the source of the column's popularity.
• The following pictures are from Vice Magazines
  onlines Dos and Dont section featuring
  photographs from the current issue
• http//www.viceland.com/int/dos.php?countryus

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Vice DOs and DONTs

• The caption reads
• What are you so happy about bitch? Did the
  greasy bathing suit army just recruit you to
  fight boners?
• The subject is an object exploited to serve
  humor.

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Vice Dos and Donts

• The caption reads
• Man I hate these kind of guys. Pontificating
  dudes who use cigarettes to gesticulate and
  pretend dying their hair and hunting for vintage
  shirts is not giving a shit.
• The aggressive aim of the photograph is to show
  how oblivious the subject is.

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Vice Dos and Donts

• The caption reads
• Maybe its because we were 12 at the time and
  sex was about as foreign to us as what it must be
  like to be in Iron Maiden, but being a metal
  groupie has gone from a glamorous past time to
  something just below cleaning out the foreskins
  of deformed orphans in Chernobyl.
• The subject is unaware of how the photographer
  views her something just below cleaning.

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Vice DOs and DONTs

• The Caption reads
• You know this column is popular when a girl
  whos asked to pose for it throws down all her
  belongings and becomes a perfect oil painting of
  a superhero.
• The girl voluntarily makes herself an object to
  be owned by the Vice DOs and DONTs column for
  critique.

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More Street Fashion Photography

• Street fashion photography turns subjects into
  objects and examples for magazines or books. The
  subjects become part of a project and portrayed
  as part of something they necessarily dont feel
  they belong to. The street fashion photographer
  hunts for subjects to fit into certain
  categories.

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FRUiTS

• From FRUITS Magazine, a collection of photographs
  cataloging Tokyo Street fashion. Photographs by
  Shoichi Aoki taken from 1996-2002

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FRUiTS
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NYLON Street Fashion

• Photographs from the photography book NYLON
  Street The Nylon Book of Global Style. The
  dates and photographer of each picture is not
  specified, but the first edition of the book was
  published in 2006 and created by the fashion
  magazine NYLON.
• Photographs divided into different countries the
  photographer looks for subjects who dress with
  qualities representing street fashion from their
  country.

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NYLON Global Style
LONDON
MELBOURNE
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Jamel Shabazz

• Photographs taken by Jamel Shabazz of hip-culture
  circa 1979-1985. The subjects are placed in
  books and catalogued they become possessions.

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Jamel Shabazz

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PREDATORS

• The paparazzi
• Mark the Cobrasnake
• Vice DOs and DONTs columnists
• Street Fashion Photographers
• They hunt down their subjects and turn them into
  possessions for entertainment. Their subjects
  become something different from how they view
  themselves.