Fashion photography is important in considering realism in photography because it reaches such a wide audience. Today, as much as 50 years ago, fashion photography is tied in with values such as lifestyle, buying power (“retail therapy”), happiness and success – much more so than other status symbols. For the purpose of this essay, the term fashion should be taken loosely, simply meaning the desire to own and the ability to buy what is considered fashionable at the time.
Whilst the early examples of this genre only aimed at showing the product to be advertised (the clothes), the face of this type of photography changed from the 1930s and more radically during the 1950s to suggest a lifestyle that could be achieved with wearing certain types of clothes. This trend seems to fall in line with the developments in advertising.
Looking at the 1950s, we think of the image of a young house-wife with a healthy smile and perfect teeth, awaiting the return of her husband for whom she has dressed up after doing the washing, cleaning the house and preparing a three-course meal. Her image communicates happiness and fulfilment.
During the 1960s, this image changed to focus on the emerging youth culture, employing a reportage-style of photography, which was glamorous at first but became grittier as the decade progressed.
In the 1970s, fashion photography aimed at the same individuals who, by now, were all ten to fifteen years older and had taken their place in the establishment. The style of photography regressed to display a perfect take on glamour once more, albeit in an updated version that reflected the style of the period.
It was not until the late 1980s that a change occurred in fashion photography, when British style magazines The Face, Arena and iD attempted to tear up conventions with a new hormone-laden teenage view of life. The aim was not to rattle society but to recruit a new generation of readers. This style period should last about ten years.
The image with the perhaps greatest recognition value of the period is one made by German photographer Jürgen Teller of a model with a tampon string peeking from between her thighs. Teller’s “messy pleasures of a sexuality with consequence” (ArtForum: Flasht rack at findarticles.com from Artforum International Magazine, 1997) suggest reality with intensity. Other photographs by other photographers would exploit the ideas of drugs dependency and all things messy, including urine, faeces and vomit.
These images should be viewed as another form of fantastic photography. They do not deal – as was often claimed – with reality. They merely present an idealised concept of individual yet isolated events in society and can therefore be classed as pseudo-realism. Nevertheless, the photographs were reality to a generation of readers.
The relationship between art photography and commercial photography seems relevant in the context of realism. The two genres had a brief fling during the 1960s with the emergence of fantastic photography, and attempted a sexually charged affair in the late 1980s. From the mid to late 1990s to the current day, however, we are experiencing yet another 1950s revival, not in style but in attitude. The fashion industry’s new client intake is not a rebellious generation. Existing clients have matured, are economically more secure and are again treated to a mellow, glamorous style of photography which puts a glossy layer over life’s harsh edges. As in the 1970s, the style of photography has been updated to reflect the current lifestyle but it is equally difficult to recognise the artistic merits.
Source: Internet
Whilst the early examples of this genre only aimed at showing the product to be advertised (the clothes), the face of this type of photography changed from the 1930s and more radically during the 1950s to suggest a lifestyle that could be achieved with wearing certain types of clothes. This trend seems to fall in line with the developments in advertising.
Looking at the 1950s, we think of the image of a young house-wife with a healthy smile and perfect teeth, awaiting the return of her husband for whom she has dressed up after doing the washing, cleaning the house and preparing a three-course meal. Her image communicates happiness and fulfilment.
During the 1960s, this image changed to focus on the emerging youth culture, employing a reportage-style of photography, which was glamorous at first but became grittier as the decade progressed.
In the 1970s, fashion photography aimed at the same individuals who, by now, were all ten to fifteen years older and had taken their place in the establishment. The style of photography regressed to display a perfect take on glamour once more, albeit in an updated version that reflected the style of the period.
It was not until the late 1980s that a change occurred in fashion photography, when British style magazines The Face, Arena and iD attempted to tear up conventions with a new hormone-laden teenage view of life. The aim was not to rattle society but to recruit a new generation of readers. This style period should last about ten years.
The image with the perhaps greatest recognition value of the period is one made by German photographer Jürgen Teller of a model with a tampon string peeking from between her thighs. Teller’s “messy pleasures of a sexuality with consequence” (ArtForum: Flasht rack at findarticles.com from Artforum International Magazine, 1997) suggest reality with intensity. Other photographs by other photographers would exploit the ideas of drugs dependency and all things messy, including urine, faeces and vomit.
These images should be viewed as another form of fantastic photography. They do not deal – as was often claimed – with reality. They merely present an idealised concept of individual yet isolated events in society and can therefore be classed as pseudo-realism. Nevertheless, the photographs were reality to a generation of readers.
The relationship between art photography and commercial photography seems relevant in the context of realism. The two genres had a brief fling during the 1960s with the emergence of fantastic photography, and attempted a sexually charged affair in the late 1980s. From the mid to late 1990s to the current day, however, we are experiencing yet another 1950s revival, not in style but in attitude. The fashion industry’s new client intake is not a rebellious generation. Existing clients have matured, are economically more secure and are again treated to a mellow, glamorous style of photography which puts a glossy layer over life’s harsh edges. As in the 1970s, the style of photography has been updated to reflect the current lifestyle but it is equally difficult to recognise the artistic merits.
Source: Internet
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