The Female-Challenging Convention

Essay Title: The Female – Challenging the Convention
Name: Amy Mundey:
Candidate Number:
Contents:
Introduction
Analysis of Photographer Helmut Newton and Image Analysis
Analysis of Photographer Corrine Day and Image Analysis
Analysis of Photographer Robert Mapplethorpe and Image Analysis
Analysis of conventional photography of women and the female body, what women have been used for within photography and their relationship with the audience?
Conclusion of how the three photographers have challenged the image of women within fashion and photography.

Introduction
I want to look at and research ‘The female’ and how women have been used within photography. I also want to look at photographers that have pushed and challenged boundaries
Which is understandable as it was a fashion magazine, however in Helmut Newton’s book ‘Big Nudes’ he was responsible for the order and placed them the opposite way round, indicating which image was more important to him.

There are a lot of hidden meanings behind why this image is so iconic and popular, to Helmut’s testing of boundaries and the success that he had with this, to how his control over his images had important messages, his combined wishes and desires with the public. The only fact that has not been hidden and a significant theme throughout his work is that of the dominant femininity of the woman.

<Insert> Corrine
Women were very stereotypical in these images, shown as a mistress or wife; they rarely looked at the camera (facing to the side or downwards) and appeared very demure showing that they were objects to be looked at. Portraits of women were used for ownership and decoration, and also religiously like the portrait of the Virgin Mary. As well as these passive poses the women were surrounded by symbolic iconography like flowers (similar to that in the photograph of Lisa Lyon), clothing and paintings. This early image of the female has tended to cause an objectification of women and their bodies, women looked so soft and elegant and became the way men of the time wanted them to look like, what was socially acceptable and what people