Herb Ritts

Herb Ritts was a highly successful photographer, who worked specialising in pictures of celebrities which defied the conventional rules of the portrait genre. His unorthodox shots, often in black and white, were phenomenally influential and frequently captured aspects of their subjects which had previously been ignored.

was born in Los Angeles, he began his early career working in his families furniture business. He later moved to the East Coast where he attended ‘Bard College’ in New York, here he studied economics and art history and attained a major in each. Later, while still living in Los Angeles, he became interested in photography. His friend, and aspiring actor Richard Gere, decided to shoot some images together. The photographs he took gained some coverage and from then became more serious about a photography career. Ritts said “I can't remember whether I told Richard to put his arms over his head or whether I just clicked when he stretched. And he really smoked a lot. He was like that, a handsome kid and very sexy.”

Throughout his career he has photographed numerous icons and celebs including the Elle cover of Brooke shields in1981, Olivia Newton-John for her ‘Physical’ album also in the same year. Five years later he photographed Madonna for her 1986 release True Blue. His career was looking up, During the 1980s and 1990’s he’d photographed even more notable people including, Diana Ross, Michael Jackson, Michael Jordan, George Clooney, Cher, Elizabeth Taylor, Brad Pitt, Julia Roberts, Madonna, , Elton John and of course Richard Gere to name a few.

He also began working for magazines like GQ, Rolling Stone, Vogue, Vanity Fair, Elle and many more. He published books for leading fashion designers and had his work displayed at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts in Massachusetts, attracting over 250,000 people to the exhibit. Not only had he photographed icons, worked for leading magazines, published books for designers and created successful advertising campaigns, he also began directing music video’s. Madonna’s song "Cherish" in 1989 was to become his first. In 1991, he won two MTV Video Awards for his work on music videos for Janet Jackson and Chris Isaak.

Herb Ritts work frequently involved nude images, as for many photographers. His images of models, of athletes and bodybuilders all celebrate the human body as strong, sensuous, and beautiful works of art in themselves. Ritts took pleasure in using the tactile appeal of exterior textures, showing the body splashed with grains of sand, veiled in sheer fabric, caked with mud, or exposed to water. While some figures gloat in their male or female identity, the emphasis on other images could be on the shapes of limbs and muscles or the connection of intertwined bodies.

 Herb died in December, 2002, of complications from pneumonia at the age of 50.

Heres some of his work.

research into photogrpahers work - Cindy Sherman

Cindy Sherman

Cindy Sherman was born in January 19, 1954. She is an American photographer and film director. She lives a busy lifestyle in New York City. She is well known for her famous self portraits. Her work raises challenging and important questions about the role and representation of women in society today. She first used her creative flare for painting but felt limited and took up photography instead. She shoots herself alone in a studio, she has her own role of makeup artist, costume designer, author, director, hairstylist, and of course, the model.

Cindy Sherman is a well respected photographer, famous for her distinctive style of self portraiture. Cindy photographs herself as people from different cultures portraying different views and raising challenging questions.

Born in the New York City suburb of New Jersey, she later moved to the town of Huntingdon in long island. As a young girl she wasn’t involved in the arts, neither were her parents, it was only until she began college where she explored her new found interest in art. Despite her parent’s lack of interest in the art, her parents were very supportive of her choice to attend the state university state college at Buffalo after high school but encouraged her to also take a few teaching courses as a back up.

Cindy began college as a freshman but soon became very frustrated when she realised the limitations of painting, bored of copying other art she gave up. Soon after she realised she could use a camera and create her own ideas and with this she took up photography which she then studied for the duration of her time at buffalo Art College. During her time studying photography she met fellow artist Robert Longo and Charles Clough who together formed Hallwalls, an independent space where her and other artists could exhibit their work.

After she graduated in 1976 she moved to New York City where she developed her career as a photographer. In lower Manhattan Cindy began taking photographs of herself, the stills becoming possibly her most recognisable pieces so far, known as the untitled film stills.

Cindy dressed herself up as movie actresses of films that didn’t even exist, using wigs, hats, dresses and clothes unlike her own; she portrayed roles of different characters in each picture. Although the photographs she took used many elements of self portraiture, some people may argue that they are something completely different. As they’re not actually real people, but fictional characters. I think although the characters in the photographs appear to be real people, but they’re not, the pictures are still self portraits in their own right, just a different take on it. Types of people she created were all very different types of woman, the actress, the woman in distress, the prostitute and the dancer are just a few. By creating these fictional characters perhaps enabled Sherman to express her own personality through the woman she created. Each character’s so unique and vague it creates an uncertainty around her own personality. Sherman began the project in 1977 and later finished in 1980, three years later apparently out of clichés to work on. From this first project of hers gained her lots of publicity, people became interested in her style of work and the controversy that surrounded her work.

In 1980 she began work on her second project, ‘Rear-screen projections’ which once again consisted of Cindy, herself dressing up as characters, but this time in front of a projected slide background. (Examples of work)

After a series of well received projects, Sherman then went on to change her style, almost entirely, when for the first time, she was not to feature in all her images. These images where to be far more grotesque than other projects she’s done before. Known as the disasters and fairy tales series, The images scary and deformed taken in strange settings, Cindy began to push the boundaries and shock the public, but this was nothing compared to what was to come. (Examples of work)

Her second most recognised body of work after the film stills, was to become the History portraits. In 35 photographs, Cindy, once again used herself as the model for the images, but this time casting herself as a role from famous paintings. Using prosthetic body parts in replacement of her own. Around the time of this project she was living abroad in Rome, from the images, some say that museums appear to be the inspiration behind this project but Cindy quotes “When I was doing those history pictures I was living in Rome but never went to the churches and museums there. I worked out of books, with reproductions. It’s an aspect of photography I appreciate conceptually: the idea that images can be reproduced and seen anytime, anywhere, by anyone”

In 1992, Sherman was to create her most shocking images to date, now known as ‘sex pictures’ once again Sherman is absent from the pictures and uses dolls and prosthetic body parts. Posed in very sexual positions, featuring both male and female genitalia, there was nothing like it seen before. The images often extreme close up, Cindy wanted them to shock the public.

I find Cindy’s work very interesting to look at, most of her images tell stories, but leave a lot of it to the imagination, because they’re fictional allows you to do so, there’s no background story to guild you, just what you see in the photograph. I love the very first project she done, the untitled film stills. These images are very classic, in black and white are very aesthetically pleasing to the eye.

After much success, Cindy continued experimenting with new ideas and finding more and more ideas in replacement of what previously would have been herself, in recent years Cindy has opted back into using herself as a model disguised as women from California. Cindy Sherman continues to live and work in New York City to this day as one of the most successful female photographers of her time.



photography research Task 1

Research into photographic equipment

A darkroom is an enclosed space that can be made completely pitch black to allow the processing of light sensitive photographic materials including photographic film and paper. Darkrooms have been used since the early 19^th century, here is a picture of a portable dark room that was used in those times.



There is various equipment needed for a working dark room, an enlarger, an optical apparatus similar to a projector, that can project the image of a negative onto a base for you to see and adjust, this also finely controls the focus, intensity and duration of light. A safelight is commonly used to illuminate the work area without exposing the photographic paper to light. The majority of black-and-white papers are sensitive to only blue and green light, therefore a red- or amber-coloured light can be safely used without exposing the paper. A timer can be used to adjust the time the paper is exposed to the light, this will be clear after doing a test film.

Not only is a dark room used for processing photographs but also to load film in and out of cameras or film holders, which requires complete darkness. Alternatively, a photographer can use a changing bag, which is a small bag with sleeved arm holes specially designed to be completely light proof and used to prepare film prior to exposure or developing.

Above shows what a darkroom may look like...