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7 Photographs That Changed Fashion - Rankin.
So it's a Friday night and I've been binge watching terrible American tv show called 'Awkward' and I feel guilty that I'm not enriching my mind with all things fashion, art and make up based. In my defense, I have been Power Blogging (Again, another phrase that I've coined. I might actually get this one Trademarked.) The telly gets paused and after trawling through my student emails I find the link that Sharon sent us. I curl up in bed and I start watching it.
I thought it was going to be really pretentious but I was pleasantly surprised. Rankin seems like a pretty interesting person. It's nice to see another artist appreciate someone else's work. I feel as though there's a really unfair stereotype that artists hate each others work and this is proof that they don't.
He started with Cecil Beaton's 'Hat Box' from 1934. It was really interesting to see how much of Chris' lecture about casting became crucial and relevant. The amount of thought that Rankin had put into this shoot was amazing. He had thought about the natural look of the model he wanted and he was talking about how key this was to the photograph. He chose singer/model Sophie Ellis-Bexter for her period look. He commented that she had a timeless look and that it would have worked well with the photo. After he recreated this photo with a digital camera, he compared the two. I like both of them for different reasons. The original I love the mood. It's almost saying that what the model is wearing is irrelevant whereas the replica that Rankin created I thought looked really edgy. It looked like something that should have been in a window in one of the shops along Oxford Street or one of the boutique stores in Covent Garden.
Next on the agenda was a magazine cover from a little magazine called ' Vogue' Ok, who am I kidding. Vogue has been a staple in fashion magazines and they set the stakes high with their 1950 January edition that had an abstract cover created by Erwin Blumenfield. I love this image. I've seen it before but I had no idea who it was done by or what it was even from. Rankin is already teaching me tonnes. I've noticed that Rankin is quite a lady's man on set. Especially when he's got Heidi to photograph. I think this worked well for this photo because it brought out her cheeky side and this gave Rankin a perfect opportunity to recreate this image with his own twist. I think Heidi was an excellent choice to be the model for this.
In 1950 to start the year off with a bang, Vogue used an abstract cover. It was created by Richard Avedon. I have to say out of all of the original photographs, this is by far my favourite. It's just so beautiful. I've actually spent ages looking at it. ( I tend to do this with cool photos/paintings) I think it's a really majestic image. As soon as I saw the photo I knew who he was going to cast as Dovima. It was going to be Erin O'Connor. I've seen her in person at The Clothes Show Live at the Birmingham NEC. She's an absolute goddess. My favourite part about the recreation of this image is something really small. The fact the elephants don't have chains around their ankles. I just think it shows how far we've come since the 1950s not only with photography, but quality of animal life. What I mean is, in the original the elephants look really distressed whereas there is a really calm feeling to the Rankin Recreations. I think Erin looks incredible and completely does the photo justice.
Now, I'm not going to pretend to know who Guy Bourdin is but during the montage of his work; it was safe to say that I recognised some of his work. It's high in contrast and saturation making the colours really 'pop' It's really easy to recognise his work. There was even a law suit involving Madonna for copyright issues due to the content of one of her videos. This is my least favourite photo. I don't think Rankin captured the essence of what Bourdin was. From looking at his work it's really easy to say that his work is really sexually charged, the lighting almost leaves a vinyl effect on the area it's lighting and quite blatant. Rankin's recreation doesn't do this justice. In the slightest. It's really disappointing because I think that a Bourdin photo would have been a lot of fun to remake. The colours aren't a bold, the lighting is too soft. I think it looks more like someone warming up for a sporting exercise and she looks more like this:
Both of these images here are just beautiful. I love the clarity of Rankin's. I think it just shows the beauty of androgynous models has become timeless. The original photo is by Helmut Newton and it was shot in the alleyway where his apartment was situated. What made this a great recreation was the original model was on set with Rankin. She was telling him what it was like to work with Newton, how he thought about the lighting, what he had said to her when they were shooting together. I really love the lighting, it plays on the androgyny of the model. It looks like it could be an image in a French Vogue.
This is Herb Ritts' 'Fred with Tires'.
I actually felt really sad when I was watching this part of the documentary. When I first saw the original photo I was able to appreciate a really good looking man, who was really on top of his fitness. It sadden me that in the brief history lesson that came with the photo was that at the time, this image would have been classed as too homosexual. Male models would lie, or try and keep their profession as secret as it was seen as a 'very gay' think to be doing. I look at it and I don't see that. If anything, you could take the original image and stick a Diesel logo on it and you'd have a campaign for 'Only The Brave' I don't really think the model was right for this photo. Rankin said he struggled to recreate what the original image had because he doesn't find men sexually attractive, which coming from a straight man is completely acceptable.
So it's a Friday night and I've been binge watching terrible American tv show called 'Awkward' and I feel guilty that I'm not enriching my mind with all things fashion, art and make up based. In my defense, I have been Power Blogging (Again, another phrase that I've coined. I might actually get this one Trademarked.) The telly gets paused and after trawling through my student emails I find the link that Sharon sent us. I curl up in bed and I start watching it.
I thought it was going to be really pretentious but I was pleasantly surprised. Rankin seems like a pretty interesting person. It's nice to see another artist appreciate someone else's work. I feel as though there's a really unfair stereotype that artists hate each others work and this is proof that they don't.
He started with Cecil Beaton's 'Hat Box' from 1934. It was really interesting to see how much of Chris' lecture about casting became crucial and relevant. The amount of thought that Rankin had put into this shoot was amazing. He had thought about the natural look of the model he wanted and he was talking about how key this was to the photograph. He chose singer/model Sophie Ellis-Bexter for her period look. He commented that she had a timeless look and that it would have worked well with the photo. After he recreated this photo with a digital camera, he compared the two. I like both of them for different reasons. The original I love the mood. It's almost saying that what the model is wearing is irrelevant whereas the replica that Rankin created I thought looked really edgy. It looked like something that should have been in a window in one of the shops along Oxford Street or one of the boutique stores in Covent Garden.
Next on the agenda was a magazine cover from a little magazine called ' Vogue' Ok, who am I kidding. Vogue has been a staple in fashion magazines and they set the stakes high with their 1950 January edition that had an abstract cover created by Erwin Blumenfield. I love this image. I've seen it before but I had no idea who it was done by or what it was even from. Rankin is already teaching me tonnes. I've noticed that Rankin is quite a lady's man on set. Especially when he's got Heidi to photograph. I think this worked well for this photo because it brought out her cheeky side and this gave Rankin a perfect opportunity to recreate this image with his own twist. I think Heidi was an excellent choice to be the model for this.
In 1950 to start the year off with a bang, Vogue used an abstract cover. It was created by Richard Avedon. I have to say out of all of the original photographs, this is by far my favourite. It's just so beautiful. I've actually spent ages looking at it. ( I tend to do this with cool photos/paintings) I think it's a really majestic image. As soon as I saw the photo I knew who he was going to cast as Dovima. It was going to be Erin O'Connor. I've seen her in person at The Clothes Show Live at the Birmingham NEC. She's an absolute goddess. My favourite part about the recreation of this image is something really small. The fact the elephants don't have chains around their ankles. I just think it shows how far we've come since the 1950s not only with photography, but quality of animal life. What I mean is, in the original the elephants look really distressed whereas there is a really calm feeling to the Rankin Recreations. I think Erin looks incredible and completely does the photo justice.
Both of these images here are just beautiful. I love the clarity of Rankin's. I think it just shows the beauty of androgynous models has become timeless. The original photo is by Helmut Newton and it was shot in the alleyway where his apartment was situated. What made this a great recreation was the original model was on set with Rankin. She was telling him what it was like to work with Newton, how he thought about the lighting, what he had said to her when they were shooting together. I really love the lighting, it plays on the androgyny of the model. It looks like it could be an image in a French Vogue.
This is Herb Ritts' 'Fred with Tires'.
I actually felt really sad when I was watching this part of the documentary. When I first saw the original photo I was able to appreciate a really good looking man, who was really on top of his fitness. It sadden me that in the brief history lesson that came with the photo was that at the time, this image would have been classed as too homosexual. Male models would lie, or try and keep their profession as secret as it was seen as a 'very gay' think to be doing. I look at it and I don't see that. If anything, you could take the original image and stick a Diesel logo on it and you'd have a campaign for 'Only The Brave' I don't really think the model was right for this photo. Rankin said he struggled to recreate what the original image had because he doesn't find men sexually attractive, which coming from a straight man is completely acceptable.
When proof reading this blog post I realised I'd forgotten a photo and it just happened to be David Bailey's. Whoops. I had to laugh because it was first time I'd ever seen a video of Bailey and if I'm honest, I didn't really like him as a person. He kept making slightly sly comments and I just didn't think he seemed like a nice guy. I think both images are beautiful but I have to say I actually prefer Bailey's. It's like he's caught her in a moment and still made this unusual pose look natural and soft. I think that Rankin's is too sharp. It needs to to be less sexual. She is still beautiful and oozes sex appeal but there's nothing that you'd call outrageously sexy but it's still there.
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