Martin Schoeller ‘Close Up’ Philip-Lorca diCorcia ‘Heads’ Andrew Hussey ‘30 Day Project’ and the new work ‘Portraits of new social media’

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Portraits of

New Social Media

An Interactive Photography Publication

www.thepublication.moonfruit.com

Preface: The Many Faces Of The Social Networks

Martin Schoeller‘Close Up’

Looking the work of the contemporary portait photographer and how his work plays on the idea of self representation and culture in society

Andrew Hussey‘The 30 Day Project’

An introduction into the modern infatuation with social networking sites and the way in which it has altered the everyday.

Philip-Lorca diCorcia‘Heads’A brief study into his series of candid head shots which capture a side of people rarely photo-graphed.

Andrew Hussey‘Portraits of new Social Media’

The new work of straight forward expressionless passport style imagry for a new style of Social media portraiture

Welcome to this one off publication by myself, a student of Photojournalism and Docu-mentary photography currently studying at the University of Gloucestershire.

To get an insight into this publication and how it came to be, and the work it contains I should first explain a little bit about myself. Although I am a third year university student with plans to teach photography I have also been the assis-tant chef in a Mediterranean restaurant on the south coast of England for the past three years, before that I earned myself a level four certificate in art and design, and I am also fully qualified in building fenestration and spent nearly seven years fitting PVCu windows, door, and conservatories, last but not least I am also an ex bar manager with an expired landlords license in my wallet. It’s obvious to see that before I decided to really focus on a single ambition I spent much of my life not knowing who I am, what I want to do and constantly wondering where my life will eventually take me. Having a life that has changed so constantly and so dramatically causes me to look at the world from an outsiders prospective and tend to treat myself as a so-cial outcast. I often watch the world go by and try to understand so-cial interaction and human behavior. The idea of ‘self promotion’ and how people choose to present them-selves in the public eye has always been of great inter-est to me and has become the basis behind this work. The aim of this first outing into publication is to delve into the topic of the modern day portraiture of social networking sites and the power it holds over to-day’s society. I am intrigued by the amount of apparant falsification inherent in portrait photography and in particular the modern social networking sites that have taken over the lives of a huge majority of the planet; Maybe falsification is too strong a word? Maybe, like me, people simply don’t know who they are so sim-ply don’t know how to represent themselves? For me it’s the constant questions, Am I the Photographer? the Artist? or the Chef? This journal looks at the basic idea of por-traiture itself and the need for showing ones self in a particular light, the information within the image we choose to reveal to the world about who we are and wheter its real or a slight alteration of the facts.Also we discuss the work of contemporary portrait photographers Martin Schoeller and Philip-Lorca di-Corcia. I shall also discuss my own work ‘the 30 day project’ where I created a new profile image everyday for one month to use on my personal FaceBook page and discuss the origins of the work and my work cur-rently in progress entitled ‘Potraits of New Social Me-dia’, a series of straight forward expressionless digital passport style photos of my own small group of friends on FaceBook.

QR Codes:Within this publication are a number of ‘quick re-sponse barcodes’. If your phone is equipped with a QR Reader then simply scan the code like the one on the right and you will be taken to a correspond-ing website offering more information or imagery for that body of work.

Editorial by Andrew Hussey

Contents

To date it is estimated that more then two thirds of the population of our planet use at least one social networking site to share their daily lives, expe-riences, stories, personal information or stay in touch with distant friends and relatives. These sites have undoubtedly become the one single entity in the 21st century that has managed to unify the people from all walks of life wherever they are across the globe. There are over 400million users on Face-book alone making it the worlds leading networking site, compared to the population of world counties only Chine and India have more.

“We are building FaceBook to make the world more open and transparent, which we believe will create greater understand-

ing and connection.” The above extract from the FaceBook Princi-ples, available to all visitors of the site, sums up the in-tent and possibilities of such a world wide phenomena, but is it the world that is becoming more transparent or the lives of the users themselves? Many of these ‘social media sites’ as they are known focus on very different audiences through their design and layout, from the day to day activities shared on Facebook, up to the minute posts on Twitter, Musi-cal taste on MySpace or love for imagery and art on Flikr but all of these sites, and the hundreds of others across the globe, no matter how diverse they may seem have one unifying factor, all of these social media sites gives its users the opportunity to represent themselves however they see fit. It is up to the user to supply the information about who they are, where they live, their age, sex, favourite film, and every possible detail of their lives they choose to reveil; They are given the chance to lay bare to the world exactly who they are to the people they know and those they don’t, but how truthful are these facts which are so freely given away. You would think that everyone would create a page that corresponds with who they really are, their likes and dislikes, favorite memories and valued friend-ships without having to worry about being judged. In my experiences with Facebook, I have found this assumption to be inaccurate.

Alongside this personal information, whether it’s the absolute truth or a slight fabrication of the facts, every user gets to decide which images they wish to have rep-resent their lives as ‘facts’, they can be selective with which holiday snaps are most flattering, which photos of themselves at a house party make them seem most popular or having the most fun or exaggerate how close their family really is but the most important image, and this I would suggest goes for all the social media sites, is the users ‘Profile Picture’, This single image has the responsibility of summing up the user in the time it takes the viewer to take in what it is that they are see-ing, it is the literal example of judging a book by its cover. These images are the first thing a visitor to a page will see, specifically placed by the sites design-ers to catch the eye but there is nothing new about the sitter ‘exaggerating’ who they are, the famous words of Oliver Cromwell sums this up when he insisted 17th century portrait artist Peter Lely to show him ‘warts and all’; Famous for beautifying monarchs and heads of state with the intent to flatter and exaggerate their beauty and social standing. It has been this way throughout history, from the first renaissance artists to the first portrait photog-raphers of the 1800s, the human condition is that of a false representation of themselves, to be seen as more then they truly are. I have had my own facebook profile for over 8 years now and throughout that time have been in touch with friends all across the world and with greatly dif-fering social standings and they have all, including myself, been guilty of this ‘personal retouching’ but it is a deep set defence mechanism inherent in all hu-mans trying to satisfy judging eyes and persecution.

“Oftentimes photos and information are scrutinised for the sole purpose of extract-ing negative information…As a result of

this [people] feel pressure to depict them-selves as a physically and mentally perfect person in

their profile”- Natalie,G. Encino, CA

Preface: The Many Faces Of The Social Networks

To date it is estimated that more then two thirds of the population of our planet use at least one social networking site to share their daily lives, expe-riences, stories, personal information or stay in touch with distant friends and relatives. These sites have undoubtedly become the one single entity in the 21st century that has managed to unify the people from all walks of life wherever they are across the globe. There are over 400million users on Face-book alone making it the worlds leading networking site, compared to the population of world counties only Chine and India have more.

“We are building FaceBook to make the world more open and transparent, which we believe will create greater understand-

ing and connection.” The above extract from the FaceBook Princi-ples, available to all visitors of the site, sums up the in-tent and possibilities of such a world wide phenomena, but is it the world that is becoming more transparent or the lives of the users themselves? Many of these ‘social media sites’ as they are known focus on very different audiences through their design and layout, from the day to day activities shared on Facebook, up to the minute posts on Twitter, Musi-cal taste on MySpace or love for imagery and art on Flikr but all of these sites, and the hundreds of others across the globe, no matter how diverse they may seem have one unifying factor, all of these social media sites gives its users the opportunity to represent themselves however they see fit. It is up to the user to supply the information about who they are, where they live, their age, sex, favourite film, and every possible detail of their lives they choose to reveil; They are given the chance to lay bare to the world exactly who they are to the people they know and those they don’t, but how truthful are these facts which are so freely given away. You would think that everyone would create a page that corresponds with who they really are, their likes and dislikes, favorite memories and valued friend-ships without having to worry about being judged. In my experiences with Facebook, I have found this assumption to be inaccurate.

Alongside this personal information, whether it’s the absolute truth or a slight fabrication of the facts, every user gets to decide which images they wish to have rep-resent their lives as ‘facts’, they can be selective with which holiday snaps are most flattering, which photos of themselves at a house party make them seem most popular or having the most fun or exaggerate how close their family really is but the most important image, and this I would suggest goes for all the social media sites, is the users ‘Profile Picture’, This single image has the responsibility of summing up the user in the time it takes the viewer to take in what it is that they are see-ing, it is the literal example of judging a book by its cover. These images are the first thing a visitor to a page will see, specifically placed by the sites design-ers to catch the eye but there is nothing new about the sitter ‘exaggerating’ who they are, the famous words of Oliver Cromwell sums this up when he insisted 17th century portrait artist Peter Lely to show him ‘warts and all’; Famous for beautifying monarchs and heads of state with the intent to flatter and exaggerate their beauty and social standing. It has been this way throughout history, from the first renaissance artists to the first portrait photog-raphers of the 1800s, the human condition is that of a false representation of themselves, to be seen as more then they truly are. I have had my own facebook profile for over 8 years now and throughout that time have been in touch with friends all across the world and with greatly dif-fering social standings and they have all, including myself, been guilty of this ‘personal retouching’ but it is a deep set defence mechanism inherent in all hu-mans trying to satisfy judging eyes and persecution.

“Oftentimes photos and information are scrutinised for the sole purpose of extract-ing negative information…As a result of

this [people] feel pressure to depict them-selves as a physically and mentally perfect person in

their profile”- Natalie,G. Encino, CA

Preface: The Many Faces Of The Social Networks

Peter Lely’s Portrait of Cromwell “Warts and all”

“Mr Lely, I desire you would use all your skill to paint your picture truly like me, and not flatter me at all; but remark all these roughness, pimples, warts, and every-

thing as you see me: otherwise I will never pay a farthing for it.” -Oliver Cromwell

“While trying to be as objective as possible, I acknowledge that every gesture is still an act of artifi ce. Familiar faces are treated with the same levels of scrutiny as the un-famous.

The unknown and the too well known meet on a level platform that enables comparison, where a viewer’s existing notions of celebrity, value, and honesty are challenged.”

-Martin Schoeller

Schoeller, M. ‘Clint Eastwood’ 2008

For over seven years world renowned 21st century portrait photographer and master of self rep-resentation Martin Schoeller has been portraying in-ternational celebrities and everyday people alike in a unique and incomparable representation of their true individual personalities and distinctive characteristics through single head shots. Schoeller, who grew up in Germany, was deeply in-fluenced by August Sander’s portraits of the poor, the working class and the bourgeoisie; In this vast body of work ‘Close Up’ Scholler insisted on the minimal use of make up as well as doing without the usual post shoot ‘touch up’ laying the sitter bare to his penetrating photographic style, Schoeller removes their masks and allows them to be seen candidly to the public they have spent their lifetimes trying to convince of their perfec-tion and immortality. His exhibition at The Kennedys gallery in Ber-lin became a temporary catwalk of his photographic work and revealed the faces behind those who have so much sway on the notions of fashion, beauty, ideas and trends.

‘Close up’ Martin Schoeller

This idea of honest representation is rarely seen in to-day’s society where modern generations emulate their favourite celebrities through branded make up, clothing and hairstyle. Schoellers exploration into indentity and image was one of the main inspirations for my work on social network portraiture; For me it unveiled the idea of minimilist portraiture that gives a fair and honest representaion of the person viewed withing the frame and creates a connection with the viewer through the subjects gaze.

“While trying to be as objective as possible, I acknowledge that every gesture is still an act of artifi ce. Familiar faces are treated with the same levels of scrutiny as the un-famous.

The unknown and the too well known meet on a level platform that enables comparison, where a viewer’s existing notions of celebrity, value, and honesty are challenged.”

-Martin Schoeller

Schoeller, M. ‘Clint Eastwood’ 2008

For over seven years world renowned 21st century portrait photographer and master of self rep-resentation Martin Schoeller has been portraying in-ternational celebrities and everyday people alike in a unique and incomparable representation of their true individual personalities and distinctive characteristics through single head shots. Schoeller, who grew up in Germany, was deeply in-fluenced by August Sander’s portraits of the poor, the working class and the bourgeoisie; In this vast body of work ‘Close Up’ Scholler insisted on the minimal use of make up as well as doing without the usual post shoot ‘touch up’ laying the sitter bare to his penetrating photographic style, Schoeller removes their masks and allows them to be seen candidly to the public they have spent their lifetimes trying to convince of their perfec-tion and immortality. His exhibition at The Kennedys gallery in Ber-lin became a temporary catwalk of his photographic work and revealed the faces behind those who have so much sway on the notions of fashion, beauty, ideas and trends.

‘Close up’ Martin Schoeller

This idea of honest representation is rarely seen in to-day’s society where modern generations emulate their favourite celebrities through branded make up, clothing and hairstyle. Schoellers exploration into indentity and image was one of the main inspirations for my work on social network portraiture; For me it unveiled the idea of minimilist portraiture that gives a fair and honest representaion of the person viewed withing the frame and creates a connection with the viewer through the subjects gaze.

The 30 day project came to exist after a dis-cussion with a group of friends about the amount of effort people put into their profile pictures on social networking sites and how most of us could hardly rec-ognise the user even if we had known them for years. We made a game out of showing the profile pictures of people who we interact with on an almost daily basis to determine if we could tell who they were; I was personally caught out on several, including a young woman who had served me coffee twice a day for the past 7 weeks at the local franchise coffee shop, the very coffee shop we were sat in at that time. The conversation soon turned to the new re-quirements in normal social interactions and how much a persons life often revolves around their online pro-files. There are new rules of etiquette to be followed when meeting people in today’s society which has spawned directly from social networking; for example, a conversation with a new acquaintance will often start with one person saying “Oh I know you, you’re on the beach in your profile picture” and ends with “Nice to have met you, find me on FaceBook.” It’s true that in the last few years meeting some-body one day will result in a ‘friend request’ from them the next. If it has now become the social norm that meet-ing and greeting each other consists of discussing ones individual online profile then these images held more weight then I had previously given them credit for, af-ter all, most social sites have specific areas dedicated to that users personal information, their job title, where they went to school, and where they live, but it was the

general consensus in the group that very little attention was ever paid to this information that had been laid bare by the user for all to see and that the validity of the information within the image was rarely questioned, it had become a virtual mask to hide behind. I decided that taking advantage of this new so-cial interaction would be an interesting way to push the idea of what a persons ‘profile picture’ should be. Rath-er then being a way to recognise each other, to present oneself, or a way to make ones self feel more socially acceptable then I could turn this imagery into a point of discussion far beyond these conventions, an online exhibition if you will of the possibilities of portraiture and a satirical twist on how the profile pictures can be as false as the information supplied alongside it. Not knowing what kind of person I really am or where my life is heading how can I know how to represent myself in a true light? Schoeller’s example couldn’t work for me, as I am not known for wearing make-up. The only logical step for me was to make a series of portraits of myself that commented on the ease of falsifying ones image though a simple change of ap-pearance and to recreate myself in anyway I saw fit. With the use of items scattered around the house collected over the years I donned new attire on a daily basis and set about producing a new image every day for one month, relying on feedback and comments to judge the outcome of the work along the way to enhance the work and maintain public interest for this online exhibition.

‘30 Day Project’ Andrew Hussey

Re-Creation Through Self Portraiture

no.10

The 30 day project came to exist after a dis-cussion with a group of friends about the amount of effort people put into their profile pictures on social networking sites and how most of us could hardly rec-ognise the user even if we had known them for years. We made a game out of showing the profile pictures of people who we interact with on an almost daily basis to determine if we could tell who they were; I was personally caught out on several, including a young woman who had served me coffee twice a day for the past 7 weeks at the local franchise coffee shop, the very coffee shop we were sat in at that time. The conversation soon turned to the new re-quirements in normal social interactions and how much a persons life often revolves around their online pro-files. There are new rules of etiquette to be followed when meeting people in today’s society which has spawned directly from social networking; for example, a conversation with a new acquaintance will often start with one person saying “Oh I know you, you’re on the beach in your profile picture” and ends with “Nice to have met you, find me on FaceBook.” It’s true that in the last few years meeting some-body one day will result in a ‘friend request’ from them the next. If it has now become the social norm that meet-ing and greeting each other consists of discussing ones individual online profile then these images held more weight then I had previously given them credit for, af-ter all, most social sites have specific areas dedicated to that users personal information, their job title, where they went to school, and where they live, but it was the

general consensus in the group that very little attention was ever paid to this information that had been laid bare by the user for all to see and that the validity of the information within the image was rarely questioned, it had become a virtual mask to hide behind. I decided that taking advantage of this new so-cial interaction would be an interesting way to push the idea of what a persons ‘profile picture’ should be. Rath-er then being a way to recognise each other, to present oneself, or a way to make ones self feel more socially acceptable then I could turn this imagery into a point of discussion far beyond these conventions, an online exhibition if you will of the possibilities of portraiture and a satirical twist on how the profile pictures can be as false as the information supplied alongside it. Not knowing what kind of person I really am or where my life is heading how can I know how to represent myself in a true light? Schoeller’s example couldn’t work for me, as I am not known for wearing make-up. The only logical step for me was to make a series of portraits of myself that commented on the ease of falsifying ones image though a simple change of ap-pearance and to recreate myself in anyway I saw fit. With the use of items scattered around the house collected over the years I donned new attire on a daily basis and set about producing a new image every day for one month, relying on feedback and comments to judge the outcome of the work along the way to enhance the work and maintain public interest for this online exhibition.

‘30 Day Project’ Andrew Hussey

Re-Creation Through Self Portraiture

no.10

no.06

no.06 no.25

presents a side of peoples individuality that is rarely captured in portraiture where the subject is aware of the camera. For this new series diCorcia attached a strobe light to scaffolding in Times Square and stood far away focusing through a long lens. The result was a series of crisp, stark head shots of individuals picked out from the crowds and separated by darkness from the city and their surroundings. They are simple intimate images but unaware of the camera the subjects are absorbed in thought or with an almost vacant gaze, they are a record of how we act most of the time, walking down the street, in a crowd, focused on something or nothing. Using carefully planned staging, he takes banality out of the everyday and attempts to create a connection with the viewer between the psychology and emotion contained in real-life situations.

Earlier this year I began looking at the work of Philip-Lorca diCorcia and his series entitled ‘Heads’. I have seen his work several times prior to this but as I started to question the ideas behind portraiture and why I am so turned off by the idea of portrait photography I began researching artist who have also questioned the ideas, it helped inform the work of my ‘30 day proj-ect’ and the new work on the portraits of the social net-works. Since the early 90s Philip-Lorca diCorcia has been redefining the ideas and traditions of street and portrait photography, combining the two to create something new entirely. He began this process by photographing strangers caught in his strobe light, The series called ‘Street-work’ turned pedestrians into unsuspecting subjects on the sidewalks of locations such as Sunset Boulevard, Tokyo, and Paris. From here diCorcia moved onto the project of my focus entitled ‘Heads’, a mixture of por-traiture and candid street photography that captures and

‘Heads’ Philip-Lorca diCorcia

Lorca diCorcia ‘Head no.01’

“Everybody starts to look the same and all young people have the same piercings and you know, whatever fad, whether its a wool cap, or Converse, you know, you start to see it and you know, everybody all over the world has

the same thing on. It actually turns out that the only people who are the individuals are the nuts”- Philip-Lorca diCorcia

presents a side of peoples individuality that is rarely captured in portraiture where the subject is aware of the camera. For this new series diCorcia attached a strobe light to scaffolding in Times Square and stood far away focusing through a long lens. The result was a series of crisp, stark head shots of individuals picked out from the crowds and separated by darkness from the city and their surroundings. They are simple intimate images but unaware of the camera the subjects are absorbed in thought or with an almost vacant gaze, they are a record of how we act most of the time, walking down the street, in a crowd, focused on something or nothing. Using carefully planned staging, he takes banality out of the everyday and attempts to create a connection with the viewer between the psychology and emotion contained in real-life situations.

Earlier this year I began looking at the work of Philip-Lorca diCorcia and his series entitled ‘Heads’. I have seen his work several times prior to this but as I started to question the ideas behind portraiture and why I am so turned off by the idea of portrait photography I began researching artist who have also questioned the ideas, it helped inform the work of my ‘30 day proj-ect’ and the new work on the portraits of the social net-works. Since the early 90s Philip-Lorca diCorcia has been redefining the ideas and traditions of street and portrait photography, combining the two to create something new entirely. He began this process by photographing strangers caught in his strobe light, The series called ‘Street-work’ turned pedestrians into unsuspecting subjects on the sidewalks of locations such as Sunset Boulevard, Tokyo, and Paris. From here diCorcia moved onto the project of my focus entitled ‘Heads’, a mixture of por-traiture and candid street photography that captures and

‘Heads’ Philip-Lorca diCorcia

Lorca diCorcia ‘Head no.01’

regulations the images are of full head shots lit us-ing a ring flash to remove shadow and capture as much detail as possible, the sitter must have a neu-tral expression against a neutral background and fol-lowing the official rules of the passport office the images cannot be digitally amended ‘this may mean the photograph is no longer a “true” likeness’. Initially all the sitters were my own friends from my FaceBook page but as the idea grows the in-tent will be to include as many people as possible, all the images will be added to the ongoing website un-til a sufficient number of images have been collected and everybody’s new portrait will be uploaded as their profile image on the same day creating an online gal-lery that can be seen across the network, with the website tagged on the photo anybody viewing the individuals por-trait will be able to access the website.

Beginning in winter 2011 the ‘Portraits of New Social Media’ project is an ongoing body of work that ques-tions the power of portraiture within social networking sites and the falsifications inherent within the imagry. The work of Martin Schoeller and Philip Lorca diCorcia seen within this publication have in-formed the concept of capturing an honest physi-cal representation, one that doesn’t give any in-sight into a persons personality false or otherwise.The idea is that a person’s appearance in this instance doesn’t give any clue as to the personality and that all the available information needs to be combined to assemble a complete insight into the true person.Even after informing participants as to the nature of the work I am still amazed at peoples initial re-action when asked to take part, there are always two basic responses, ‘let me put a bit of makeup on first’ or ‘let me just stick some decent clothes on’. Following the rules of the UK passport photo

‘Portraits of New Social Media’ Andrew Hussey

Collins, A.Hussey, A.

regulations the images are of full head shots lit us-ing a ring flash to remove shadow and capture as much detail as possible, the sitter must have a neu-tral expression against a neutral background and fol-lowing the official rules of the passport office the images cannot be digitally amended ‘this may mean the photograph is no longer a “true” likeness’. Initially all the sitters were my own friends from my FaceBook page but as the idea grows the in-tent will be to include as many people as possible, all the images will be added to the ongoing website un-til a sufficient number of images have been collected and everybody’s new portrait will be uploaded as their profile image on the same day creating an online gal-lery that can be seen across the network, with the website tagged on the photo anybody viewing the individuals por-trait will be able to access the website.

Beginning in winter 2011 the ‘Portraits of New Social Media’ project is an ongoing body of work that ques-tions the power of portraiture within social networking sites and the falsifications inherent within the imagry. The work of Martin Schoeller and Philip Lorca diCorcia seen within this publication have in-formed the concept of capturing an honest physi-cal representation, one that doesn’t give any in-sight into a persons personality false or otherwise.The idea is that a person’s appearance in this instance doesn’t give any clue as to the personality and that all the available information needs to be combined to assemble a complete insight into the true person.Even after informing participants as to the nature of the work I am still amazed at peoples initial re-action when asked to take part, there are always two basic responses, ‘let me put a bit of makeup on first’ or ‘let me just stick some decent clothes on’. Following the rules of the UK passport photo

‘Portraits of New Social Media’ Andrew Hussey

Collins, A.Hussey, A.

Jocelyn, D.

Bown, J J

“In the mid 1840s, a German photographer invented the fi rst technique for retouching a negative... when two of the same portraits were presented in Paris, one retouched the other one not, the crowd was astounded and the news that the camera CAN LIE made getting photographed much more popular. After this revolution in retouching, from Nadar on, people didn’t need to be afraid of the result any-more. Since then, photographers are able to serve the aes-

thetically pleasant in the name of truth, in the name of sophistication and prettier lies.”

-Susan Sontag ‘On Photography’ 1977