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J O S H U A F R A YP R O G R E S S M A P

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Within this booklet I will show my journey to completion of this dissertation. I shall dis-

cuss my thought process and methods, how I obtained in-

formation, and what difficul-ties I had.

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Adam and Eve ,1538Lucas Cranach The Elder

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Le Violon d’Ingres, 1982Man Ray

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September

September 1st - I decided I wanted a minimum of 2 interviews within my dissertation Also decided that ideally, these two interviews would be contrasting, therefore one interview from somebody related to contem-portray photography, and the other related to classical paintings.

September 4th - Created an essay plan, dividing my dissertation into 3 chapters. For comparative puposes between contemporary photography and classical painting, three chapters works well as it allowed for individ-ual chapters of the two mediums, followed by a comparative chapter.

September 10th - Having interned in New York, I met a fashion photogra-pher called Andrea Blanch. She was quite strong minded so I thought she’d be perfect to interview. I contacted her via email to see if she’d be interested.

September 13th - Researched thoroughly on the University library to find examples of sexualisation and objectification of women in both classi-cal paintings and contemporary photography. Found examples such as Man Ray’s Le Violin d’Ingres and Michelangelo’s The Fall of Man which I scanned to use as illustratons within my text. Also began to write Chapter 1.

September 16th - Read John Berger’s Ways of Seeing which was hugely

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beneficial as in one of his essays Berger suggests a similarity between oil paintings and 70’s advertisements.

September 20th - Thoroughly researched the objectification and sexual-isation of women in American Apparel adverts online. From this I began to explore Tom Ford adverts, and photographer Terry Richardson, re-nowned for his sexual exploitation of models. I found alot of material on this, including a YouTube interview with models who had formerly been exposed to his “sexploitation”.

September 22nd - Received a reply from fashion photographer Andrea Blanch, who said she’d be more than willing, but would take her a few weeks as she was closing an issue of her magazine. I sent a range of ques-tions over and asked her to answer as many as she could.

September 25th - After attending an exhibition opening a few years ago, I met an art critic called Jon Sharples. Renaissance Art is something I knew he had studied, so I contacted him via email to see if he could answer some of my questions.

September 27th - Received a reply from Jon Sharples who said he’d be “delighted” to answer some questions. He had a really tight schedule so as he wasn’t able to make time for a sit down interview, so I sent questions via email.

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Ways of Seeing, 1972John Berger

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Le Déjeuner sur l’herbe, 1863-18682nd VersionThe Courtauld Gallery, London

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October

October 1st - After researching Manet’s Le Déjeuner sur l’herbe online (a painting I used in my dissertation proposal and knew it would progress to be a key feature in my dissertation), I found out that a second version was created by Manet, which resided at The Courtauld Gallery in London. I went to see it so as I could gain a first hand experience of the piece. Hav-ing seen the first painting so much online, it was really great to get a look at the second version with my own eyes.

October 3rd - Received answers from Jon Sharples, he made some re-ally interesting points, notably about the “historical hangovers” of how women are depicted. He also reccomended a friend of his called Aindrea Emelie, who’s an art crttic and writer for the Financial Times. I emailed Aindrea a further few questions and she responded right away saying she’d love to be part of my research, and would get back to me with her answers within the week.

October 4th - Feedback from my dissertation tutor. I struggled a little to articulate everything into a 10 minute slot, but she liked where my pro-ject was going.

October 10th - Began to struggle with Chapter 1, was concerned that the content I was writing wasn’t strong, so I began Chapter 2 to freshen my mind a little.

October 14th - Whilst back home up North I managed to obtain a copy of Lynda Nead’s The Female Nude: Art, Obscenity and Sexuality from Liver-pool Library. A fantastic book which produced some invaluable quotes, this helped me further my idea’s for Chapter 1.

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October 17th - Found a perfect example of the influences that classical painting has had on contemporary photography when I came across the Yves Saint Laurent 1999 Spring/Summer campaign. It sparked my ex-citement and confidence for Chapter 3, which I began loosely writing. It became apparent to me that I write far better when I don’t conern myself with finishing each chapter chronolgically before moving onto the next. Jumping between chapters allowed be to think of points that I might not have, had I written the piece in order.

October 20th - Received Aindrea’s responses via email. Although some of her answers were a little farther field than what I was writing, she made some interesting points regarding fashion campaigns, and confirmed my thoughts on the inclusion of theYves Saint Laurent campaign.

October 22nd - Decided I wanted to begin Chapter 2 with the history of women’s rights and key influences such as the Suffragettes, so I looked online and gathered appropriate facts.

October 29th - Previous week was spent finalising Chapter 1, which was immediately sent off to be proof read by a friend, Ben Llewelyn.

October 31st - Whilst back home again I had another opportunity to go to Liverpool Library. I found a great article by philosopher Martha Nuss-baum on objectification, which I pulled a quote from that would fit per-fectly into my introduction.

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Yves Saint Laurent Spring/Summer 1999 CampaignMario Sorrenti

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Oh Lola! Marc Jacobs2011 Fragrance CampaignJürgen Teller

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NovemberNovember 4th - After taking a few days off to refersh my mind, I began putting in the hours to write, as the deadline was looming. I got into a really good pattern of attend-ing the library on my own most days, without anybody to distract me, this was also invaluable as it meant I could get help with referencing. Along with the Ravensbourne Harvard Referencing guideline, I also used a book that I found in the library called Cite Them Right by Richard Pears and Graham Shields. This was a huge help, as Ra-vensbourne’s guidelines hadn’t included certain examples of things that I needed to reference.

November 5th - Received Chapter 1 back from Ben, he advised me to make very minor corrections, but said he really enjoyed it, and was looking forward to the rest.

November 7th - I hadn’t been referencing my illustrations as I wasn’t entirely sure on how it was done, so I asked my tutor and spent the day referencing them correctly.

November 10th - Completed Chapter 2, it went on a little longer than expected but I felt it was all very necessary information. I was really happy with the way it turned out, adding in a section about The Sun’s Page 3, as it’s something I feel very storongly against. Sent off to Ben to proof read - I preferred sending in chunks, so as it wasn’t as big a task for him.

November 11th - Got stuck in with Chapter 3, I’d been briefly writing things in the word document (I had a different Word document for each chapter so as I couldn’t look at the word count as a collective), so began to articulate this in a more readable way.

November 17th - After finalising Chapter 3, which I really enjoyed writing, I began to reword the random things I’d jotted down into my Inroduction and Conclusion Word documents.

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November 18th - I decided I wanted to include Marc Jacobs’ banned advert Oh Lola! depicting an over sexualised Dakota Fanning in my conclusion to end on a strong note. It’s an image that received alot of bad press, and it echoed my lead question quite well.

November 20th - After finishing my Introduction and Dissertation, I sent everything off to Ben to proof read. I also combed through to see if there was anything that I’d missed our or wasn’t happy with. There were minor changes, but I was mostly happy.

November 22nd - I received the final proof read with corrections to make, back from Ben. Again, all very minor things, a few words that had been repeated here and there, which made me feel confident and quite triumphant.

November 25th - Attended a guest lecture by Roger Tooth who’s the Head of Photogra-phy at The Guardian. Although very last minute, I thought it’d be agreat oportunity to get a quote from him to quickly slot into my dissertation. I asked him a question at the end to which he responded brilliantly, so I managed to include it just in time.

November 26th - After tidying up my Dissertation document (line spaces, fonts etc), I thought about how I wanted to present my progress map (as it had all just been com-piled into one long Word document). I decided to go with making a booklet, a little similar to something you’d see as a hand out in an exhibition. I felt it would be much more aesthetically pleasing, and would allow me to touch up on my Adobe InDesign skills.

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On completion of ths dissertation I’ve learnt alot about the way I work, and how I can get the most out of myself. I’ve gained an invaluable understanding into classical paintings, society, objectification of women which is something I’ve grown quite compassionate about. The things I’ve learnt throughout writing this dissertation will no don’t influence my future work al-lowing me to reference a wider knowledge of art, that

I didn’t previously have.

J O S H U A F R A Y P R O G R E S S M A P


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