My Breast For Posterity By Jo Spence Essay

Joan Jacobs Brumberg’s work, The Body Project: An Intimate History of American Girls, examines how American societal changes are reflected on the female body. Brumberg’s work draws primarily from the diaries of young American girls, giving intimate glimpses into the inner workings of their minds about how they relate to their bodies.

For this essay the works of Robert Draper, author of “Why Photos Matter,” and Fred Ritchen, author of “Photography Changes the Way News is Reported,” will be analyzed. Though both deal with the topic of photography, their take on the matter is very different. While Ritchen is a photographer who writes on “what professional photographers will be doing in the future,” Draper is a writer for the National Geographic writing on how the photographers of the magazine share “a hunger for the unknown.” Both writers, however, write on the topic of photographers having a deeper understanding of their subjects, Ritchen due to research and practice, and Draper because the photographers “sit [with] their subjects, just listening to them.” In both essays the need for a deeper understanding of the

And for the other half of the assignment, in this part I choose contemporary photographer Sheila Pree Bright. The reason I selected Sheila Pree Bright is largely her work, which not only was amazing but also portraying wide ranges of contemporary society and its flaws. Moreover, she seems to found a way to show what Generation Y’s view on society look like as if it were a documentary kind of like the photos of Dorothea Lange. Therefore, the next paragraph I will talk about, her works and what are my thoughts on them.

In this paper I will evaluate two artworks that share the same theme of “motherhood and breastfeeding.” In the last few years, the sexualization of breastfeeding has become a big issue. This is due to people see breast as sexual objects and think that women are being exhibitionist, and are doing it just to flaunt their breasts in public. Breastfeeding mothers are faced with the public criticism as they struggle to breastfeed their child, although it is the most natural and healthy method of feeding. The first artwork is by Mary Cassatt and is titled Mother Rose Nursing her Child. This painting was created in the 1900s and it depicts a woman breastfeeding her child. The second piece is a contemporary portrait created by Catherine Opie titled Self-Portrait Nursing. The portrait depicts a modern mother also nursing her child. When comparing both of these pieces of art I plan to focus on the beauty of motherhood and the bond between mother and child. In this paper I will discuss the social issue of mother’s being criticized for breastfeeding in public. Now more than ever women’s breasts are being overly sexualized when they are not a sexual organ, but in fact a part of their body used to feed another human being.

Mann’s series Immediate Family, a collection published in 1992, in which used her husband and children as her subjects launched her into the photography world gained her international recognition. Due to the nature in which she photographed her children, which were

 To adequately understand today’s view of a woman’s breast, one must know the background. The main purpose of the breast, otherwise known as the mammary gland, is to produce milk throughout the infant stages of childhood. This being factual, the breast was looked upon as a giver of life in times of the prophet Jesus Christ. Paintings and sculptures delineate this by women having one or both glands exposed while in the presence of a child. The strife people see today with these paintings was never reflected by the artists of the era because the perception was different. Responses of strife weren’t applicable until the Victorian Age in the mid-1800s when women were expected to cover more of their body.

Before starting this project, I knew very little about photography, photographers, or exactly how much impact photographical images have had on our society. I have never taken a photography class, or researched too in depth about specific pictures or photographers. This project has allowed me to delve deeper into the world of photography in order to understand just how much influence pictures can have over society’s beliefs, emotions, and understandings’. I have have chosen two highly influential photographers, Diane Arbus and Dorothea Lange, who I have found to both resonate with me and perfectly capture human emotions in way that moves others.

As photography was being used more and more as a method of documentation, they were among the first to use it to push social reform efforts. They closely documented the devastating effects of industrialization and urbanization on the working-class American. Through their work they brought attention to the need for housing and (child) labor laws. They used their medium to bring real proof to the public and legislators, where it needed to be seen. Actually, instead of documentary photography, it may best be called social reform photography, as they both worked tirelessly and used the medium to force attention and to effect social change.

Her work is based on events happening and who and what was most popular through the 1930’s and the eventful changes happening throughout. Her work through the time of 1930’s New York documentation took the camera on a journey through the changed and events happening at this specific time, her main idea was to get across the point of why she documented New York and to show the dramatic changed that a year can make to such a big city at this time. She documented different areas of New York including the urban scene and the architecture that represented New York in such a big way. She had focused on a lot of types of photography throughout the start of her career and moved on to architecture when documenting New York as she embarked on new found interests in her career. Her main focus was to base her photography on the ‘Changing New York’ and that the time of the 1930’s had such a huge

In this essay we will be looking at the ways contemporary artists represent the body. And how we no longer look to art for idealist portrayals of the human form. Through contemporary art the body has become a territory and vessel, which can transmit ideas within our society. We will be exploring theories surrounding this topic, particularly notes from Mulvey's 'The Gaze' and Leo Bersani's 'The Freudian Gaze'; where they have successfully pinpointed why society's depiction of the human body has become romanticised and idealised. We have decided to analyse the work of Jenny Saville and the way in which she paints series of her grotesque and yet entirely realistic self portrait.

Carr constructs what one could think of as a fabricated photographic archive, created by combining the photographs of “trophies” with untraditional portraits of herself and the men in her immediate family, alongside personal family photographs. Exploring the involvement men have had in her life; these images, like objects stored

No other artist has ever made as extended or complex career of presenting herself to the camera as has Cindy Sherman. Yet, while all of her photographs are taken of Cindy Sherman, it is impossible to class call her works self-portraits. She has transformed and staged herself into as unnamed actresses in undefined B movies, make-believe television characters, pretend porn stars, undifferentiated young women in ambivalent emotional states, fashion mannequins, monsters form fairly tales and those which she has created, bodies with deformities, and numbers of grotesqueries. Her work as been praised and embraced by both feminist political groups and apolitical mainstream art. Essentially, Sherman's photography is part of the culture and

Sontag mentions when Arbus committed suicide in 1971 her work became more popular and that seemed to secure the feeling of sincerity in her work and that it is “not voyeuristic, that it is compassionate, not cold” (1997, 31). This contradicts the previous statement that Sontag made about how her photographs of “pathetic” and “pitable” subjects do not arouse any compassion. The critique also highlights how Arbus chose subjects that were “lying about, without any values attached to them” taking pictures of the unknown. Shainbergs fur gives another point of view on how to interpret Diane Arbus and her photography.

To acknowledge the health beings of a women is quite scary knowing that in about 1 in 8 women in the U.S will develop breast cancer. By this year of 2016 going into 2017 there will approximately be 246,660 cases found. The 20th century is described to be the cancer century. One main cancer I wanted to talk about that has my full attention was breast cancer. The important ways of looking at breast cancer as a tremendous problem is because we are losing our women to this disease. Categorizing the main issues to give clarification for those who know of it but know little knowledge or have no knowledge. Based on the information in my research I have supporting details for the definition of breast cancer, the treatments and cures for breast cancer, how things would be different without treatments , the causes and effects, stages, the breast cancer awareness month etc. However, around the world there are a ton of women affected by Breast cancers in the United States without signs and clues they will or have the cancer.

Sally Mann’s style incorporates black and white photographs of her children, which are presented with “ordinary moments of childhood, suspended in time and transformed into aesthetic objects, takes on a distorted, even uncanny quality” (Arnason and Mansfield 719). Sally Mann photographed The New Mothers in 1989. This photograph’s most dominant elements are value and space. Having the photographs black and white really enhances the visibility of values. Most of Mann’s work is outside and has a define depth of field to blur out the background and emphasize the focus of the children. This compositional style helps to identify the high and low key values within the photos. The clothes, the reflection of the sun on the girls’ hair, and the girls fair skin are the part of the image that show high-key values, while the rest of the photo in more middle and low-key values. The intense depth of field increases a feeling of space for the viewer. In the photo you can see that the two young girls and their stroller is all in a line horizontally. Behind the girls you can notice they are outside in a open area because of the blurred grass and trees behind them. This photograph’s most dominant principles are movement and variety. The depth of field and lack of distraction in the background of the photo allows your eye to focus and move around with the subjects in the photo. The height of the subjects forms a triangle shape, which is