Photographer Research- Phebe Schmidt

About

Schmidt is an Australian photographer whom uses bright contemporary colours and stylised imagery to challenge a variety of controversial beliefs and reviews from beauty to gender to sexuality.

Photography

Denotation- Makeup is smudged.

Connotation- Makeup is necessary for beauty.

Social, Cultural, Historical and Political meaning- Societies standards for beauty force women to change their appearance.

Denotation- Woman looking into a mirror.

Connotation- Vanity and obsession with beauty throughout history.

Social, Cultural, Historical and Political meaning- This image draws context from ancient Greece and their concepts of beauty.

Denotation- A half naked woman carrying a tray with milk positioned over her breasts.

Connotation- Diamond incrusted collar conveys the idea that women can be bought by men (diamonds are a girls best friend) and shows the fact that men can be seen as having a higher status than women.  The tray of milk suggests that women should stay at home and raise children opposed to working.

Social, Cultural, Historical and Political meaning- The social connotations of this image are the fact that up until relatively recently women's lives were governed by the phrase "women belong in the kitchen".

Denotation- A women trapped underneath a sheet of plastic.

Connotation- Women are trapped by societies ideals of how they should act.  The plastic and lack of makeup symbolises the fact that women are supposed to be pristine and pure.

Social, Cultural, Historical and Political meaning- Culturally this piece shows the way in which society traps women and discourages them from breaking away from stereotypes.

Denotation- A collection of surgical instruments.

Connotation- Background colour green is associated with hospitals and medical procedures, given the context of the artist connotations of plastic surgery and the idea of their being a perfect form of beauty in society.

Social, Cultural, Historical and Political meaning- Social connotations of this image are the ideas of beauty enforced upon women by society which may lead them to feel the need to alter their appearance so fit into society.

Schmidt's photographic style is unique in it's use of rich bold colouration and surrealist object and subject placement.  This slightly left of centre approach to photography is what ultimately drew me to her work as she is one of the first photographers which I discovered whom had found ways to put a fun and somewhat surreal twist into her work something that I hope to achieve in my shoots.  I could replicate Schmidt's style through the use of bold coloured back ground or quirky and surreal object placement in an attempt to engage my viewers whilst discussing the tough subject of the feminist cause and the issues surrounding gender norms and equality.