Abstract

Refocusing the Lens
Images of women saturate our world- photographs of women grace magazine covers and centerfolds, images of women sell beer and books, and art works of women, naked, draped, or clothed, fill museums. These images, even if not created by men, are usually created for the male gaze. In an instant we can read which stereotype of a woman we are meant to understand- virgin, whore, mother, feminist. There is no dialogue between the viewer and the viewed.
In this project, I attempt to open a space for discourse in which women position themselves as subjects. The women become signs, signifying what they choose to signify. The male perspective that has dominated the photographic landscape, in particular the commercial, placing the female subject into an “unreal” position, is put aside. The typical cultural constructs of women, or stereotypes, which also do not reflect reality, disappear in the reality of the photograph. The subject of the photograph and the photographer enter into conversation in order to create an identity, focusing closely on those parts of the subject’s identity most in flux, in order to define this identity more fully. Values typically termed masculine as well as those categorized as feminine are acknowledged. The subject is stepping outside of the confines of her culture to define who she wants to be on this occasion.
The viewer is invited to step outside as well and join this conversation, negotiating her or his own meaning just as the subject of the photograph has negotiated her presentation to the viewer with herself and the photographer.