Recently, I completed writing an essay based on a fashion photograph. I was given the photograph ‘Vera Cruz’ by Sarah Moon.
To begin with, I couldn’t get much from this image given its blurred effect, but I soon realised this would be a key element of my analysis. Once I started brainstorming, ideas soon came to me easier than I originally thought they would. I saw the woman in the image in the sex industry due to her clothing, with there being a blurred effect to the photograph to protect her identity. However, another take on this was that her face is the most blurred part of the photograph and her body the crispest, suggesting that is how others see her, purely for her body and not her true identity. I explained this in my essay as:
‘The boldest features of her face are the dark colour and outline of her lips and eyes. Her mouth appears to be emotionless and straight-faced, suggesting a loss of happiness when she is at work. The blurred expression also suggests a feeling of loneliness, as despite constantly being around people in her work, no real connections are truly formed, and she is alone when the night is over. This could also be because she is only seen for her body and nothing else, suggesting why the outline of her body and clothing is the clearest part of the photograph.’
Writing essays seem almost foreign to me at this point from having such a long time of not doing anything essay based. When we were first given the brief, I thought I’d be perfectly fine due to doing quite academic A-Levels, but when it came to me sitting down and starting, I felt like I was sat staring at a blank page for hours. I had no idea how to actually start a paragraph anymore. I started so many sentences and just gave up halfway because they were clearly going nowhere. So, instead of me staring at a massive mind map of multiple ideas, I realised I needed to actually make a plan of what points to cover in my essay. This simple action really helped, and I instantly found it a lot easier to start writing properly.
We had to include references to fashion history in the essay which made me realise I don’t have much of a deeper knowledge in fashion history. In fact, when I tried to think of any references my brain was blank. Luckily, my photograph was mentioned in the seminar with my lecturers giving some examples of references I could use, which was extremely helpful. A key figure in my semiotic analysis was the most photographed woman of her era, Bettie Page. I compared the stance of the woman in Moon’s photograph and one of Bettie Page, shown below. I stated:
‘The similarities between the two photographs are two curvaceous women embracing their sensuality, in little clothing and welcoming poses to the camera. However, the mood of the two images seems very different, with Page being happy and enjoying being in front of the camera, whereas in Moon’s photograph, the woman is trying to exude that same energy but there is a sense of hopelessness and a lack of happiness.’
Despite originally not seeing much in my photograph, I soon managed to dissect it into many different levels, and I was happy with my interpretation in the end. Analysing imagery links back to my History A-Level, and the analysis itself links to English Literature, so I quite enjoyed the task once I got into the swing of things.
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