Images of hair have held a cultural and fashion interest for photographers. Marc Laroche often photographs the movement and structure of hair. Fabien Baron and Alex Styles have explored unusual hair styles in their fashion photography. In her project ‘East Flatbush, Brooklyn’, Sabrina Santiago documents hair salons and the part they play in the African Caribbean community. J.D. ’Okhai Ojeikere documented the intricacy of patterns and textures in hundreds of Nigerian hairstyles.
Study appropriate sources and produce your own work inspired by Hair.
Sabrina Santiago's East Flatbush series
J.D. Okhai Ojeeikere
Study appropriate sources and produce your own work inspired by Hair.
Sabrina Santiago's East Flatbush series
J.D. Okhai Ojeeikere
What I have chosen and why.
I have decided to pick hair as my new theme. I chose this because I am interested in the how people express the way they are feeling through they're hair and the different culture and backgrounds of different type of hairs, I find this theme interesting because there are so many different ways that people feel about they're hair and how their hair presents them as a person, for example afro/Caribbeans don't just think of braiding as a style but they see it as a style of art.
My initial ideas for my theme
My first thoughts of what to do for my project was to research the background of Afro/Caribbean hairstyles and where they originated and how people with that type of hair textures felt about they're hair so I decided to research the J.D. Okhai Ojeikere who documents the patterns and textures of a range of African hairstyles.
Here are a few of the photos she had taken.
I an intrigued in how she took pictures of the back of peoples hair instead of the front so that the focus is not on the peoples faces. I decided to remake the photos but i decided to change my idea for what am gonna do for my theme and instead of doing afro/Caribbean background I am looking into how people express themselves and they're emotions for they're hair.
Man Ray research
This image by surrealist photographer Man Ray depicts a woman with very long, wavy hair lying with her head tilted back and her hair cascading downwards to the floor. It reminds me of a waterfall. This is a kind of visual pun. It's strange to see a face upside down and this adds to the slightly dreamlike quality of the picture. The woman could be asleep although it's hard to tell. The composition is carefully arranged so that the hair is central and the background is dark to contrast with the light hair.
I decided to use this image as inspiration for a photoshoot with one of my classmates.She has long straight hair so to respond to the image I put a long white paper on the edge of a table and then made her lay on the table with her hair cascading to the floor as well like in the picture, in my photo I did not include her face in the photo. After taking a series of photos I went to photoshop so I could change the photo to black and white and then cropped the image so it was straight. |
My response.
Before and after version.
After I had made the photoshop version of my image I went to the dark room to turn my photos from a positive to a negative. I made a test strip so I would be able to see what would be the best exposure, I took a thick piece of card paper and moved it up the paper every second for the first strip. I then did another every two seconds for the second strip. The exposure time I had decided to go with was 25 seconds as it was between 24 and 26 seconds which was the best.