Fashion Photography Analysis

Saga Sig - Native & Naive (for Flux Magazine)

This image is part of a series by Saga Sig called 'Native and Naive' produced for Flux Magazine, presumably as a fashion editorial piece. I chose this image out of the series as it stood out to me as it is different to a conventional fashion photograph.
I initially noticed the scratched effect on top of the image which reminded me of the Pictorialism technique of scratching and damaging negatives to acheive similar effects. I tried to research into whether Saga Sig had also done this, or whether it had been done digitally on Photoshop, however she is a relatively new photographer and there isn't much information about her or the way she works. I think this image has a noticeable nostalgic feel to it, with the dreamy colours and blurred effect to the image, and also the
 scratches and dust have been added to make it look old, almost like the image is a faded memory or a dream. The clothes in the image seem to be a reference to past fashion, the 70's style denim and dungarees, along with the native headwear, reffered to in the title - 'Native and Naive'. The naive part of the title reflects in the models, they look quite young and child like, along with the clothes they are wearing. This brings up the question as to whether the girls in the image are actually models, or just a group of young friends (as they seem to act in other photos in the series). It could be said that this image and in fact entire series crosses the boundaries between fashion, documentary and art; documentary in that the series seems to show a group of friends, having fun and dressing up, and that Sig's intention was simply to document this behaviour between a group of people. It could also be placed in the genre of art, as the effort has been made to manipulate the images with the scratches, whether it has been done on a negative or digitally, to add another dimension to the image and possible meaning/intentions behind it.

Portraiture in Photography

Richard Avedon - Self Portrait (1964)

In 'The Photograph', Grahame Clarke says that Richard Avedon has purposely tried to be vague in creating his image entitled 'Self Portrait 1964'. Even the name of the image doesn't really give away what the image is of, apart from that it is of himself, and even that isn't clear. At first it is hard to tell how the image is made, or what it is showing - whether it be a mirror, distortion of the lens or a merging of negatives. This ambiguity is what Grahame Clarke is explaining in the process of analysing this image.
When initially looking at this image I thought it was created by holding a mirror up to his face, or by photomanipulation techniques such as merging negatives. However when realising Avedon was holding a mask up to his face, my perception of the image changed. This made the image seem more of a comment on portraiture as a whole; by holding a mask up to his face and portraying himself to be someone else, Avedon questions and challenges the nature of self portraiture. 
After seeing Richard Avedon's image, I also saw a recent film poster for 'The Ides of March' which reminded me a lot of the same image and has obviously been inspired by it.