Deciding on Final Images

I have made the decition already that I want to display my final work as 4 A1 images printed on matte photo paper. I now need to decide which images I want to use for this.

I terms of the gender of the subject behind the mask, I do want a mixture of the 'dual-genders' but I don't want 2 of each; that would be too equal and equality is not what my work is about. So I think, therefore, I will have one male subject and 3 female subjects.

The 4 images I choose need to aptly display a mix of gendered faces within the masks and mesh will with the faces of the subjects' faces behind the masks. They need parts of the face to line up but other parts to obviously not, making the face look whole yet disfigured at the same time.

I think I have decided on the four images below. And I want them displayed in the order they are shown.

I also now need to decide on how they will be displayed on the wall they will be on; whether I want the wall black or white.
A black background contrasts the whiteness of the image background against both the subject and the background of the wall. The images are contained within the photograph borders.
A white background would allow the background of the image to 'bleed' through to the wall. The images would become one giant piece with no borders.
I think a black background would be better suited to my work as I want the boxed, contained images to be contrasted with the background.

More photographs

These are some more of the more successful images I took with the coloured masks. I discarded some of the other images taken, with some of the same subjects as often there were no correlations between any of the features of the mask and of the subjects face underneath which I found meant that the mask didn't merge at all with the face underneath and was more distinguishable from it which wasn't the effect I was after. I now need to decide which images I want to use in my final work.

Coloured Photos

Having finally taken the first lot of photos with the coloured masks these are some of the more successful images.

I find the very top image and very bottom image the most successful. The way parts of the mask have lined up with parts of the face underneath has meant that it is very difficult to decipher which arts belong to the mask and which parts belong to the subject's face underneath. I find the outcome of this really interesting, and something that could not have been achieved with the black and white masks. I will now take more of these photographs with different subjects to find more that I am pleased with.

Gender - My Own Views.

I think, although it is important to have researched pre-existing sociological and psychological theories on gender to increase my background knowledge, it is also very important that I have my own opinion on gender, as I am the person producing my work.
I believe that, biologically, in generic humans, there are two possible sexes that one could be, male and female. A man has a penis and testes and a woman has breasts a uterus and ovaries.However, when it comes to talking about gender, most people are actually referring to society's idea of gender stereotypes and gender roles. Masculinities and femininities are traits that we have come to think of as attributed to either sex, when actually they are referring to traits that could apply to anyone, that society decided applies to either gender.

In reference to transgender people, I believe they are simply people who wish to have sexual organs of the opposite sex or just wish to act in the sociological role of the opposite gender stereotype. I don't think there is anything wrong with this. It should just be seen in the same way as someone who wants to act according to how their own gender stereotype should act. Personalities, identities and traits should be down to the individual, not stereotyped by gender.

BUT, this is the problem; most people, including transgender people, are still subject to sociologically created gender stereotypes. Take drag queens for example, they generally dress up in what is seen as the most 'feminine' outfit and act in what they think is the most 'feminine' way. In fact they are simply behaving in a way that society states women should behave, not the way women necessarily wish to.

Can we, as a society, ever break free of gender stereotypes? Ok, so we have progressed from say 50 years ago, but the foundation of so much of everyday life is based around them. How can a person be beyond these gender stereotypes?

This is a huge part of what my work is truly about. By fragmenting and meshing parts of faces that, when considered, do adhere in some way to these gender stereotypes, I have managed to create a new 'face' that, when ignoring the hair and clothes alongside it, is genderless, or gender ambiguous.

More paper masks

  I have created 3 more layered, coloured masks to use in photographs. 

These are the outcomes of these masks.  

   

 

I will now take photos using all 6 masks I have created and decide how these work.

Coloured Masks

Going by the idea of needing a coloured mask to see if this would add to my work, I created these masks. I used Photoshop to slice and merge parts of some of the photos I've already taken. These are the resulting masks.

I will now print and cut these masks to use over subjects face and see how these work and photographs.

Carl Jung

Carl Gustav Jung  was a Swiss psychiatrist, an influential thinker and the founder of Analytical Psychology. His theory regarding the 'persona' is very relevant to my work.
The persona is the outward personality that an individual presents to the world. This is a mask; it is the compromise between the true individual and what is expected by society.
  In terms of gender, the persona is the reaction to gender roles and gender stereotypes created by society. Therefore, the gendered personality that an individual presents to the outside world may not be their true gender identity, it is simply a reaction to how society dictates their gender should act.

In my work, and my use of masks, I wish to present how a person's true identity, in particular their true gender identity, is hidden by this persona. The masks are made up of an indecipherable number of faces as it is created in reaction to society's views, a society made up of a huge number of people. These people's views distort an individual's true identity by covering it with the 'persona'.