Male Hip-Hop

Good photography creates a narrative, as shown in the other posts. With hip-hop and other urban genres (grime etc) it is particularly important that you create a story for the reader. 

For urban genres (music that originates from deprived, inner-city areas) the origins and backgrounds of the stars are very much a part of the music. 


Hard childhoods, social injustice, crime, politics, close-knit communities, even slavery (hip hop beats are derived from African tribal music which has mixed with American influences over generations), all have their part to play. 


All this needs to be communicated in the photography through location, costume, facial expression and pose, props, lighting, eye contact and colours. 

Hip Hop originated in Harlem and the Bronx, two of the most deprived areas of New York. There are four "elements": DJing, MCing, breakdancing and graffiti. "Guns, Bitches and Bling" are recent additions as the genre has become a mainstream, multi-million dollar industry.

Men's clothes tend to be oversized in hip hop. This is a reference to growing up in a ghetto: families were poor so clothes were handed down from brother to brother. Therefore, the bigger your clothes, the bigger your brother, and the less likely you were to get beaten up.

Mos Def

Jay-Z

Li'l Wayne

Eminem

Black "prison- style" tattoos are also an important part of the genre. Black tattoos originated in American prisons, so the imply a hard life, serious crime, retribution and possibly regret. Some tattoos have specific meaning, like the teardrop tattoo, but meaning tends to be personal to the wearer.


There is a uniform with Hip Hop: wife beater vests, big jeans, jewellery, baseball caps, tattoos, sunglasses, crucifixes, sneakers (usually Nike or Adidas). No smiles.

Popstars No2: Girl Bands

Girls Aloud

The Saturdays

Even though they are not wearing the same, there is a definite "look" for girl bands: look as if you are about to go clubbing/ on the pull. Little dresses, big heels, big hair (though one member tends to have short hair), lots of make up. Poses also tend to repeat across the genre: chests out, backs arched, hands on hips, "fierce" gaze.

However, while this appears to be all for the benefit of the male audience, this performance is mostly for females; dresses, shoes and accessories are deliberately chosen from the high street so girls can recreate the look, hair is long, glossy and the styles look "natural", meaning they are achievable.

These girls are not threatening to other females, they seem more like a group of friends- you can imagine them getting ready together and sharing a taxi home, unlike this band:

Popstars No1: Madonna

Now, I'm not a massive Madonna fan but this is a brilliant image in terms of representation. Take apart each part of this image and you will understand why, in the 80s, she was a controversial artist.

White T-Shirt connotes purity, but it is a men's T-Shirt which implies that she is either stepping over the accepted boundaries for her gender or that the T-Shirt belongs to her boyfriend. If she is wearing her boyfriend's T-Shirt this suggests that she needed a change of clothes because she didn't go home...

The lollipop also connotes child-like innocence and purity, but the open lips, crossed arms and confident gaze make the lollipop into a performance of sexuality for a male audience. However, the prominent crucifix earring implies that she is a Catholic, and therefore should remain virginal and pure until she is married.

The hair, strong make up and black bracelets also imply that she is a good girl "gone bad".

(NOTE: a woman does not have to be scantily clad to communicate sexuality. Beyonce, I'm looking at you...)

Women Who Rock No 2: Florence Welch

British:

Indie/ Alternative

MS (mid- shot)

Colour gold implies whimsy and richness. The gold glitter on her hands, combined with the gold cape and red hair reference Pre- Raphaelite art:

The Pre -Raphaeiltes were a "brotherhood" of artists and poets founded in the 1800s. In a nutshell, most of their art was concerned with love, loss, religion, myth and death. The muse with red hair is one of the defining features of the genre: if you understand the reference you will connect the image of Florence with these qualities, which then lends extra meaning to the harps, ethereal subject matter (love, life, death, loss etc) and other defining features of her music.

The gold also references Gustav Klimt, an early 20th century artist who created paintings using real gold to connote intense richness:

Women who Rock: No 1: PJ Harvey

Women who Rock: PJ Harvey

View more documents from aquinasmedia.

Deadline for Front Cover first draft is FRIDAY 4TH NOVEMBER

Genre and Music Photography

Hey, over the half term break I'm going to be posting interesting music photography with quick deconstructions to show you how they convey genre and represent the audience and star. I'll probably be looking at:


Female indie/rock/ alternative
Female pop
Male indie/rock/alternative
Male pop
Male hip-hop/r&b


Female hip-hop/r&b is tricky as the representations are overwhelmingly sexualised, and therefore inappropriate for you and your friends to use in your coursework.

See?


However, if you are creative and can find a way of representing women in a non-derogatory way, go for it!


If there is anything I've missed that you'd like to see, or you have a question, email me at sbhstaff@aquinas.ac.uk, I'll try to get back to you.


Photos in for first lesson back please. No excuses, we will only have a week to construct the front cover.


Deadline for Front Cover first draft is FRIDAY 4TH NOVEMBER

WORK FOR MONDAY 17TH OCTOBER

Hey, I'm on a trip with the Upper Sixth today so you can work from home.


You should have bought a music magazine you like the look of over the weekend. If there was honestly nothing that you liked, google the genre of magazine you want and download a front cover, contents and double page spread to your desktop. (If you want Hip Hop/R&B there are several US mags available online: The Source, XXL and VIBE are three of the biggest).


To show me that you are starting to understand the codes and conventions of print media, recreate a double page spread of your choice from the magazine. You can use google images to find your star image but you must come up with an original headline and pull out quotes, as mode of address appears to be a sticking point.


For the rest of the journalism you can put boxes to show where the text should go.


Save as a JPEG and email to me by next lesson please with a document answering the following questions:


- What do the colours say about the star, target audience and the genre of the magazine? (aimed at males/females, age, interests, red = ROCK etc)


- What shot types are used for the star and what representations do they create? (use your notes from a couple of weeks ago for this)


- How do the fonts, colours, mode of address and representation of the star combine to create the genre?


Hope this is OK, any questions email me. See you on Weds :-)

Half Term Survey

Please answer the following questions honestly and leave constructive comments, positive and otherwise, in the box at the end.

All answers are confidential and your results will not be visible on the blog.

Have a great break!

Sheena

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