The other day before work, I discovered a darling lil bookstore on Oak Street called Blue Cypress Books. It's filled with secondhand and new books, rare prints and signed first editions. Well, of course I made a b-line for the photography section....nearly $40 later, I've been newly inspired.
I bought a few books about Irving Penn, Margaret Bourke-White, and Henri Cartier-Bresson and one on experimental darkroom printing. One purchase in particular entitled "A Female Focus" by Margot F. Horwitz talks about the history of women in photography from Imogen Cunningham to Annie Leibovitz and beyond. In one section she discusses Cindy Sherman, a photographer who gained notoriety and praise for her series of 80 black and white images called "Untitled Film Stills." In the photographs that she produced between 1977 and 1980, Sherman presents women in various staged scenes from made-up melodramas. Since she could never find friends or models that produced the look or feel she wanted for her images, Sherman decided to hire the one person she knew that would always deliver: herself.
In these psuedo-self portraits which have defined the majority of her extensive career, Sherman exposes the way in which the media has exploited and misrepresented women for years: as the deer in headlights, scared, lost little girls with no self-confidence. They are a really haunting set of images...google her NOW!!
Cindy Sherman
Well this inspired me to do some self-portraits of my own...I mean what else is there to do on a Friday evening right?? I still had my apron on from cooking and since my apartment is a wreck right now and I had been at work since 7-freaking-am, I felt like an exhausted stay at home mom (minus the kids and the whole staying at home thing.)
It's still kinda funny to me how quickly inspiration can hit and how quickly one needs to act on it.
