An Ever Developing Art Form

Guest Blog Post
UCF student Rebecca Males

When my professor Dr. Voss asked me if I would be interested in doing an independent study on fashion photography and the development of color photography, I said heck yeah.

I’ve studied photography since I was a 16-year-old sophomore in high school, seven years ago. As it seemed an elusive dream world, fashion photography has always caught my eye. I’m a daydreamer. There, I fully admit to having one of the wildest imaginations. It’s as if my brain runs in a movie sequence, frame by frame. A favorite past time of mine is to go to Barnes and Noble and sit in the photography section and just thumb through books, for hours.

I’ve always read Harper’s Bazaar, which during my study I found out is the oldest continuously publishing fashion magazine in the world. It is a dream of mine to be a photographer for them one day.

So, naturally, when the issue containing all of their past covers came out, I grabbed it. What’s funny is that now that this semester has ended I just found that old issue that I had purchased a while back that so would have come in handy during my study.

In a typical manner with me, the idea began to evolve into a larger, grander, more in-depth idea than just color photography. I’m meticulous for details, as is almost every photographer you’ll meet.

The pursuit of just studying the masters of fashion photography quickly seemed a bit empty without realizing how the magazine even began. The 1600s seems so long ago and not like the most conducible environment for magazines, but that was where it all began. There has always been a desire to express ourselves, and to know how others express themselves.

One of my favorite quotes regarding fashion is from Francis Bacon, “Fashion is only the attempt to realize art in living forms and social intercourse.”

This quote is only so true. And I find it a little comical that the way that magazines portray designers’ expression of art, fashion, is through another person’s, the photographer’s, expression of what they see. That’s what it’s all about though! (And I rather love it.)

The fashion industry is one GIANT conversation. Designers make clothes that are of their inspirations and what they want to get across to their buyers, to communicate. When the photographer photographs the designer’s line, it’s as if the photographer listens to the clothes and feels what they are saying. But as is typical with the human race, we hear what we want to because we all speak a little differently. So the photographer’s hear and photograph what has been drawn out of them by what the designer said through the clothes. The final product is a grand idea of being, of style. It’s awesome.

After I got through all the nitty-gritty work of working up from the beginning to when magazines and photography really took off, I saw how this giant conversation worked. Every photographer has their own niche, their own language. Different magazines hired different photographers for how they spoke through their photos, and for what they spoke through their photos. Helmut Newton was largely known, but he didn’t always speaking appropriately with his photographs, and he took ridicule and was fired a few times for it. If one language was more popularly understood, the magazines wanted that photographer. My personal favorites are Adolph De Meyer, Edward Steichen, Richard Avedon, and Annie Liebovitz (though I’m not super fond of Leibovitz’ most recent Photoshop style).

Richard Avedon

Annie Liebovitz

This semester of studying just really solidified a concept I already knew, visual is verbal. Photography is a language. Every photographer has his or her own dialect. As time goes by slang can develop with new phrasing: new ideas or techniques. Each photographer decides what slang is going to stick with them and what isn’t. Some people never catch on to slang and speak the same dialect for their entire life because it fits them so perfectly. It all just keeps evolving and is so interesting to watch where it goes.

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