Final – Dragazine

Reflecting on the context going on around in this time period, I kept my attention on The New York Club Kids subculture, which this zine is dedicated to.

Party Monster, Ru Paul’s Drag Race, Paris Is Burning, Nan Goldin and Voguing are sources of documentation that have introduced me to a type of alternative to reality; everything is beautiful, noisy and fierce with no room for subtlety.

Through my projects I have learnt about The Blitz Kids – a group of young people who frequented the weekly Blitz club-night in Covent Garden, London in 1979-80. This may of led to inspire The Club Kids in New York City in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The group was notable for their elaborate and outrageous costumes; which blured the social conventions of gender and identity.

This series presented as a body of work communicates a fashion based ethos.

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For the front cover of my zine I wanted to carry on using collages inspired from the work of John Stezaker. I cut out found images from magazines to work as the outfit. This was then scanned onto the computer to work as the cover for Dragazine.

To create the zine I used the program Book Wright for editing and then uploaded the finished project to Blurb.

There were many different page layouts that could be used, I made sure I was using a variety of them and not repeating myself too much.

– After completing my first draft of the book I then saw areas of improvement (such as changing the positioning of text and changing picture sizes).

All together Dragazine is 24 pages long /soft cover and is in the process of being printed for my final coursework outcome.

Absurdity: Fashion

I decided to look at  Fashion in all of its broadness, specifically documenting with a type of snap shot aesthetic; staged but convincingly ‘grabbed’. I felt that my previous images (first/original photo-shoot) lacked a specific motive as it was very broad, it was more of a spontaneous photo-shoot.  As opposed to my second photo-shoot, where I carefully thought about different shooting locations; thinking about the context going on around in this time period.

Expanding from my original photo-shoot I kept my attention on The New York Club Kids subculture.Through my research I even found The Blitz Kids – a group of young people who frequented the weekly Blitz club-night in Covent Garden, London in 1979-80.
This may of led to inspire The Club Kids in New York City in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The group was notable for their elaborate and outrageous costumes.

http://www.harpersbazaar.com/culture/features/a978/stephen-jones-london-club-scene-0613/
“You were supposed to wear something really original. Designer clothes would’ve been the kiss of death…All the straight boys wore makeup, like blue lipstick and eyeliner…The club was on a Tuesday night, and on Sunday you started planning your outfit. It wasn’t just fashion—you really believed it.” – Stephen Jones, New Romanticism.

Blitz Kids

Blitz Kids

Blitz Kids

Club Kids

Club Kids

Club Kids

I decided to go to an underground subway at night as I felt this was a connection to how The Club Kids and The Blitz Kids would have most likely got to the clubs; by walking or getting the tube (given their locations in New York and London, where cars won’t get you anywhere fast).
I felt that the underground subway worked well in terms of context, as this type of ‘New Romantic’ style would have been very “underground” before it got popular in the late 70’s/ early 80’s. This supports these images beneath, which only work as a set of 4; there is a build up to the model, working as a puzzle. I experimented with the idea of concealing the identity of this person/model. However, there are suggestions of insight about this character, by using bright colors such as the green wig and a contrasting pink. This shows the importance of fashion for this type of New Romantic style.

These next few shots for me worked out the best due to the peculiarity and absurd quality about them. The way I have layered this set of images out, works well with the theme absurdity, as each of the photos individually participate in adding to the story. The gestures implied using bananas also adds a humorous quality about them. Generated through a snapshot aesthetic.

Here are more images from the photo-shoot.

Studio Portrait Work

Based on further experimentation in a studio keeping to my ‘New York – Club Kid’ theme

I feel these two images have good connections to my theme; the slow shutter speed causing the distortion of the set creates a good concept of the voguing/ dancing scene – linking into Drag. The distortion of identity is key here as it blurs the lines between gender.

After exploring my theme through a documentary style of photography I wanted to try a new approach that was more staged; a studio work shooting. This was a controlled shoot as I was detecting the model as apposed to capturing a performance/ or documenting a real life person. The studio shoot has a quiet feel about it, as their are no distractions in the foreground with a black drop-down.

Absurdity: Shop Mannequins

Developing on from my Absurdity theme, I documented things that were out of place in the environment they were in. I found a collection of Mannequins in a old vintage store when searching for Absurd items to document. The Mannequins I found seemed to be stuck in the 60’s, their exaggerated poses and make up was far away from reality on a day to day basis, therefore they take on a surreal quality when out of context (in a flee market).