From Cameron to Convergence:photo-narrative with fantasy and role-play

Sarah Hand

Tzvetan Todorov was the first scholar to apply structural analysis tothe category of fantasy and thereby liberating it from historical, psychologicalor literary associations. His seminal book: A Structural Approach to aLiterary Genre I (l973) focuses on the text itself from which he extractedelements that constitute the fantastic and the marvellous; ‘According toTodorov, the purely fantastic text establishes absolute hesitation inprotagonist and reader: they can neither come to terms with the unfamiliarevents described, nor dismiss them as supernatural phenomena.’ (Jackson,l998: 27). The sense of incredulity that under-pins our experience of fantasyis the perspective from which I will begin to analysing some of the work ofJulia Margaret Cameron (1815-1879), in which fantasy frequently took centrestage. Cameron draped her models in swathes of cloth to accentuate theirappearance as mythical, literary and biblical characters.

The combination of photography with ‘role-play’ creates visualfantasy. Within this dual perspective the paper will discuss the work ofCameron, Eleanor Antin, Cecil Beaton, Madame Yevonde, Melanie Pullen,Anna Gaskell, Miwa Yanagi and David La Chapelle.

Current digital innovation is opening up new approaches andpossibilities, which are pushing the boundaries of fantasy fashion imagery.My own photographic practice currently involves the use of convergentmedia through which I produce photographs incorporating fashion, fantasyand role-play. Convergent media refers to a combination of digitalprojections created by vector graphics, photographic stills and live and pre-recorded video, all of which are sonically activated.

From Cameron to Convergence, fashion continues to be afundamental signifier of fantasy photo-narrative.

Key Words: Photography, fashion, narrative, fantasy, role-play, new mediaconvergence.

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Although literature is the primary medium of fantasy genre, morerecently mediums such as theatre, performance, fine art, film andphotography have developed new approaches to visualising fantasy. Fashionas a signifier of fantasy in a photographic context is the subject of this paper.

In his seminal book, The Fantastic, A Structural Approach to a LiteraryGenre, Tzvetan Todorov describes fantasy as being that which occupies theduration of uncertainty, and the relationship between the real and theimagined. He states that:

There is an uncanny phenomenon which we canexplain in two fashions, by types of naturalcauses and supernatural causes. The possibilityof a hesitation between the two creates thefantastic effect. 1

Historically, fantasy has found expression through fairytale,mythology and allegory. Costume and masquerade have played a significantpart in helping us to identify with icons, role models and characters in thesegenres. The subsequent associations we make with these signifiers form thebasis of our personal fantasy role-play.

The photographers discussed in this paper construct photographicfantasy narratives using fashion as the character signifier. Their work isthemed around the concepts of the fantastic. Fashion is an integral part oftheir work in that it affords an affinity and a familiarity, albeit fantastical, inan otherwise hyper-reality. Invariably it is the costume and dress within theimage with which the viewer makes the first intuitive and cognitiveassociations. Combining role-play with the visual nature of photographycreates fantasy imagery. Therefore, this paper will discuss photography fromthis dual perspective with the focus being on fantasy costume. Referring tothe correlation between costume and role-play, Roland Barthes remarks thatthe history of dress did not develop until the times of early Romanticism,

It is because actors wanted to play their roles inthe clothes of the period that painters anddesigners began to strive systematically towardshistorical accuracy in appearances (clothing, sets,furniture and props), in short that denotedprecisely by the term ‘costume’. So what wasbeginning to be reconstituted here wasessentially roles, and the reality being sought

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was a purely theatrical one: myths such as kings,queens and lords were being openlyreconstituted. 2

The pioneering Victorian photographer Julia Margaret Cameron(1815-1879) was one of the first photographers to explore fantasy throughfashion and role-play. Recent technological developments, particularly thoserelating to convergent media, have enabled photographers to create ever morecomplex relationships between fashion, role-play and fantasy. For example,my work in this genre uses convergent media and involves themed role-playfantasies derived from contemporised myths and legends, that are constructedusing actors and digital projections reshaped by sonic triggers. This will beexpanded upon later in the text.

Julia Margaret Cameron

It is a sense of the incredulous that under-pins our experience offantasy, and this is the perspective from which we can analyse thosephotographs by Cameron in which fantasy took centre stage. Cameron drapedher models in swathes of cloth thus accentuating their appearance asmythical, literary and biblical characters. In 1874 Cameron produced a set ofphotographic illustrations for Alfred Lord Tennyson’s interpretation of thestory of King Arthur, Idylls of the King, (1874) based on Malory’s MorteD’Arthur (1835). She created a series of tableaux vivant using staticcostumed figures to represent scenes from key moments in legends. Herscenes depicting knights, damsels and legendary figures were re-enacted byan egalitarian cast of eminent Victorians, domestic staff, family and friends.

Costume provided the central means by which these fantasy imageswere recognised. Cameron utilised costume in its simplest form. Clothing,swathes and drapes of fabric were used to signify the context of many of herimages along with minimal use of props and simplified settings. Little, if anyattention was paid to the backdrops and scenery, which often consisted ofdrapes of fabric hung up in the converted glasshouse that doubled as herstudio. Many of the photographs were taken out of doors in and around thegarden of her home at Dimbola Lodge on the Isle of Wight. Camerontransformed her domestic servant girls into May Queens and Madonnas,stripping them of their Victorian attire in exchange for floaty tucked and

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pinned fabrics, Romanesque gathers and loose flowing hair reminiscent ofPre-Raphaelite painting, with which she had thematic affinities.

Cameron paid meticulous attention to the facial and physicalexpressions of her sitters, which she accentuated by simplifying the overallcomposition. This combination, along with her pioneering use of soft focus,which added a dreamlike quality to her compositions, created thereminiscently evocative fantasy narrative found in her work. Cameron’scontemporaries criticised the ‘so-called’ technique of soft focus, which shewas perfecting at an early point in the development of photography. Theyconsidered it to be an inadequacy and questioned her professionalism.Cameron dismissed these allegations as insignificant and unsubstantiated.Looking at her work now it is evident that she used the technique to evokethe dreamlike quality that she admired in Pre-Raphaelite painting and todistinguish her work from the classically focused portraiture of the day.

Role-play was an integral part of her enacted charades as the modelsstrove to hold expressions and poses in character during the lengthy andlaborious exposures. The titles of Cameron’s photographs reflect herintention to make biblical, allegoric and mythical images. Titles such as TheParting of Sir Lancelot and Guinevere, The Passing of Arthur, King LearAllotting his Kingdom to his daughters, Gretchen at the Alter of the Virginand Mary Hillier as Madonna.

The nostalgic narrative aspect of her work was established throughthis intriguing combination of costume, expression and title, each of whichwas used in its most uncomplicated form.

A Pre-Raphaelite Study (1870) Mary Hillier as Madonna (1865)

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The Parting of Sir Lancelot Gretchen (Margaret) at and Guinevere (1874) the Alter of the Virgin (1874)

Eleanor Antin

Conceptual photographer and film-maker Eleanor Antin’s use ofcostume adds a fantasy dimension to her lavish reconstructions of Romanstage sets, reminiscent of Alma Tadema paintings. Like Cameron 140 yearspreviously, she too creates fantasy tableaux vivant through photographyusing a combination of costume and role-play. Antin has been working in thisway for nearly 40 years producing ambitiously staged large-scalephotography. Antin engages in historical narrative in a way that allows her toindulge in her own fantasies. Her work concerns identity, alter egos and theadoption of new personas. Referring to the series The Last Days of PompeiiAntin states,

Part of the fascination is Rome itself. Everycentury has reinvented her in the light of its owndesires, fears and lies. I am excavating a Pompeiiof my own invention in which beautiful, affluentpeople live the good life, innocent of thedisasters waiting just round the corner. 3

Fundamental to Antin’s fantasy narrative is fashion. Her models actout costume dramas in spectacular staged settings, constructed out of amixture of the old and the new to give an historical yet contemporary feel. Insome instances this mixture is used to add an element of humour to thefateful scenes that evoke the kind of presentiment often associated with film

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stills. The Tourists 2007 is a series depicting two individual personas ofHelen of Troy who appear to be wandering to a shopping mall or to a beach.They wear sunglasses and carry modern baskets as they saunter alongwhimsically disregarding the tragedy surrounding them. Their simple brightlycoloured floaty dresses and their cheery dispositions are in stark contrast tothe blood-spattered half-naked Trojan warriors that they pass by.

There is added irony and humour in her choice of title for this piecereflective of the way that tourists are visitors in time and space but onlyconsume the veneer of the locations they visit. To reiterate this point, Antinemploys a certain degree of artistic licence by not sticking faithfully tohistorical costume, thus encouraging the viewer to see beyond the obviousand consider both the historical and the contemporary ramifications in herwork. In comparison Cameron’s photographs wholly empathised with thehistorical moment even though she too did not attempt to replicate historicalcostume preferring instead the creative use of available dress.

Antin’s settings, although more lavish than Cameron’s, still rely oncostume to supply narrative context and to demonstrate that they arehistorical fantasies re-enacted on a contemporary stage. Antin’s experience asa filmmaker enables her to apply similar directing techniques to theproduction of her tableaux narratives.

The Tourists 2007

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Casting Call 2007

Anna Gaskell and Miwa Yanagi

Following on from the mythological and historically influencedphoto-narratives of Julia Margaret Cameron and Eleanor Antin, fairy taleprovides the underpinning narrative in the work of Anna Gaskell and MiwaYanagi. Yanagi’s large-scale Fairy Tale series The Incredible Tale of theInnocent Old Lady and the Heartless Young Girl are a mixture of archetypalmyth and film noir. Although the content of the imagery does not rely asheavily on costume, due to the integral styling of each character, theprotagonists are instantly recognisable in the way they portray the sinisterside of classic fairy tales.

Yanagi’s staged settings compare with the complexity of Antin’sRoman Allegories in the way they facilitate and contextualise the narrative. Incontrast, the simplicity of Gaskell’s series Wonder, compares to that ofCameron’s, in that they rely on the use of costume along with facial andphysical expression to convey narrative. Yanagi’s and Gaskell’s photo-narratives are similar to one another in that they depict the sinister and eerieaspects of fairy tale.

Like Cameron and Antin, both practitioners have adopted thetechnique of photo-narrative tableau and it is clearly apparent as to which

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fairy tales they refer. Yanagi creates her re-enactments in black and white,whilst Gaskell employs the use of saturated colour. And yet the resultingimages of both are equally as striking and disturbing. Gaskell clothes herteenage models with child-like simplicity, akin to the classic dress worn byAlice in Wonderland, with which we usually associate innocence. It is thischoice of garment on an older Alice that adds sexual tension which promptsus to question the traditional perception of Lewis Carroll’s Alice.

In a review for Artnet (1997) by art critic Robert Mahoney, referringto the choice of dress, he writes that it “is suggestive of the compromisedinnocence of the Virgin Mary. In Gaskell's photographs, in which youngwomen are dressed as prepubescent girls, the sexuality of the sign issublimated into the surroundings.” He continues,

With breathtaking economy of means, Gaskellhas transformed the Alice in Wonderland storyinto a touching coming-of-age drama, cool as amusic video, as rich in performative ambiguityas Cindy Sherman's best works (though withouther Gothic inflection) -- and as new as new artcan feel. 4

Rapunzel and Erendira from the series: The Incredible Tale of the Innocent Old Lady and the Heartless Young Girl Yanagi 2004

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Untitled 3 from the Untitled 26 and 29 from the series: Overrideseries: Wonder Gaskell Gaskell 19971996

Cecil Beaton and Madame Yevonde

In a similar vein to Cameron in the 1860s, both Beaton and Yevondebegan their careers in the 1930s by photographing eminent celebrities of theday. In contrast to Cameron, both specialised in producing portraits thatglamorised and fantasised their subjects. Beaton also worked as a theatricalcostume designer and this enabled him to develop creative synergies betweentheatre and photography. Like his personality his compositions were oftenflamboyant, and noted for their theatrical frivolity and sparkle.

In 1935, Yevonde turned to fantasy and role-play photography thatrelied heavily on fashion and fashion styling. Using the newly developedVivex Colour Process from Colour Photography Limited she was one of thefirst to experiment with colour photography. She used this to heighten thesense of fantasy in her work. A themed party at which the guests dressed upas Roman and Greek Gods and Goddesses, inspired her most famous series ofphotographs. Yevonde recreated the theme at her studio where shephotographed the guests individually in character. It was at this point shebegan to produce costume inspired images using the Vivex process to createher photo-narratives.

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Paula Gellibrand Beaton 1928 Minerva, Mrs Michael Balcon Yevonde 1935

Melanie Pullen

Narrative photographer Melanie Pullen embraces the idea of role-play in the truest sense of ‘acting the part’. Her High Fashion Crime Scenesseries was based on vintage crime scenes extracted from the Los AngelesPolice department. What she found most intriguing was the minute detail,which inspired her to re-enact and stage over 100 of the crime scenes into herown photographic narratives using haute couture. Challenged by the idea ofincorporating fashion in a way that disguised and distracted from the horrificacts that had taken place, she literally reversed the ideals of the glamour offashion photography. Many fashion houses including Chanel, Gucci andPrada lent garments to Pullen for the shoots.

Pullen’s use of designer labels is noteworthy because they arerecognisable and this clashes with the idea of the anonymity of the crimescene. The clothing becomes a central signifier that transforms the victim intoa fashion model, thus changing our attitude towards the victim. Thephotographers discussed previously use costume to denote identity whereasPullen uses it to subvert.

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From the series: High Fashion Crime Scenes Pullen 2006

David La Chapelle

Fashion and costume are rich in cultural memories that can bedramatically reconfigured through styling to create new personas. Photo-narrative photographers juxtapose costume signifiers with other elementssuch as location, props and lighting to prompt our underlying memories thusguiding us through their narratives. David La Chapelle’s work is a case inpoint. He is a photographer and film director who dynamically integratescultural memories triggered by styling in to his work for the fashion industry.Every element previously discussed is present in his images, includingfantasy and role-play with highly theatrical staged sets, alongside mythicaland outrageous costume and fashion, together with narrative and a largedegree of irony and humour. Like the Wonder series by Gaskell, La Chapelleuses striking dissident colours to give his fantasies an other-worldlyappearance. He makes no apologies for this unconventional approach inwhich he mixes myths and metaphors to create his own visual language,stating, “My work is about making candy for the eyes. It’s about grabbingyour attention.”5

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Although the principal identification factor in his work oftendepends on fashion, the settings and surrounding are of equal importance. Inthis sense his photographs compare with Antin’s in their lavishness, richnessand humour. What differentiates them is that La Chapelle often produceswork in connection with the commercial fashion industry, whilst Antincreates narrative tableau vivant in a fine art context. Another factor that theyshare in common is that they both work with film. As a result theirphotographs often resemble film-stills that create tensions that suggest morecomplex stories of which the images are fragments.

Historical and mythological concepts are embedded into Antin’s andLa Chapelle’s narratives. And for both the incongruous use of fantasy dress isthe unifying force transforming otherwise historical visual re-enactments andmythical tableaux into wild contemporary fairy tales.

Fantasy fashion from David La Chapelle

Sarah Hand

As previously mentioned in the introduction to this paper myphotographic practice involves themed fantasy and role-play contemporisedvia the use of convergent media.

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Convergent media in this instance refers to a combination of digitalprojections created by vector graphics, photographic stills and live and pre-recorded video, all of which are sonically activated. Themed fashion, fantasyand role-play is incorporated into this mix through the use of models whoperform, dance or enact tableaux vivant. The enacted narratives are drawnfrom historical and contemporary sources such as Tristan and Isolde, DieFledermaus, Walter Benjamin, See Emily Play, and Cosmic Seasons.

The sonic reshaping of the digital projections creates numerousmise-en-scène thematic variations, which then form the basis of thephotographic image. This is a working method that I have named ConvergentPhotography. Currently it is involved in themes that rely heavily on the use offashion to evoke cultural memories. These are created by costume and fabricused as a projection surface that responds to and interacts with continuouslychanging projections. The themes are further developed via performance,dance and role-play.

From the series: From the series: Isolde 2008Walter Benjamin 2007

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The Pied Piper 2009

The crossover between photo-narrative and fashion photography isboth exciting and problematic. To a large extent fashion photographyunderpins consumerism, whereas costume incorporated into photographyopens it up to a polysemic discourse. On the subject of fashion photography,Olivier Zham sees the fashion image as problematic drawing our attention tothe fact that a fashion image “is above all a commissioned image… acontrolled and controlling image.” He considers the fashion photograph to be“a hybrid icon of the present “majority of the output consists of industrialimages devoid of any kind of sensibility or polysemy or meaning.” 6

In contrast narrative photographers use fashion icons and costumereferences in ways that seek to transcend the ephemeral thus elevating thestatus of their work. Generally this involves conceptual thinking, theoreticalunderpinning and research informed ideas. Their use of narrative tableauxand role-play encourages us to make mental associations that trigger ourcreative imagination, thus differentiating their work from consumer-drivenfashion photography.

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Only a sample of photographers working with fashion and narrativehas been discussed in this text. There are many more of significance. Forexample, Surrealist photography that was based on fashion images had aparticular fascination with mannequins. From 1936 Salvador Dalicollaborated with fashion designer Elsa Schiaparelli to create designs inspiredby Dali paintings.

Through Schiaparelli and Dali’s work, the bodywas refashioned by Surrealism and Surrealismsubsumed into the cultural mainstream. 7

Also worth noting are: world renowned commercial fantasyphotographer Bettina Rheims, fantasy fashion designer and photographerThierry Muglar, the carefully constructed fictionalised work of photographerPhilip Lorca di Corcia, two Victorian narrative photographers - OscarGustave Rejlander and Henry Peach Robinson who worked with compositeimages and montage, Tom Hunter and Neil Folberg who create contemporaryreconstructions of paintings by artists such as Vermeer and Renoir, RaoefMamedov with his highly sensitive reconstructed artworks using models withDowns Syndrome, the ethereal dreamlike quality of Sarah Moon’s fashionphotography, Anthony Goicolea’s fantasy role-play self portraits and thepainterly and classical look of David Seidner’s fashion images.

From Cameron to Convergence, fashion continues to be a fundamentalsignifier of fantasy photo-narrative.

Notes

1 T Todorov The Fantastic, A Structural Approach to a Literary Genre, Cornell University Press, Ithaca, New York, 1975, p. 26.

2 R Barthes The Language of Fashion, Berg, Oxford 2006, p. 26.

3 E Antin, artist’s statement written for an exhibition of the series of work, The Last Days of Pompeii, University Art Gallery, San Diego, 2001.

4 R Mahoney, review of Anna Gaskell’s series Wonder, for Artnet, 1997.

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5 D La Chapelle, “American Photo’, July/August 1995, page 53.

6 O Zham, ‘On the Marked Change in Fashion Photography’, 2003, in The Fashion Reader, L Welters and A Lillethun (eds), Berg, Oxford, 2007, p. 263-265.

7 G Wood The Surreal Body: Fetish and Fashion, V&A Publications, London, 2007, p. 64.

Bibliography

E Antin, Roman Allegories, Feldman Gallery, New York, February 12 –March 12 2005

E Antin, artist’s statement written for an exhibition of the series of work, TheLast Days of Pompeii, University Art Gallery, August 2001.

R Barthes The Language of Fashion, Berg, Oxford 2006.

M Bartram, The Pre-Raphaelite Camera:Aspects of Victorian Photography,Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1985.

A Bulley (ed.) Beaton Portraits, National Portrait Gallery Publications, 2004

S Lee, Fashioning the Future: Tomorrow’s Wardrobe, Thames & Hudson,London 2005.

F A Miglietti, Fashion Statements: Interviews with Fashion Designers, Skira,Italy, 2006.

M Pullen, High Fashion Crime Scenes, Nazraeli Press, 2006.

T Todorov The Fantastic, A Structural Approach to a Literary Genre,Cornell University Press, Ithaca, New York, 1975.

G Wood The Surreal Body: Fetish and Fashion, V&A Publications, London,2007.

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O Zham, ‘On the Marked Change in Fashion Photography’, 2003, in TheFashion Reader, L Welters and A Lillethun (eds), Berg, Oxford, 2007, p.263-269.