In the first week of starting uni we went on a trip to a surprise location.....Nottingham!!!
I went in search for inspiration and tried to relate it to the research I've been doing on the swinging 60's and Mary Quant.
In the Nottingham Contemporary (http://www.nottinghamcontemporary.org/) I really liked the work of Diane Arbus, b. 1923, New York, photographer, mainly street photography although she did some for Vogue and Glamour magazine. Her main interests were gender and identity and it's that which interests me. Her work dipicts a time in the 60s when people were discovering their identity and fashion was used to express this. To me her photos have a sense of nostalgia about them as well as highlighting issues which would have been seen as very controversial and at times a little disturbing. Arbus commited suicide in 1971.
http://diane-arbus-photography.com/
I then discovered another photographer at the Castle Gallery (http://www.castlegalleries.com/contact/details.asp?id=43), Eve Arnold, b. April 21 1912. Arnold began photographing in 1946 in N.Y. Her most famous photos are of Marilyn Monroe and it was these which caught my attention in the gallery, to me they captured just what Marilyn was, glamourous, seen as perfection to many. The photos have an almost dream-like quality, as if to cover the real Marilyn behind the photo. http://www.castlegalleries.com/artists/eve_arnold/
