Modernist Series

Photographer Belinda Vecchio

Lips

Back

Eye

This Modernist series was inspired by the female nudes of the 1950's. Images of females nude shows the female form as powerful by depicting them as desirable, but at the same time can depict women as just objects. This series of images subverts the above idea by showing the male form in the same light and therefore implying the same ideas. The final image 'Eye' even outs the power struggle depicted in these image by the female figure captured in the eye, implying the question who is admiring who? Even though the female form is most commonly depicted in images both the male and female forms have always been objects of desire.

Sue Ford images titled Carol and Sue Pike as Australian Vernacular Photography.

Sue Ford (1963)
Titled Carol

 
Sue Ford (1963)
Titled Sue Pike


From the NSW Art Gallery exhibition on

Australian vernacular photography

 

The term vernacular as defined by the free dictionary http://www.thefreedictionary.com/vernacular is as follows:

1. The standard native language of a country or locality.

2.

a. The everyday language spoken by a people as distinguished from the literary language. See Synonyms at dialect.

b. A variety of such everyday language specific to a social group or region: the vernaculars of New York City.

3. The idiom of a particular trade or profession: in the legal vernacular.

4. An idiomatic word, phrase, or expression.

5. The common, nonscientific name of a plant or animal.

As Sue Ford has been defined as an artist  http://www.sueford.com.au/HOME.html, I find it hard to agree that these or any images in the NSW Art Gallery exhibition on Australian Vernacular Photography can truly be defined as  such. As Sue Ford cannot be defined as just an ordinary Australian when it comes to her ability to communicate through photography.  With reference to above, at best Sue Ford's images can be defined by Australian photographer's vernacular, as her skill to express, imply and even manipulate (if desired) through images are far stronger then the ordinary Australian.

These images may capture the lives of ordinary Australian's however they are not captured in a way that ordinary Australian's would capture them. Vernacular photographs are the images that sit on the hard drives and in the albums of all Australian's. Taken with little consideration to composition, exposure and dynamic range. 

The inability to define these images as vernacular however does not take away from their subject matter, particularly considering the contrast in the women in these images. Sue Ford has captured two very different aspects of Australian life. From the care free women enjoying the Australian weather, to the more complex life of the women doing her hair at home in the style at the time, who Sue Ford suggested that her pose depicted the choices women need to make between 'marriage and children’ or mini-skirts and the Pill, as her old school friends go in different directions. http://www.aartgallery.nsw.gov.au/collection/works/82.1989/ The images both broadly comment on the lives of Australian women at the time.