From a post at Sociological Images titled “Hurricane Sandy and High Fashion: A Portrayal o
From a post at Sociological Images titled “Hurricane Sandy and High Fashion: A Portrayal of Class Hierarchy”: Vogue’s photo-shoot titled “Storm Troopers: Celebrating Hurricane Sandy First Responders” features various images of models with workers of different organizations who combated the damage of Hurricane Sandy. Vogue praises the attributes of these workers in the caption: “when Hurricane Sandy hit, the city’s bravest and brightest punched back. … The photo shoot, then, instead of honoring the workers, affirms the class hierarchy in which they are embedded. The photographs fall in line with the magazine’s message – a celebration of an elite lifestyle – one that is well out of the reach of blue collar men and women. Commentators of the post suggested considering the aesthetic intent of Annie Liebovitz- the photographer- before dismissing the work. Emphasis added: Here, Liebovitz… exposes - perhaps deliberately - the utter ridiculousness of glamour. The models could not possibly look more silly or out-of-place, their dresses more irrelevant, the contrast between their characters and real people doing their jobs more jarring. And it takes some serious composition to get that effect; the models are each spotlit and static elements surrounded by dynamic activity. If you erased them from the frame, you’d have some very good portraits of real people in the workplace. If we were looking at the work of a rookie who somehow got a job at Vogue, I’d be willing to believe that the irony and discomfort in these shots was the accidental by-product of a bad idea. But we are talking about the work of the most powerful woman in the history of the photographic medium (shame on the blogger for not even mentioning her name), the creator of some of pop culture’s most iconic images; if anyone has the authority to get a subversive comment on the inanity and irrelevance of high fashion through the filters of Vogue, i’s her. Let’s not forget, when you put these photos into a magazine full of icy models in haute couture, it’s the non-models that really stand out to the viewer. And the contrast makes them look all the more heroic. -- source link
#annie liebovitz