When Black Became Beautiful - Part One

On Monday the lovely Rachel Christie made history by becoming the first Black lady to become Miss England. Although some might state that it is 2009 and too little too late, some would point out how far we have come in this country. The concept of Black Beauty has always been a contentious one, a point comprehensively explored in the documentary, When Black Became Beautiful which was aired on BBC2 in 2004. This three part series looked at the impact African Americans and African Caribbeans have made on fashion and arts and how the world came to accept that beauty is not only skin deep. The series kicked off in 2000 when Iman gathered 15 other Black supermodels to be photographed by Annie Leibovitz for the cover of her book, I Am Iman. The likes of Naomi Campbell, Tyra Banks, Oluchi Onweagba and No�mie Lenoir were all in attendance for the momentous occasion. The rest of the documentary discusses the history of Black beauty from 1940s to the present era.

Blonde Ambition

Era -1940s and 19503
Commentators - Diahann Carroll, Mary Wilson, Helen Williams and Dorothea Towles.

Part One talked about the impact that Josephine Baker had on French society. It looked at the derogatory images of African American women in films who were either portrayed as mammies or maids. It talked about the social acceptance of lighter skinned Blacks and examined the introduction of hair straightening and the popularity of skin lighteners. In the late 50s Ophelia duVour set up her own model agency where she discovered Helen Williams, the first African American model to appear in mainstream magazines. The programme also goes on to talk about the birth of Ebony and how it reflected African American life while on the music scene, Motown artists such as The Supremes were being groomed to perfection in order to conquer the charts.

Part Two is continued here.

Corinne Day Diary

She has been described as the most important photographer of our generation; love her or loathe her there is no way you can ignore Corinne Day. She is one of the most successful women photographers in the UK and is probably the closest thing we have to the iconic Annie Leboivitz who I blogged about here. She came to light in 1991 when she took those immortal images of Kate Moss, those pictures not only made the cover i-D magazine and were featured in The Face but they made a star out of Ms Moss. Few would argue that Corinne has changed the perception of fashion photography. Corinne feels that her contribution to fashion photography is changing the picture from being about the photographer to being about the subject. Yesterday I watched a documentary that was aired on BBC 4 in 2004 which took an intimate look into the world of Corinne by following her during a year of her life. At the launch of her Diary Exhibition at the Photographer's Gallery in 2000 Corinne's work is unveiled to a packed house. This exhibition represents 10 years of her life where she kept pivotal images of her friends, family, experiences and places she has been to. The work is striking but creates very strong reactions from the visitors at the launch which range from disgusting, sympathetic, raw and sad.

Corinne had a very happy and idyllic childhood growing up with her grandparents and brother. Her parents had spilt up when she was very young and her mother had taken her and her brother to live with her grandparents knowing that they would be cared for. Unfortunately school was not such a breeze due to her learning difficulties and she left at the soonest opportunity. She fell into modelling for catalogues and beauty shoots, travelled and lived in California for two years. The turning point of her life was meeting Mark Szaszy, an up and coming director in Tokyo, they quickly became a couple. Mark taught her how to use a camera and that was that; pretty soon she had found two great loves - Mark and photography. The couple moved to Italy where they were surrounded by starter models so she began taking images of them in their flats, surrounded by copies of Vogue magazines, smoking a spiff and swapping stories about their latest job. In 1992 back in London she found her next subject in the shape of an androgynous looking Rosemary Ferguson. She played up Rose's boyish features by putting her in masculine clothes like suits and tomboy tshirts. These pictures were featured in American Vogue in article which talked about how fashionable it looked to be on drugs. This was when the term 'heroin chic' came to the forefront and in an unlikely from of Bill Clinton. British Vogue editor, Alexandra Shulman define the term heroin chic below.

"Heroin chic was s a very clever and canny speech writer's phase for Bill Clinton to describe the glamorisation of the drug culture in the media."

Addressing a group of city mayors about the US drugs policy Clinton condemned heroin chic for glamorising drug use. The Guardian jumped on the bandwagon and used her pictures with asking for her permission and pretty soon the whole media had something to say about heroin chic. However, Corinne had gained a fan in the form of Alexandra Shulman who really took to Corinne's idea of femininity and felt that she represented a change in the mood of fashion at that time. She commissioned Corinne to shoot Kate Moss for Brit Vogue and the end result were pictures of an 18 year old Kate dressed scantily while posing on a bed and sofa. Those images caused an outrage in the media accusing Vogue of exploiting vulnerable young women and promoting child porn. After all this drama, Corinne decided it was time to take a step back from the fashion industry and she began following indie band, Pusherman. She followed them on tour and took images of their professional and personal lives and their lifestyle became her lifestyle drugs and all. Shortly afterwards she was diagnosed with a brain tumour which she was hospitalised for and this almost fatal incident helped her to kick her drug habit.

These days Corinne still takes photographs for fashion magazines such as British, Italian and Japanese Vogue. As well as the Photographer's Gallery her work has been exhibited at the National Portrait Gallery, Victoria & Albert Museum, Tate Modern, Saatchi Gallery, The Science Museum, The Design Museum, Gimpel Fils London and included in The Andy Warhol exhibition at the Whitney Museum NY. Interestingly enough in 2007 she was commissioned by the National Portrait Gallery to take a selection of images of Kate Moss as part of an exhibition called Face of Fashion. The photo that stood out to me where the head shots of Kate using a variety of facial expressions; anger, happiness, surprised, annoyed, sad these images were featured in all the newspapers and really showed Corinne for the genius she is.

You can check out Corinne Day's work at her website.

All images taken by Corinne Day.

Annie Leibovitz: Life Through a Lens

Yesterday I watched a documentary about photographer, Annie Leibovitz which was a close and intimate look at her life and work. The programme which was made by her sister, Barbara was aired on BBC 1 last June to celebrate her exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery which ended it's run last month. Annie is a remarkable portrait photographer who takes images that capture a quality quite unlike any other. Some of her work are not very easy on the eye but there is no argument that they are extremely striking. My first recollection of Annie Leibovitz was her photograph of Demi Moore which appeared on the cover of Vanity Fair - nothing unusual about that as Demi was very hot at the time - except that she was naked and seven months pregnant. The image (which you can see above) caused a real stir and was on the cover of several newspapers and as former Vanity Fair editor, Tina Brown says, "That photo kicked off the discussion of motherhood and the discussion of the way we looked."

Annie kicked off her career in the early 70s at the newly launched Rolling Stone magazine where she carved out a niche for herself by taking intimate photographs of celebrities as well as documenting political rallies. Elton John, Rod Stewart, Ike and Tina Turner and The Rolling Stones were to just a few to mention. She adopted a method like approach to her work which entailed her living the life of her subjects. When The Rolling Stones went on tour she went with them and when they hung out backstage drinking she was right there and when they indulged drugs and alcohol she did so too. As drastic as this may be seem this practice allowed Annie to take some amazing and compelling pictures that would not have been possible if her subjects had not let their guard down. One of her most iconic images is the one of John Lennon and Yoko Ono (above) which was taken a mere five hours before Lennon was killed.

In 1983 she went over to Vanity Fair and with this move came a change from reportage images to much more glamorous and glitzy shots. Keeping in touch with the Vanity Fair remit, Annie's work now consisted of shoots with Hollywood stars such as Julia Roberts, George Clooney, Whoopi Goldberg and Isabella Rossellini. So it was no surprise when she started taking images for US Vogue and she recently raised a lot of eyebrows with her cover shot of basketball star, LeBron James and model, Gisele which you can see above. Today there are not a lot of celebs who have not been shot by Annie and she is simply one of the best photographers of her time. Editors and peers all over the world are in complete admiration of her.

Here are a few of Annie's breathtaking shots:

Whoopi Goldberg - Vanity Fair

Demi Moore - Vanity Fair

Tom Ford, Kiera Knightly and Scarlett Johansson - Vanity Fair

Michelle Obama - Vogue

All pictures taken by Annie Leibovitz