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SECTION 1
Cinematic Stillness: Reclaiming the Visual Grammar
This body of work draws on cinematic stillness and studio restraint as a means of reclaiming visual languages historically closed to Black British female subjects.
Classification:
Form: Photo Art / Photograhic Art
Method: Concept-led photographic practice
Positioning: Visual anthropology, autoethnography, cinematic stillness
Artwork credit:
Michi Masumi (2023)
'The Catwalk Series'
Photographic Art / Portrait Series
My photographic series draws on the visual language of cinematic stillness commonly found in early black-and-white cinema and mid-20th-century studio portraiture, where gesture, posture, and pause carry narrative and emotional weight (Barthes, 1980; Mulvey, 2009). In dialogue with the formal restraint associated with photographers such as Irving Penn, the work employs stillness, posture, and controlled framing as acts of presence rather than display.
While Penn’s work is often cited for its controlled environments and sculptural use of the human form, this series reclaims a similar visual grammar to address absence rather than idealisation—using stillness as a means of asserting visibility rather than refinement alone. In this way, the work operates as a form of visual refusal, resisting spectacle and performative legibility (hooks, 1992).
As a Black British child watching BBC2 Saturday matinee films, these visual codes were absorbed in the absence of representation. This series responds to that early spectatorship by recentering Black British female identity within a visual grammar from which it was historically excluded, transforming childhood visual longing into intentional authorship (Campt, 2017).
This series is presented as photo art, using photography as a material practice rather than a purely documentary form. The images are shaped through controlled framing, cinematic stillness, and post-production editing as part of a concept-led and practice-based process, where meaning is produced through both making and reflection (Candy and Edmonds, 2018).
Method & Positioning
This body of work is:
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Concept-led
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Aesthetically authored
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Theoretically situated
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Intentionally edited
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Positioned within cultural and historical discourse
Together, these principles situate the series within practice-based research, visual anthropology, and Black feminist visual methodologies, where photography operates as a site of cultural knowledge rather than neutral representation.
References:
Barthes, R. (1980) Camera Lucida: Reflections on Photography. London: Vintage.
Campt, T. (2017) Listening to Images. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
Candy, L. and Edmonds, E. (2018) Practice-Based Research in the Creative Arts. Cham: Springer.
hooks, b. (1992) Black Looks: Race and Representation. Boston: South End Press.
Mulvey, L. (2009) Visual and Other Pleasures. 2nd edn. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
SECTION 2
Photographic Aesthetics: Resistance, Gesture & Reframing
This body of work shifts from stillness to aesthetic resistance, using photographic aesthetics as a site of disruption, self-authorship, and cultural signalling.
Classification:
Form: Photographic Aesthetics
Method: Autoethnographic, concept-led visual practice
Positioning: HCCA, BTCAS, digital self-authorship
My photographic body of work operates through photographic aesthetics rather than traditional portraiture or documentary photography. The images foreground gesture, styling, adornment, and compositional interruption as critical tools for visual resistance and self-authorship.
Rather than pursuing stillness or classical restraint, my series embraces intentional disruption—using the body as an active site of meaning-making, refusal, and cultural signalling. Gesture functions as language; styling becomes a form of semiotic expression; and the gaze resists closure. These images are not designed to be resolved but to remain deliberately unsettled.
Situated within Human-Centred Creative Anthropology (HCCA) and Black Techno-Cultural Autonomy Studies (BTCAS), this work positions Black British female identity as authored rather than interpreted. The body is treated not as a subject alone but as an archive, interface, and data source, aligning with autoethnographic and visual ethnographic methodologies.
This series also reflects contemporary modes of circulation and visibility. Designed to exist both within research contexts and digital platforms, the images retain conceptual integrity when shared online, acknowledging the realities of visual culture without reducing complexity. In this sense, digital dissemination is not a compromise but an extension of my work’s conceptual framework.
Presented as photographic aesthetics, the practice foregrounds photography as a material and technological process—shaped through composition, performance, and post-production editing—rather than as a neutral recording device. Resistance here is enacted not through opposition alone, but through reframing, excess, and deliberate self-positioning within and against dominant visual codes.
Method & Positioning
This body of work is
-
Concept-led
-
Aesthetically authored
-
Theoretically situated
-
Intentionally edited
-
Positioned within cultural, digital, and historical discourse
These principles sit within practice-based research, human-centered creative anthropology, and Black techno-cultural methodologies, where photographic aesthetics operate as sites of resistance, reframing, self-authorship, and cultural knowledge rather than neutral representation.
References:
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hooks, b. (1992). Black Looks: Race and Representation. South End Press.
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Hall, S. (1997). Representation: Cultural Representations and Signifying Practices. Sage.
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Mercer, K. (1994). Welcome to the Jungle: New Positions in Black Cultural Studies. Routledge.
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Rose, G. (2016). Visual Methodologies (4th ed.). Sage.
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Benjamin, R. (2019). Race After Technology. Polity Press.
(Aligning with HCCA, BTCAS, autoethnography, and digital visual culture)