I decided to interpret one of Cindy Sherman’s untitled film stills (#21). In that still image, she stares at something off of the frame within an urban setting. According to Josephine Van de Walle from artlead, Sherman’s Untitled Film Still #21’s true interest comes from whatever Sherman is looking at, rather than what is pictured in the image. In my interpretation I try to picture what Sherman is staring at, making her give that expression.
Description
I took a photo of a man angrily kicking a door, with the camera just above Sherman’s shoulder, which is pictured on the bottom right of the image.
Through this photo, I have switched the intrigue from “what is Sherman looking at?” into “why is this man kicking the door to this house?” A hint towards the answer lies in Sherman’s expression, seeming disgusted towards his actions, which follows with another question: “Is she planning to do something about his behaviour?”
When taking the picture, I experimented with many poses when it came to kicking, and in the end the best way to simulate a kicking motion was to actually kick the door instead of motionlessly standing in a kicking form.
I used a coat stand to hold a jacket which acted as Sherman’s shoulder. The house pictured is supposed to be an urban townhouse to match the buildings in Sherman’s image.
After finishing my picture-taking process, I grayscaled the image, added a beige tint, and added blur to replicate the look of the original photo.
Works Cited
Sherman, Cindy. Untitled Film Still #21. 1978.
Walle, Josephine Van de. “Modern Classics: Cindy Sherman - Untitled Film Stills, 1977-1980,” artlead, 21 September 2017. https://artlead.net/content/journal/modern-classics-cindy-sherman-untitled-film-stills/ Accessed 28 September 2021.
Program
Taken using a Sony Cyber-shot DSC RX-100 compact point-and-shoot camera and edited with Adobe Photoshop.