January 10, 2023 |
Nobody photographs skin like Donna Trope. The famed beauty photographer’s work thrills with a kind of “touch-me” sensuality that leaps from the page or screen. Her work spans nearly five decades but, recognising that her images are known to many only through social media, she’s curated a selection of her Instagram screenshots. They appear in a glorious new book, which blows the small screen up to coffee-table proportions – talk about mixing your media. Trope is as meta as they come. She also plays cat and mouse with Instagram, who periodically shut down her account for its fleshy provocations. Censorship be damned. Feast your eyes. – Claudia Croft
LOOKING
Glancing over old tearsheets and portfolios, i.e. the way we USED to do it, I’ve come to realise that I’m just looking. I’m a spectator, right here and right now. I’m looking around and I’m adapting to the moods of the world, whizzing by me. All bets are off! Although, what is there to bet? We’re all moving faster – competing in this race. This digital paradigm shift wasn’t a shock until after it happened and it meant significantly more because it ambushed us… How could we predict this was coming?
WHAM-BAM… POOF!!!
Yet it was gradual and we were lulled into the false sense of security that was branding our identities. We were hypnotised; not unlike the Golden Age of Advertising with its clever tactics, such as subliminal. We embraced digital – the entire world did. It was “smart this”, “smart that”. I mean, what else was there to do? I couldn’t confess to being a Luddite. My brain continues to think methodically, but now I know that the end result isn’t necessarily the printed page and cheers to that.
HALLELUJAH!!!! Now we can cheat! No need for perfection. Ain’t life grand? Back in ’03 I picked up a digi camera as a virgin. It confused me. I was a sceptic. How could this easy-to-use device give me large, sharp files? I continued to shoot analogue, still in disbelief.
But I’m not too proud to admit when I’m wrong. I look back to the past, the pre-shift, and I admit that much of my approach and methodical perfection would not be tolerated. I wrestled with alligators, trying to prove to my (youthful) clients that my craft was superior. Finally succumbing to the modern way.
My peers egged me on to the idiocy of the Gen Zers and before them the millennials. Then EUREKA! Suddenly I wasn’t searching and sighing for the past anymore.
The new way of promoting oneself, “branding”, seemed appealing, until it spiralled out of control. Yet I embraced it, behaving as I always have with fellow competitors. BUT my one gripe now is branding oneself.
I want my product, my market, my “I” to have ideas for BIG EASY, PIMP MACK DADDY, FULL-TILT BOOGIE, mega meta product… but my critiques on what’s presented out there stops me. I’m in arrested development.
I should really be addressing the continuation of the “ME” decade. Let’s shine the light on ourselves and while there, generate our brand identity. I need a trademark that isolates me from the rest. Don’t we need to collectively confront all binding ties and shock the de facto status quo? We want to FLAUNT IT! Let’s battle: Brand vs. Brand, and get high on anarchy. After all, this hasn’t been heard of since the Swinging Sixties. Waaaa!!! It’s OUR turn, right? We must have loads to say: pro and con. Should we rebel that our paths were carved out for us? Just remove lid, add water and stir… FUCK convention. Let’s be brazenly rebellious and we’ll decide what for at another time. SOCK IT TO ME!!! Remember me? I’m just browsing with bots and metas and loads of DATA… where would we be without data? Data is THE HOLY GRAIL: it far surpasses all browsing and window-shopping. Just looking around? Doesn’t matter, we’re collecting your data.
SPF, BRB, Monster drink, keto, Uber, apps, TIFFs and PDFs: it’s all data. We forget, digital media ain’t new. We haven’t had a chance to truly master, and more to the point, share anything with all the cyber-attacks and ransomware and firewalls; three steps forward and two steps back… but it’s all forward.
Our collective frustration won’t allow us to linger in the past. We sigh for it, we desire it, but what sometimes feels at a snail’s pace we try and race forward. Brain machines and artificial intelligence might obliterate the Human Problem!! YIPPEE!!! We would be saved!
Back to brands again. And my brand? I’m not sure… except that it’s ME. And if there’s a zeitgeist to right now, it would be to remember that something once rare and wonderful eventually becomes commonplace and basic. It’s all boiled down. Just keep looking straight ahead. Find the future of your brand and guard it. We are, all of us, something we knew nothing of, and it all happened, essentially, overnight. Most of success is appealing to the lowest common denominator. This still repels me, not to compete with the Gen Zers. I love the NOW. That’s my point but must I dismiss their clever marketing scheme as anything but disingenuous?
Now to the beyond. The future: I can’t. Time has slipped and sped away all so quickly that I follow it. My future is NOW and when I say I’m just a spectator and seeing things for the first time, I LOVE IT. Thank you Gen Z: your entitlement has freed my mind! I’m a full-on, card-carrying Z-groupie.
On the following pages, I’m showing excerpts of my life. Professionally this was how it used to be. We planned and we plotted. We couldn’t cheat, as our work was shown in stories; tearsheets in magazines to be specific. Every month, day, week, we’d be sussing out the competition, perusing the latest magazine tearsheets at the local newsagent. Excitedly or tearfully, we’d be ripping out the pages and placing the tearsheets straight into our portfolios as a flex. Looking over one’s shoulder was an EPIC TASK. It was hard work constantly thinking “What’s next”? We continued to reference the past, citing the masters from the 60s and 70s… How did they ever achieve such perfection? Such top-tier imagery? And now? Things have made a huge transition. I LOVE showing myself – spontaneous, warts and all. I love the present. It’s fun, it’s easy and it’s my job. PINCH ME NOW!
We are tethered to all of our smart tools. Everything we do is changed into data. It’s easier than ever to police ourselves. Every decision we make seems to be data-driven algorithms… images, sounds, texts and emotions are ingested from our various screens. We are storing this data for the future. My hard drive is reaching capacity… I’m satisfied.
Photography by Donna Trope. ‘Don’t Call Me’ is out soon.
Taken from 10+ Issue 5 – WORLD IN MOTION – on newsstands now. Order your copy here.
