Guy Bourdin Somerset House

I went to see the Guy Bourdin exhibition at Somerset House, I made these notes:

Guy Bourdin
the text for the gallery talks about how is work is technically perfect before the age of digital
I am not so impressed . The images are not perfect, they are mostly slightly out of focus. Whether it was his intention or not - blown up this size they look rough. They are however nicely exposed and the idea of legs is interesting concept .
It looks like he focused the camera first then put the feet in
the framing and layout is very nice. Stone walls with perfect white boards over them - the frames are hard plastic and the mount board is perfect, very thick board. All the same size of board and photograph.
There is a variety of compositions and ideas of the unpublished photos - what the women could be doing.
A couple of photographs have clear use of flash from the direction of the camera, I don't know why fashion photographers seem to like that technique, maybe because it makes colours bright, but to me it looks shit - like it was taken with a point and shoot family vacation camera.
maybe in a magazine size print you wouldn't notice, but here I spot it as soon as I walk in, perhaps that's why they were unpublished?

I like the thick mount-board, I think this would be good for me that I would use such thick mount board for my work in the exhibition as it adds more presence and prestige to the photos.

I feel this photograph would have worked better if the shoes had been bright yellow, or even blue, that references the overall blue of the photograph. The shoes being black has no reference to the blue of the sheds behind. Its a nice location and I think he should have kept it for something else than plain black shoes. (also the lens has been focused on the pavement behind the shoes, not actually on the shoes)

Considering many people in my class hated the idea of orange and blue, with a few shades of white/grey for the colour theme for the exhibiton (even those who have orange faces and love fashion) I feel the colours of white and orange, with blue around the lighting work well here, and highlight the photographs well. I was surprised to hear so much hate about some colours in the meeting for exhibition planning.

Here we can see the blue made my the spot lights in the show. I think they were not I liked this careful when they put them up as the spotlights weren't perfectly even in their direction. Some lights left more space around the frames and some had a lot less, this one even touched the frame.

I liked this arch. The arches split up the exhibition nicely.

This was on display to the side of the exhibition, it shows the plans he made for his shoot.

Overall the exhibition on the ground floor was enjoyable in its variety, but I felt it was let down by simple things like inconsistency and praise of technical ability of the work when I thought it was substandard.

Here are my notes from the 2nd floor:

Second Floor 

the lights cause a blue rainbow around the frame, they are not in precisely the same place for each wall 

such tacky images 

only a few I like that actually try to sell something to me, the rest a just the bright colourful plastic adverts that I otherwise ignore 

Paris vogue December 1969/Jan 1970 

This image is great, the sparkling and the bright red lips make it stand out, the sparking fits well with the jewels. 

so much shite 

some good ideas but it's so focused towards selling meaningless crappie to ignorant blind women 

the images get better as I walk along,  better - more engaging, nicer shot, Interesting to look at other than to gaze at beautiful women with not so many clothes on 

Charles jourdan  spring 1979 green dress  

Charles jourdan spring 1972 aeroplane feet 

Charles jourdan autumn 1970 feet railway tracks 

autumn 1968 looks like spaceman - figure holding shoes wrapped in plastic  

spring 1968 bridge  

Paris vogue 1978, woman round the corner undressing concept  

Paris vogue june/July 1978 building against blue sea/horizon at the top 

smaller pictures downstairs  

same thick mount board 

some photographs are very sexualised,  some look like pointless snapshots 

Polaroids - landscapes??