Field Work Diary #4 Anthropology and Image

Encounter and context

Image 1: Naomi Campbell portrait (Vogue cover for December 1987)
Licensing and copyright For all licensing and copyright matters rightsandimages@npg.org.uk Naomi Campbell, by Patrick Demarchelier - NPG x199692 Naomi Campbell by Patrick Demarchelier C-type colour print, 1987 NPG x199692 © Condé Nast

The image chosen is a portrait of Naomi Campbell taken in 1987 for the cover of Vogue. It is displayed in the pop culture section of the National portrait gallery, showcasing photos of cultural icons from the 90’s such as the Spice Girls. The photo was taken by Patrick Demarchelier, a renowned photographer, famous for taking portraits of Princess Diana. I encountered this portrait for the first time when visiting the national portrait gallery to find an interesting photography to explore. As the name implies, a large selection in the gallery are paintings of politicians and the royal family from a few centuries ago. Hence, most of the artworks display the power of the subject and the artistic skills the painter holds. However, the second floor is dedicated to contemporary portraits, where photography starts to be an important art tool. Out of the several photographs, this portrait immediately jumped into my eyes given its size and vibrant colour compared to the surrounding works. Furthermore, it was one of the few works that had a lengthy audio guide which explained the context the photo was taken in. Although I do not have a background knowledge in the history of fashion magazine, it was not hard to imagine that this portrait was one of the first black models to make the cover of a prominent magazine such as the Vogue.

Narratives and stories of the image

Image 2: Vogue cover for January 1987

Oddly enough, the photo was taken initially as a ‘cover try’, meaning it was not meant to make the cover. This was because fashion magazines with black cover models were believed to not sell well back in the 1980s. For this reason, this photograph is politically significant in how “in which taxonomies are successfully (or aren’t) challenged” (Alaverz etal. 2021, p.422). At the same time, this gave more freedom for the photographer to experiment with poses that traditional models will not take. This is most Prominent in the gaze of Campbell, where she is not directly looking into the camera, but smiling to the sky with her eyes closed. The relaxed facial expression creates proximity to the audience in a relatable way, quite contrary to how traditional models will stare at the audience in a serene manner (Image 2).

Image 3: Demonstration of Anti-Racist Committee of Asians in East London (including Mala Sen and Chomok Ali Noor), by Paul Trevor, 1976

Not only is the portrait contrasting to other cover photos taken for fashion magazines, but also to portraits of black people taken until this period. Although outright racial discrimination has decreased by this time period, people of colour still experienced discrimination in subtle manners, in everyday corners of life. To depict this injustice, many portraits of black people were taken to display the harsh sides of their life. This could most commonly be people in protests, the aftermath of violent clashes, or poor living conditions in the ghettos (Image 3). Hence this portrait was groundbreaking in bodacious depiction of the joyful sides of black life, not just its suffering. In this way, this photograph makes us take part in "affective labor of positioning ourselves in relations of proximity, implication, and vulnerability to the full spectrum of black joy, trauma, and precarity.”, resonating with Campt’s argument (Campt 2019, p.44).

Close Encounters - Edward Enninful and Naomi Campbell - BBC Sounds

(Above is the podcast I listened to after visiting the portrait gallery)

To explore another dimension in the photograph, it is insightful to look into the power relation between the photographer and the model. Demarchelier by this time has established his career as a celebrity photographer, where he has taken covers for virtually every fashion magazine, including the British, French and American Vogue. On the other hand, Campbell was only 17 years old, just entering the modelling world which was predominantly white. Hence there is a very clear power incline towards the photographer, but he is skillful in drawing her spontaneous and natural expressions, not exploiting power relations, which would have been a major hurdle in itself. Simultaneously, the photo signifies a change in media representation where models were no longer nameless objects to be exploited, but a powerful individual in itself, exemplified by Campbell’s influential position as a 'super model' today.

Image 4: Spice girls and Kazuo Ishiguro at the same section

Image 5: The musicians section at the National Portrait Gallery 
From the Guardian, 22 June, 2023

Looking back into the presentation of this photo in the gallery, and its effects created, it is placed alongside a selection of other culture figures from the 90’s, including Spice Girls and the novelist Kazuo Ishiguro (Image 4). It is the largest print in the section, with the other photos placed in an unsymmetrical way, similar to the musicians sections next door (Image 5). Tying this back to Campbell's portrait, her baroque Chanel dress reflects the 80’s ‘excess fashion’, an extravagant style characterised by shoulder pads and jewellery, while her slick back hair hints the more minimalist hairstyle in the 90’s. In this way the fashion she is wearing is not an exotic experiment, but a true representation of the decade, or what was to come.

References

Alvarez, Astacio. Multimodal Ambivalence: A Manifesto for Producing in S@!# T Times. Vol. 123(2), American anthropologist, 2021, pp. 420–427.

BBC. “Close Encounters - Edward Enninful and Naomi Campbell - BBC Sounds.” Www.bbc.co.uk, 12 June 2023, www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m001mst2. Accessed 7 Dec. 2023.

Campt, Tina.M. “The Visual Frequency of Black Life: Love, Labor, and the Practice of Refusal.” Duke University Press, 2019, read.dukeupress.edu/social-text/article-abstract/37/3/25/140421/The-Visual-Frequency-of-Black-LifeLove-Labor-and?redirectedFrom=fulltext.

Hessel, Katy. “Invasion of the Cool-Girl Ceiling-Smashers: Why I Love the Revamped National Portrait Gallery.” The Guardian, 22 June 2023, www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2023/jun/22/cool-girl-ceiling-smashers-national-portrait-gallery-tracey-emin-jann-haworth. Accessed 7 Dec. 2023.

National Portrait Gallery . “Use This Image - National Portrait Gallery.” Www.npg.org.uk, 1987, www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/use-this-image/?mkey=mw275403. Accessed 7 Dec. 2023.