Assignment Two

After deliberating over the “Photographing the Unseen” and “using props”, I choose the Props project, more specifically the “White Shirt” option.

I wanted to create a cohesive narrative, a story of a “White Shirt” on a daily journey from washing machine back to wash basket and whatever happens in between. On reflection this didn’t match the narrative of the research I was carrying out. I also created a set of images of World leaders, all wearing white shirts, although this set of images were more interesting than the other, it was too oblique an angle to deliver the white shirt brief. I delve deeper into this in my learning log. Once I had chosen this project I wanted to develop images whilst reflecting on the term “White Collar” worker and how we categorise society into groups depending on the colour of their collar.

Once I had chosen the Shirt project I created a storyboard to help me transfer the narrative that was in my head in to a cohesive set of images. The idea was to show the White-collar workers with a link between in each image. I wanted the set to be a mixture people at work shots and self-portraits, whilst maintaining a cohesive narrative in line with the research I carried out

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

During the shooting of these images I researched the term “White Collar” What is now a commonly used phrase. The term “White Collar” can be traced back to the 1930’s by Pulitzer Prize winning author Upton Beall Sinclair Junior to around 1935. It has since become a symbol of education and status over most other workers. There are numerous collar colours, from Blue (Manual Labour) to Gold (Highly specialized knowledge) even Scarlett Collar for Sex Trade workers. It is another Pidgeon hole for society to be categorised. Even using white as the colour creates thoughts of purity, thoughts of wedding dresses and doctors’ coats add to the stigma attached to simple garments.

In his series High Fashion photographer Pawel Jaszczuk, who, between 2010-2018, took a series of photos documenting Japanese business men sleeping where they drop, after working sixty-hour weeks. He delves into some of the same theories of labelling, “is it really his excess or theirs? We should hate those men in their everywhere offices, but that is an effort often beyond us. So, we ask of this man asleep in the street, his real label and it is given unconsciously. And sometimes we also fall, our desires and damaged souls exposed, when we too grow tired of their control.” (Jaszczuk, 2018)

In this collection, salaryman the men, wearing predominantly white shirts, my thoughts went to my job, working for the Prime Minister, I have done my fair share of 60-hour weeks. This working pattern is not sustainable for any serious amount of time. This seems to be the fallout of events in an ultra-capitalistic environment that, in this case, Japan has created.

In a recent article for Vice website, Jaszczuk goes on to say, “I want to shake my viewer. I want to provoke them to think more about what was going on in society.” Something has to give, people’s mental and physical health has to be considered. “Do we really want to end up like this? Are we just being used?” (Woods, 2019) Since this project, Japan has brought in some “Work Style Reform Law.” It may be heading in the right direction, but are we as a society?