American Gothic by Grant Wood (Joanne)

American Gothicby Grant Wood

American Gothic is a painting by Grant Wood, in the collection of the Art Institute of Chicago. Wood's inspiration came from a cottage designed in the Gothic Revival style with a distinctive upper window and a decision to paint the house along with "the kind of people I fancied should live in that house." The painting shows a farmer standing beside his spinster daughter (not his wife, as so many parodies and references assume).The figures were modelled by the artist's dentist and sister. The woman is dressed in a colonial print apron mimicking 19th century Americana and the couple are in the traditional roles of men and women, the man's pitchfork symbolizing hard labour, and the flowers over the woman's right shoulder suggesting domesticity.

It is one of the most familiar images in 20th century American art, and one of the most parodied artworks within American popular culture.

American Gothic is one of the few paintings to reach the status of cultural icon, along with Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa and Edvard Munch's The Scream. It is thus one of the most reproduced – and parodied – images ever. Many artists have replaced the two people with other known couples and replaced the house with well known houses.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Gothic

After group discussion we decided to take this iconic piece of art as inspiration to re-create 'American Gothic' to incorporate that Bloomberg is a great financial guide, that they are behind you at the heart of every major business decision such as the buying and selling of properties.

As such (JS) had in mind two perfect people, similar to replica the original, her mum to model as the lady for this shoot and Peter known locally as 'Raving Pete' to model as the man; however this proving to be a struggle at first to get in contact with the ideal man. After successfully getting in contact with Peter, who thankfully agreed to pose for our photograph, I organised for all parties to meet up to discuss when and where we planned to take the photograph.

Myself and Russell decided that we would photograph them in front of a house with a for sale sign, set back from the main road along Whalley Road in Accrington.

Below are (JS) contact sheets from our shoot

RAW Images

These are the three best RAW images which I sent to all group members to obtain differences in editing styles, to which the best would then be chosen at a group meeting to represent our theme.

Below are my edits