Both photographers use their imagination in their work to form a surrealistic combination of a 20th century suburban desperate housewife or sophisticated prestigious women turned psychotic killer or consequently, victim of abuse. Bourdin especially dismisses all forms of morals and standard in his work by distinguishing a vision of outrage, and disturbing notions that cause him to almost forget about the advertisement of the product. Instead, he centralises the distressed beautiful model at the scene of the crime, leaving his audience questioning the well-being of the female due to the nature of his chilling photo shoots. Furthermore, for a greater intensity, and in visual contrast to Newton, Bourdin uses his peculiar artistic ethic to create a composition of exaggerated energetic colours that dominate the image and arguably, connote that there is still life and existence in the shot due to the vibrant hues. However, in reality the lens is filled with nothing but negativity and sadness.
For instance, if we look below at these images by Bourdin, the striking, vibrant hues that have coloured certain aspects of the image e.g. the blood, the knee high socks and the telephone box, all draw the viewer in straight away because of the power and distinctiveness the complex tones have in contrast to the other aspects present in the photo which offer a more neutral, cold and crisp colour palette. Therefore, the women's nude lifeless corpse and the rural deserted settings of nature and fields become secondary in these narratives.
Bourdin uses a narrative that would be usually considered as childhood friendly or associated with fictional storybooks and leaves a disturbing allure.
The photographer also leaves his audience questioning the current status of both women.
However more appropriate to the subject of communicating style, Helmut Newton presents an editorial, fashion conscious set of images to display his narratives. Whilst he still plays on themes of crime and the mistreatment of humans, as observers of the images, we find ourselves distracted by the clothing or accessories that are present in the shot rather than what is going on around the models. Therefore, we receive a different feeling from Newton's work to the one we do when we look at Bourdin's.
Furthermore, Newton's photographs have a greater focus on beauty and an obsession with the female silhouette as we see a lot of his work present women in lingerie or figure hugging clothing. His hybrid of themes such as portraiture, sexuality and a subordinate female gender portray a decadence of life through his New wave vignette filter. However, at some points he almost becomes too provocative with his work but artistically he manages to conceal this controversy by replacing it with elegance and structure, forcing people to dismiss the erotica of the shots.
Out of all the images I have included, Newton's photo shoot of Elise Crombez in Vogue US 2003 is the most similar to the work of Bourdin due to the emphasis on blood. However, unlike Bourdin, Newton's colour scheme remains subtle throughout.
Elise Crombez in Vogue US July 2003
Prada 1986 by Helmut Newton Campaign
Thierry Mugler, circa 1995
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