Looking at Photography

I have looked at some photography of R&B star Beyonce to get some inspiration and ideas for my magazine. In top image a direct appeal is created towards the audience. She is looking directly out of the page and is pulling quite a sultry pose to attract the audience. The clothes that she is wearing almost blend into the background, making her skin seem to glow more and adding more emphasis to her hair in the image. This therefore pulls all attention to her face and body, and removes distractions from the clothing that she is wearing. This adds to the intensity to the image. I think that this is quite an interesting technique to have used. The bottom image is taken from vogue magazine, as can be seen by the branding at the bottom of the image. The black background again adds more emphasis to the red colours and creates a sultry and seductive feel to the image. 

From looking at these two images i have concluded several things. For starters the use of colours in the background of an image can add intensity and increased focus to other certain parts of the image. Furthermore both images use features of the male gaze to attract the viewer. Both are quite seductive and present the artist in quite a sexual way. This is added to by the mise en scene in the bottom image, for example the use of red and the connotations this has. Sex appeal has quite a lot of significance in the R&B genre, therefore this may be important to consider.