development of my idea and proposal / next shoot

After going through more artist precedents, I have thought of ways to improve my existing idea and proposal, and also after my first two shoots, I dont think that by photographing objects solely projects my ideas effectively because I dont think that it is strong enough to show the differences between gender characteristics since the viewers dont necessarily understand what I am trying to show in context. For example when I take a photo of a lipstick case, whether it be in an abstract style or not, the pictures dont read out what I am trying to show, instead the viewer focuses on what the object is as opposed to thinking about what it represents and how light effects out views of masculinity or femininity.
So for my next shoot I used myself as a subject and took a series of photographs where I use ambient and soft lighting for situations where I would use masculine objects and feminine objects and vice versa with darker, more high-contrast key lighting. This way I can manipulate the audience, even for just a second, and almost confuse them when they see the contradictions that I use in the photographs.
This means that I will have to make some small changes to my proposal in order to explain this idea clearer.

shoot 3: (dont let my face scare you, I have a fantastic personality)

 

This idea i used very scarce light, like Erwin Blumenfeld's idea for his photograph, to show the smoothness of the face and lipstick in a subtle way. This is because I just wanted to experiment with different kinds of lighting to see which one would be effective and since I wanted to portray smoking in a masculine way (since it is typically perceived as a 'manly' thing to do, and the idea was taken from film noir, where the male leads characteristics tend to include smoking addictions) strong contrast work with that idea.

 

Here I used pliers, an object commonly associated with masculinity, and used them as manicure scissors which is a typically feminine object. I used two bright spotlights at first to achieve a downlighting look, but decided that by making the light ambient and less direct, I would end up with a less harsh look that is still bright and relates stronger to femininity. I took these ideas from my precedent, Bill Brandt, who uses downlighting thats ambient and bright so that the shadows dont become too strong, but there's still definition in the shapes and spaces within the subjects' body parts. 

 

Using a women's disposable shaver and very strong key lighting, I tried to get a masculine effect through the heavy contrast lighting. This idea was heavily influenced by film noir where the male characters are famously depicted in strong key lighting. I thought that this would be effective in my photographs because  the audience would understand or have a better idea of what I am trying to show in my pictures.  

 

(I look like my uncle :S )
I had the idea of using a women's makeup brush and use it as a way to show manly facial hair such as a moustache, beard etc... and accompany it by using a half lit face to complement the contradiction of using a feminine object to create the appearance of a man. The idea of using a half-lit face came from Erwin Blumenfeld's photograph where the lighting was brighter on one side of the model's face than it was on the other side.