For my unit 3 project I set out to answer the question of “How has the Media of the 21st century affected the way in what people perceive is accepted beauty and body image?” Originally, my intention was to focus on how social media has changed beauty culture. I used websites/apps such as Instagram.com to showcase this for my research project titled “The Instagram Project.” Although I began this unit very focused on the social media aspect of things, I began veering more and more towards just focusing on beauty standards and how people perceive themselves. I found I could play around a lot more with the beauty side than I could the with social media. More than anything this was down to personal preference as I much preferred toying around with my friends’ faces than I did trying to incorporate social media into my pictures.
Throughout this unit I have used various different artists from all around the world as influences towards my final piece. I used the techniques of Chicago-based photographer Gracie Hagen, where I would use the same camera angles and lightings, all that I would change is a pose or the attire of my subject. I also used her techniques where she juxtaposes the images by placing them side by side and contrasting the subjects against each other. I found this worked quite well as it enabled me to have a comparison between the realism and the idealism of beauty.
Another artist I used was Jade Beall, whose work focuses on self acceptance and the beauty behind postpartum bodies. Although I wasn’t photographing the bodies of mothers, I used her ideas of focusing on the ‘imperfections’ on someone and making them comfortable with them. I did this by using close ups in my portraiture and really focusing on the little blemishes that people obsess over. This worked quite nicely because it helped me become more comfortable with asking people about their imperfections, and it made me more confident when it came to photographing them.
I also thought a bit outside the box and instead of using artists/photographers as influences, I used famous Instagram.com models such as Essena O’neill and Stina Sanders. These well-known women became media sensations for uncovering the truth behind all their ‘perfect’ posts on the app. This influenced me to create my own experiment named ‘The Instagram Project’, where I created a fake profile and used posed and natural images of one of my friends. I left the natural images as they were, but I heavily Photoshopped and added filters to the posed one, to make my friend ‘more’ beautiful. I do however wish that all the likes and followers on this account were real, however there was no way I could achieve such a high number of likes in such a short period of time, so I had to Photoshop some likes and comments onto my images, not making them very valid.
Finally, I used Scott Chasserot as the influence for my final piece. Chasserot took portraits of people and then Photoshopped them in a variety of different ways, before flashing all the images respectively for 1/10th of a second in a slideshow as the person whose portrait it was watched, connected to an EEG reader. Using the science behind brainwaves he was able to select the image which seemed to make the person the happiest, and then used that for his project. I visited the Science Museum in London where I learned that doing this you will always find one side far more attractive than the other, and I learned a bit about the science behind it.
I was inspired to create a final piece where I merged together the faces of different subjects (I used four in total), and try and create a new face which would be considered, with today's beauty standards, beautiful. I picked out the best features in the subjects' faces and combined them together trying to make them match as seamless as possible.
I chose this as my final piece because I believed it to relate nicely to my research and my practicals. It uses Hagen’s techniques of the same camera angle and lighting for all my portraits, Beall’s use of highlighting imperfection (however I was focusing more on the perfections of my subjects) and Chasserot’s use of science behind his project. As I decided to focus more on the beauty side rather than incorporating social media, the research I have done focusing on the media hasn’t really come into obvious play in my final piece, but it has helped me tremendously.
I was inspired to create a final piece where I merged together the faces of different subjects (I used four in total), and try and create a new face which would be considered, with today's beauty standards, beautiful. I picked out the best features in the subjects' faces and combined them together trying to make them match as seamless as possible.
I chose this as my final piece because I believed it to relate nicely to my research and my practicals. It uses Hagen’s techniques of the same camera angle and lighting for all my portraits, Beall’s use of highlighting imperfection (however I was focusing more on the perfections of my subjects) and Chasserot’s use of science behind his project. As I decided to focus more on the beauty side rather than incorporating social media, the research I have done focusing on the media hasn’t really come into obvious play in my final piece, but it has helped me tremendously.
The way I plan on displaying my final piece is by mounting my photograph onto a foam board, and mounting it onto some black card. I wanted to keep it simple and classy, I didn't want to do anything to crazy for the purposes of it distracting the viewer from my intention.
Final Final Piece...
After having had some time to look over my unit, I decided to completely reconsider my final piece. I felt like what I was previously going to use as my fnal piece was far too similar to that of Scott Chasserot. I was also told this by my photography teacher, so I sat myself down and thought about what I could do. I began to get rather frustrated with myself as I wasn't able to think of any creative ideas as to what to do, and I began losing a bit of hope. I left it over night and then resumed my work the next day, still quite unsure as to what to do next. I then thought, what if I combine all their faces together, merging all of their best features? I then looked back on some of my research and noted down some of the key features of all these beauiful women seen on magazines and billboards. I noticed the following, dark hair, light eyes (often blue or green, stand out a lot against dark hair), honey coloured skin (as the majority were caucasian), thin nose, high cheekbones, full lips, very defined eyebrows, and a perfect, wrinkle and blemish free face. Now I then looked at my portraits, and picked out these features, and began merging the faces together, creating this:
I am a lot happier with this piece than I was with my previous one. I think it is a step in the right direction, and I am pleased with the results.
Final pieces...
For my final piece I set out to create a series of 4 different portraits, each edited in the same way twice. For each original portrait, I will have another photograph where my subject's right side of the face is duplicated, and one where the left side is. This will give me a total of three images per portrait, and I shall be displaying them together.
I asked 4 of my classmates who I knew were happy to be photographed if I could take pictures of them, to which they all said yes. I asked them to stand in front of my camera with a white backdrop I had previously set out behind them. In order to add continuity to all my portraits I asked all of my subejcts to wear a blue shirt I had selected.
I got all my subjects to look at the camera with a neutral expression at first, and then another one with them smiling or laughing, but still trying to keep their head as straight as possible.
Here is the contact sheet for my shoot:
Here are the photographs of my subjects smiling, and below of my subjects with a neutral face:
Using Photoshop CS4, I selected half of my subject's face, copied the selection and pasted it onto a new layer. I then horizontally flipped the selection, and moved it so it aligned with my subject's face. I did this with both the right and the left side of the face respectively. I then stitched my images together, with the original in the middle, and the left duplicate to the left, and the right duplicate to the right. Here are the results:
Personally I do think they went rather well. I am pleased with the outcome of all the the edits, and although I do wish my friends had far less symmetrical faces than they do, I had to make do with what I had, which I still think worked out well. Considering this is my final piece, I believe it does fit in nicely with some research I have done. Although I realise it doesn't at all incorporate the use of social media, I did decide to focus solely on beauty and self-perception, as I found that heme a lot easier to play around with.
Lighting Techniques...
For my final piece, I wanted to make my portraits as similar as possible in terms of lighting, backdrop, costume and facial expressions. I used the help of one of the books on lighting in my photography classroom, it is titled 'The Portrait Lighting Reference' and it is written by London-based advertising photographer Peter Hince.
Hince has worked with famous rock band 'Queen' as their official photographer, and has also won awards for his photography.
I had a flick through to the pages that were relevant to what I needed, and I had a look at the various effects I could achieve based solely on where I positioned my lights. In the end, I used both lights and had them in the same position the example picture in the book has them.
Working towards my final piece...
The idea I had for my final piece came to me after having discoevered Scott Chasserot's work. I was inspired by the way altered his subjects' faces and the used their pre-conscious brainwaves to determine which photo they found most attractive.
For my final piece, I will be taking portraits of my classmates and then duplicating half of their face, flipping it, and replacing the other half of their face with it. The reason I want to do this as my final piece is because I believe it realtes really nicely to my research. Although this doesn't relate to much of my research behind social media, I have decided that for my final piece I am going to be focusing on beauty and self-perception.
I visited the Science Museum in London, and I learned that doing this you will always find one side far more attractive than the other, and I learned a bit about the science behind it.
It was suggested to me that I photograph women who are in the modelling industry. What I did was I took the February 2016 edition of Vogue, and I flicked through to find an image of a model I thought was adequate for me to practice on. I chose Vogue as that is the magazine I know is notorious for womens' beauty and fashion. The models chosen are what are considered this time of year's most beautiful women, especially those who are featured on the cover.
This is the cover photo for the latst edition of Vogue magazine:
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| February 2016, Vogue Magazine, Editor: Alexandra Shulman, Cover Model: Dakota Johnson |
Here is the original face of the model:
And here is the left side of her face mirrored onto her right side:
And here is the right side mirrored onto her left:
Doing this helped me learn the process I will be going through for my final pieces. I quite like the effect I have achieved, one photo looks as if she has a much wider and paler face than in the other photo. My only thing about using a model in Vogue magazine is that I know they have already been tampered with, she has probably already been duplicated and edited to seem more symmetrical, so my model looks pretty normal in both photos, she doesn't seem to have any asymetrical features that have made her look slightly strange (which is what I was hoping for).
I also did this with the March 2013's Vogue cover photo, which featured Beyoncé. Here is the original image:
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| Vogue, March 2013 edition, Editor: Alxandra Shulman, Cover Model: Beyoncé |
Here is the edited photo where I duplicated the left side of her face:
And here is the right side of her face duplicated:
Although I realise my editing here is a little sketchy in both images, what I was focusing on was how different and strange she looks in the images. Beyoncé is considered one of the world's most beautiful women, and I thought it was rather amusing how duplicating her left side made her look slightly more manly, and in the image where her right side is duplicated she appears slightly cross eyed.
Scott Chasserot
Starting to think about my final piece, I came across the 'Original Ideal' project by London based photographer Scott Chasserot. For this project, Chasserot asks for his subjects to pose completely unadorned (no jewellery, makeup, and minimalistic hairstyles), and getting them to pose with a neutral expression on their faces. Once the photograph has been taken, Chasserot alters dozens of different versions of the image. Some are edited according to "scientifically established canons of beauty" as it says in the video, or some against more traditional standards.
Chasserot then connected an EEG reader to the subjects' heads, and then presented the subjects with a quick slideshow of all the alterations, recording all the subjects' pre-conscious brainwaves. He then reviewed the scans and searched through all the translated brainwave readings to figure out which portrait the subject subconsciously liked best.
Here are a few examples from this project:
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| Original Ideal - Scott Chasserot, 2013 |
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| Original Ideal - Scott Chasserot, 2013 |
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| Original Ideal - Scott Chasserot, 2013 |
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| Original Ideal - Scott Chasserot, 2013 |
This project inspired me to create something interesting for my final piece. I thought to take a short series of portraits, maybe of 3 or 4 different people. I then thought I could take the portraits, and mirroring both sides of my subjects faces. There will always be one side considered more attractive than the other, and creating a mirrored image of the 'good and the bad' side could create a really interesting effect.
I'm excited for what this could create and I believe that I could gain a realy good final piece from this.
How the Media secludes us
Today we are surrounded by technology. There are officially more active mobile phone in the world currently than there are humans. Practically everyone has a smartphone on which they can access social media sites and the internet whenever and wherever at very low cost. This can be detrimental to real-life socialising, as people are more focused about the thoughts and opinions of their online friends than they are about those who are physically around them.
In the photographs I have taken I wanted to highlight how, despite all my friends being on a social media site, there isn't any socialising going on at all. I appreciate the irony in this, and I thought I could benefit by crafting a small series of photographs using this.
In my first picture you can see someone surrounded by people, there is no communication going on, they're completely occupied by their phones. I decided to have someone in the middle of the group standing tall aginst the others in order to stand out a little more. Also, I thought it would work really nicely if I had everyone looking down onto their screens but the middle person (who isn't on their phone) to be looking straight into the camera. In terms of composition, I thought it was best to have an even number of pople on both sides, and one person in the middle in front of the subject I wanted the attention drawn to. I figured that the shape of the group really draws the viewer directly to the middle person, which in turn makes for a more effective photograph.
In my second shot I played around with the same idea, but this time I created a layered image and reduced the opacity of the layer containing the people on their phones. I thought I could play around a little more with the idea of people becoming almost invisible when they're hooked onto their smartphones. I noticed that when I'm in my Sixth Form's common room, about 90% of people are on their phones, tablet or computer. Although it is debatable that those on a tablet or PC are most likely doing some form of school work during their lunch break (as after all they are in school), I had a little peak around and the majority of people were on some form of game or social media site. Funnily enough, when I went to ask the subjects you see in this picture whether or not I could photograph them, all of them had their phones in hand, in fact, I had to ask one of them to put their phone away to create the shot I was after.
I obtained this ghostly effect by taking two images, one with people sat on the chairs and another of the chairs completely empty. I then reduced the opacity from 100% to 70% on one layer, and merged it on top of the other layer in order to achieve the desired effect.
Realistic Vs. Edited
It's no secret that the media digitally manipulates people (women in particular) to a degree where they practically don't have any of your average human features (for instance their teeth are a perfect white, their hair is so shiny it could double up as a mirror, etc.) So what is so wrong with the normal looks of your day-to-day people?
My intention for this shoot was to photograph your average, everyday people and contrasting them against models found on magazine covers, adverts, posters, etc. I wanted to highlight the difference between a normal human and a digitally constructed one. When I was choosing my subjects I wasn't at all selective. I picked the 4 people nearest to me, who were all happy to be photographed. These are the images I will be using for this task:
As I wasn't completely sure how I wanted my subjects photographed, I played it safe and took a normal portrait shot and an uncomfortable close up of my subjects. Something I was very sure I wanted to do however, was photograph my subjects' smiles. One of my subjects wasn't happy about me photographing his teeth as he felt insecure about them, so I just photographed my other three friends.
Here are some images that I have found on the internet by typing into the search engine: 'Portrait Brunette Woman'. 'Portrait Ginger Woman', 'Portrait Man', 'Portrait Blonde Man'
Here are some images that I have found which I wanted to compare to the images I have taken of some real people:
What I found most interesting about the comparisons between the edited smiles and the real smiles is that those which are edited are perfectly symmetrical, white, and all look exactly the same. But, when compared to the natural smiles with crooked teeth, hidden teeth and braces, it is easy to spot how unrealistic the edited teeth are. I have noticed that on a lot of TV adverts or portraits where the teeth have been heavily manipulated, the canines are often left out and made to look like the rest of the front teeth. This adds to symmetry, which is proven to increase attractiveness.
Two-Faced
I had the idea of creating an interesting effect using double exposure. I thought of maybe trying to get my model to go from looking one side to the other, and hopefully achieving an exposure where she looked as if she had two faces. However, it didn't work out too well and I ended up with weirdly lit, blurry images. Also, the eyes didn't match in the middle, so my model had 4 eyes instead of three, which isn't what I was aiming for.
Had I managed to achieve the desired effect I would have left one side of her face completely natural, and the other would have been heavily photoshopped with makeup and other effects to make her look like a cover girl.
Seeing as it didn't work, I then took two separate pictures and will combine them in photoshop to gain the illusion of my model having two faces. Although this wasn't my original intention, I may be able to recreate the desired effect using this method instead.
With this shoot I wanted to highlight how different the same person can look from being photoshopped, although I realise now there are probably better ways of demonstrating this.
Because you can't get a true black on real tattoos, I selected any black on these tattoos and changed the colour to more of a Cyan hue in order to make it more realistic. I also distorted the tattoos ever so slightly so they wrapped around my body a little more naturally, as otherwise it was quite obvious they were fake.
I came across British photographer Alan Powdrill, who did a project titled 'Covered' where he photographed people fully clothed, and juxtaposed it by placing an image of the same model in the same stance revealing all their tattoos. I liked his work and thought it linked in nicely with the shoot I have done.
I was inspired by Powdrill's work because I found it showed how first impressions aren't everything. You can see someone walking down a street in winter, wrapped up in a coat, scarf and gloves walking towards you and you wouldn't bat an eyelid. But if it were summer and you saw the same person walking towards you in a vest top and shorts, absolutely covered in tattoos from neck to toe, you might be inclined to cross the street to avoid them. I like how Powdrill has brought these judgements to light and created an interesting body of work from it.
Here is an example of his work:
The model in this photograph is Kimmy Clancy, who is sporting many tattoos on her body, but most catching one being the band Kiss across her stomach. "My Kiss tattoos are my favourites, the pain was incredible but it's good to show my ultimate dedication to the band."
What may surprise some people is that she is actually a married mother of two. Some people may believe her tattoos are 'disgusting', 'ugly', and some may even draw up conclusions that she must have had a rough upbringing, she might have a drug problem, she could perhaps have spent a few years in prison... and all of this simply because she chooses to express herself through the ink on her body.
The second part of this shoot involved me using images of my friend Shan where she had obviously made an effort to seem more attractive by posing and using lighting. I photoshopped all these images, I made her paler in some images, enhanced her eyes and brows in others, removed any spots or blemishes she may have had. I then also tweaked with the curves in photoshop, and played around with other tools.
I then uploaded the images to Instagram, where I chose the filter which mostly suited the image. I then took screenshots of the posts, and opened them up in Microsoft Paint. I then went on a variety of popular Instagram accounts and screenshotted the likes and comments on their posts, which I then cropped in Paint and pasted onto my own posts. This was done to highlight how social media always focuses on the appearances of people (especially young women), rather than the qualities of the person in the image.
Although I would have loved to have genuinely received over 3,000 likes on these images of Shan to prove my point, unless my account had been promoted by Instagram or by a sponsor, there would have been no way I could have attained such a high number in such a short period of time. Considering as well that this account has only 5 followers, reaching that many likes and comments would not have been possible.
Here are the images I am talking about:
Here is the before and after of the images I have edited:
Essena O'neill and Stina Sanders
Instagram has become such a big part of people's every day lives. From posting a simple picture of someone's dinner to a seemingly effortless selfie, the world has become '#obsessed' with the social media app that can instantly share your most-definitely-not-staged candid shots.
Instagram now has over 300 million active users, making it bigger than Twitter, which had 280 million active accounts in December 2014.
It is seemingly obvious that Instagram is dishonest, with the current 25 different filters it has to offer, it is already warping the reality behind an image.
Instagram has turned around the lives of many people. Some thrive in looking good for this two-dimensional, gaining thousands, if not millions of followers, getting paid up to $2000 for simply posting a picture of them looking good in a dress, promoting the businesses that sponsor them.
One of these former Instagram models, Essena O'Neill, who had over half a million followers and over 2,000 instagram posts has ironically become one of the most trending topics on the Internet after having quit social media.
O'Neill believes that social media promotes a 'dishonest and contrived sense of beauty.' After having spent 3 years of her life living the two-dimensional world, basing her values and self-worth on numbers, how many likes, followers, views she'd receive. Spending hours taking hundreds of photos before narrowing it down to the perfect shot, to then vigorously edit it so it would seem effortless and candid just so it could then be posted to Instagram so people could see that she 'has it all'.
Many people look up to these insta-famous celebrities who seem to live the perfect life, who seem to have the perfect relationship, the most beautiful house and the healthiest lifestyle, forgetting how social media is a business that companies exploit with product placements and sponsorships.
Social media has warped what people believe to be true beauty, and has created unreasonable standards which are unattainable in the real life.
After having had the sudden realisation that her happiness was based entirely on strangers' opinions of her beauty, she decided to edit all the captions on the majority of her Instagram posts, explaining why it is that these images aren't beautiful, why they're deceptive, and why you shouldn't believe everything that is thrown at you by social media.
Here are a few examples:
After Essena O'Neill spoke out about the realities of Instagram, and how it's all about filters and making your life as perfect as possible to hundreds of thousands of followers, 24 year old UK model Stina Sanders was inspired to expose the realities of her job, and how nothing is as glam as you're made to believe.
She has posed for major brands such as Lynx, Nike and L'oreal.
In order to prove that Instagram posts don't at all reveal the truth behind the images, Sanders decided to spend a week posting untouched and #superreal images of herself and her life. These photos included one of her in hospital getting a colonic irrigation done for her IBS, one of her bleaching her facial hair, and one of her feet which have become disfigured due to running.
"During the experiment I had lost 3,000 followers. By the end of it, 5,000." Sanders was shocked. She expected it to be the number of likes that decreased so drastically, not the amount of followers. Sanders has decided to speak out about how social media affects women in a very negative way.
An interesting point is that the likes suddenly became mostly from women, as did the comments. Usually it was split, as many men liked the images as the women. "It was evident they wanted to reach out to me, because they could relate in one way or another."
"It's only human nature to compare yourself to others, but this is why social media can be poisonous, especially to young girls. I'm in the modeling industry and have seen even the most beautiful women with cellulite and acne. It doesn't stress me out but it does concern me that girls have unrealistic goals because even their idols that they look up to aren't exactly as they seem." Sanders says to Cosmopolitan magazine.
Here are some of Sanders's usual posts:
And here are some posts from the experiment:
What I found most interesting was how none of her usual, more glamorous and sexy posts' likes reach 4 digit numbers, whereas those she posted during the experiment range from 2,000 to nearly 10,000 likes. Whether this is because of the sudden media attention she received for doing this experiment brought a lot more attention to her posts, and all these likes are from new followers, or whether it is the inspiring message she brings to light from these images. Either way, I would have expected her quantity of likes to have diminished significantly from her usual posts, seeing as she lost about 5,000+ followers.
Posts to make you think
Vogue
My intention for this shoot was to photograph your average, everyday people and contrasting them against models found on magazine covers, adverts, posters, etc. I wanted to highlight the difference between a normal human and a digitally constructed one. When I was choosing my subjects I wasn't at all selective. I picked the 4 people nearest to me, who were all happy to be photographed. These are the images I will be using for this task:
As I wasn't completely sure how I wanted my subjects photographed, I played it safe and took a normal portrait shot and an uncomfortable close up of my subjects. Something I was very sure I wanted to do however, was photograph my subjects' smiles. One of my subjects wasn't happy about me photographing his teeth as he felt insecure about them, so I just photographed my other three friends.
Here are some images that I have found on the internet by typing into the search engine: 'Portrait Brunette Woman'. 'Portrait Ginger Woman', 'Portrait Man', 'Portrait Blonde Man'
Here are some images that I have found which I wanted to compare to the images I have taken of some real people:
What I found most interesting about the comparisons between the edited smiles and the real smiles is that those which are edited are perfectly symmetrical, white, and all look exactly the same. But, when compared to the natural smiles with crooked teeth, hidden teeth and braces, it is easy to spot how unrealistic the edited teeth are. I have noticed that on a lot of TV adverts or portraits where the teeth have been heavily manipulated, the canines are often left out and made to look like the rest of the front teeth. This adds to symmetry, which is proven to increase attractiveness.
Two-Faced
I had the idea of creating an interesting effect using double exposure. I thought of maybe trying to get my model to go from looking one side to the other, and hopefully achieving an exposure where she looked as if she had two faces. However, it didn't work out too well and I ended up with weirdly lit, blurry images. Also, the eyes didn't match in the middle, so my model had 4 eyes instead of three, which isn't what I was aiming for.
Had I managed to achieve the desired effect I would have left one side of her face completely natural, and the other would have been heavily photoshopped with makeup and other effects to make her look like a cover girl.
Seeing as it didn't work, I then took two separate pictures and will combine them in photoshop to gain the illusion of my model having two faces. Although this wasn't my original intention, I may be able to recreate the desired effect using this method instead.
With this shoot I wanted to highlight how different the same person can look from being photoshopped, although I realise now there are probably better ways of demonstrating this.
Labels
I did a very quick shoot a few weeks ago when I was struck by the sudden inspiration of labels, and how labels affect body image. As I had my camera beside me and a willing friend, I grabbed some Post-it notes and began writing down some 'flaws' on them. I wasn't too sure what my purpose with this shoot was, it was quite a rash decision. I then uploaed the images to my computer and tried to think of a way to tie this shoot in with the rest of my work, but nothing really came to me so I left it and pretty much forgot about it. I thought it would have been a shame had I not at least published my efforts, so I decided to write this blog post as to not waste my work.
During the shoot I played around a little, I used post it notes (which I found most effective), and marker pen directly onto my subject's skin (which I then smudged out to try out a different effect - not 100% sure what that effect was meant to be though...)
I think that although my original intention was to highlight how labels affect body image, I don't think my shoot does that idea any justice. Therefore, I won't take this shoot any further and I will leave it as is, as I feel trying to squeeze something out of it would just be a bit of a waste of time.
Tattoo Experimentation
This is a little more experimentation. What I have done is I have taken a series of pictures of myself, with the plans of editing each one to different kinds of beauty standards. For instance, I know some people think tattoos are beautiful body artwork, and to them someone who's been inked is far more attractive than someone who is completely natural, per say. I thought this would be fun to play around with in Photoshop, and so I decided to find some pictures of tattoos on the internet and layer them onto my body.
Firstly, what I did for this image was I cropped it slightly as I found it made the image easier to work with. I cropped it to the same ratio the image was originally. I then used a tattoo I found on the internet, opened it as a new layer, added an Alpha channel, removed the white background to create a transparent layer, and then pasted it onto my chest. I repeated the same process with the other tattoos.Because you can't get a true black on real tattoos, I selected any black on these tattoos and changed the colour to more of a Cyan hue in order to make it more realistic. I also distorted the tattoos ever so slightly so they wrapped around my body a little more naturally, as otherwise it was quite obvious they were fake.
I came across British photographer Alan Powdrill, who did a project titled 'Covered' where he photographed people fully clothed, and juxtaposed it by placing an image of the same model in the same stance revealing all their tattoos. I liked his work and thought it linked in nicely with the shoot I have done.
I was inspired by Powdrill's work because I found it showed how first impressions aren't everything. You can see someone walking down a street in winter, wrapped up in a coat, scarf and gloves walking towards you and you wouldn't bat an eyelid. But if it were summer and you saw the same person walking towards you in a vest top and shorts, absolutely covered in tattoos from neck to toe, you might be inclined to cross the street to avoid them. I like how Powdrill has brought these judgements to light and created an interesting body of work from it.
Here is an example of his work:
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| Kimmy Clancy, Covered Project, Alan Powdrill, 2015 |
What may surprise some people is that she is actually a married mother of two. Some people may believe her tattoos are 'disgusting', 'ugly', and some may even draw up conclusions that she must have had a rough upbringing, she might have a drug problem, she could perhaps have spent a few years in prison... and all of this simply because she chooses to express herself through the ink on her body.
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| Kimmy Clancy - taken from her personal Instagram profile |
The Instagram Project
Although it isn't technically a photoshoot, for terms of simplicity I will be calling this mini project Shoot 4. After having seen and researched different Instagram profiles, I have decided to carry out a little project of my own. I decided to use my friend Shan for this task, because I find that naturally, she is quite a good looking person who can also scrub up pretty well.
I created a fake Instagram account, as I didn't want to use my own and Shan's is set to private. I chose a name that didn't attract too much attention, but then I didn't want anything hard to remember, so I settled for 'andreasmith90210'.
Seeing as Instagram has majorly influenced today's social media, it was only fair for me to highlight how using images where my model is 'glammed up' (wearing makeup, wearing dresses perhaps, using filters and photoshop to remove any blemishes...) will get her more likes and more attention than using photos of her completely natural, some pictures candid, others simple selfies.
I began by taking a few photos of Shan pretending to play the guitar, and one of her supposedly painting (though if you analyse the images you realise she isn't actually carrying out any of these activities, for the guitar doesn't have any strings and the palette holds no paint). I chose these activities because I thought the concept of them showed she was artistic, creative, and there was more to her than just looks. When I see images of some models on Instagram, however candid they may look, the models never seem like there's anything more to them than just looks and vanity. I wanted to make sure my model came across as a more rounded person than that, hence why I decided to photograph her doing these creative activities.
Other images are photos I have found on my phone's camera roll, of events Shan and I attended to (for instance a fancy dress party, and one from when I took her horse riding.) I didn't want my account to look fake, which is why I used real images too.
Here are the 5 images I uploaded to Instagram. I used no filters, no photoshop, and no fancy camera tricks either. These 5 images are completely raw. The number of likes and the comments on these images are not fake, they are what real users have done.
The second part of this shoot involved me using images of my friend Shan where she had obviously made an effort to seem more attractive by posing and using lighting. I photoshopped all these images, I made her paler in some images, enhanced her eyes and brows in others, removed any spots or blemishes she may have had. I then also tweaked with the curves in photoshop, and played around with other tools.
I then uploaded the images to Instagram, where I chose the filter which mostly suited the image. I then took screenshots of the posts, and opened them up in Microsoft Paint. I then went on a variety of popular Instagram accounts and screenshotted the likes and comments on their posts, which I then cropped in Paint and pasted onto my own posts. This was done to highlight how social media always focuses on the appearances of people (especially young women), rather than the qualities of the person in the image.
Although I would have loved to have genuinely received over 3,000 likes on these images of Shan to prove my point, unless my account had been promoted by Instagram or by a sponsor, there would have been no way I could have attained such a high number in such a short period of time. Considering as well that this account has only 5 followers, reaching that many likes and comments would not have been possible.
Here are the images I am talking about:
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| X Pro II filter |
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| Perpetua filter |
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| Nashville filter |
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| Clarendon filter |
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| overview of the fake account |
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| Before and After |
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| Before and After |
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| Before and After |
Essena O'neill and Stina Sanders
Instagram has become such a big part of people's every day lives. From posting a simple picture of someone's dinner to a seemingly effortless selfie, the world has become '#obsessed' with the social media app that can instantly share your most-definitely-not-staged candid shots.
It is seemingly obvious that Instagram is dishonest, with the current 25 different filters it has to offer, it is already warping the reality behind an image.
Instagram has turned around the lives of many people. Some thrive in looking good for this two-dimensional, gaining thousands, if not millions of followers, getting paid up to $2000 for simply posting a picture of them looking good in a dress, promoting the businesses that sponsor them.
One of these former Instagram models, Essena O'Neill, who had over half a million followers and over 2,000 instagram posts has ironically become one of the most trending topics on the Internet after having quit social media.
O'Neill believes that social media promotes a 'dishonest and contrived sense of beauty.' After having spent 3 years of her life living the two-dimensional world, basing her values and self-worth on numbers, how many likes, followers, views she'd receive. Spending hours taking hundreds of photos before narrowing it down to the perfect shot, to then vigorously edit it so it would seem effortless and candid just so it could then be posted to Instagram so people could see that she 'has it all'.
Many people look up to these insta-famous celebrities who seem to live the perfect life, who seem to have the perfect relationship, the most beautiful house and the healthiest lifestyle, forgetting how social media is a business that companies exploit with product placements and sponsorships.
Social media has warped what people believe to be true beauty, and has created unreasonable standards which are unattainable in the real life.
After having had the sudden realisation that her happiness was based entirely on strangers' opinions of her beauty, she decided to edit all the captions on the majority of her Instagram posts, explaining why it is that these images aren't beautiful, why they're deceptive, and why you shouldn't believe everything that is thrown at you by social media.
Here are a few examples:
After Essena O'Neill spoke out about the realities of Instagram, and how it's all about filters and making your life as perfect as possible to hundreds of thousands of followers, 24 year old UK model Stina Sanders was inspired to expose the realities of her job, and how nothing is as glam as you're made to believe.
She has posed for major brands such as Lynx, Nike and L'oreal.
In order to prove that Instagram posts don't at all reveal the truth behind the images, Sanders decided to spend a week posting untouched and #superreal images of herself and her life. These photos included one of her in hospital getting a colonic irrigation done for her IBS, one of her bleaching her facial hair, and one of her feet which have become disfigured due to running.
"During the experiment I had lost 3,000 followers. By the end of it, 5,000." Sanders was shocked. She expected it to be the number of likes that decreased so drastically, not the amount of followers. Sanders has decided to speak out about how social media affects women in a very negative way.
An interesting point is that the likes suddenly became mostly from women, as did the comments. Usually it was split, as many men liked the images as the women. "It was evident they wanted to reach out to me, because they could relate in one way or another."
"It's only human nature to compare yourself to others, but this is why social media can be poisonous, especially to young girls. I'm in the modeling industry and have seen even the most beautiful women with cellulite and acne. It doesn't stress me out but it does concern me that girls have unrealistic goals because even their idols that they look up to aren't exactly as they seem." Sanders says to Cosmopolitan magazine.
Here are some of Sanders's usual posts:
And here are some posts from the experiment:
What I found most interesting was how none of her usual, more glamorous and sexy posts' likes reach 4 digit numbers, whereas those she posted during the experiment range from 2,000 to nearly 10,000 likes. Whether this is because of the sudden media attention she received for doing this experiment brought a lot more attention to her posts, and all these likes are from new followers, or whether it is the inspiring message she brings to light from these images. Either way, I would have expected her quantity of likes to have diminished significantly from her usual posts, seeing as she lost about 5,000+ followers.
Posts to make you think
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| Mr Thoms - Street Art |
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Source - The Occidental Weekly
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source - gocomics.com
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| anonymous |
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Canadian Street Art by L♥
Vogue
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Vogue
As I am researching how the media is affecting society's views on body image, it is only right for me to research the major magazines which circulate the lives of many women across the world.
Here are some facts about multi-million dollar magazine, Vogue:
Vogue:
Began in 1892 as a weekly publication, then moved on to fortnightly only to become monthly in 1973.
Lack of diversity - Halle Berry was the first black woman to be featured on the September issue (the biggest issue of the year) since 1989, almost two decades after Naomi Campbell, who was the first woman ever to be featured.
This year's September issue contained only two pages featuring plus-sized models, out of the issue's 832 pages. Even so, they only feature as a paid-for advert for the '#PlusIsEqual' campaign.
Mostly features skinny, white, young, successful women - never any voluptuous, black, asian, middle eastern (etc), older women.
Any man who features on the cover is either accompanied by a woman, or is a handsome, muscly, etc. Although they do feature men who are considerably older than the women they usually use, these men have a full head of hair, often in a suit or swimming trunks and feature fewer gimmicks than the women covers do.
Cover lines always to do with age-proofing skin, dieting, summer bodies, the perfect body to entice a man, how to make yourself beautiful for a man, as well as other degrading and patronising headlines.
Imperfections
After having been inspired by Jade Beall's work, wherein she really emphasises on peoples' flaws to express outer beauty, I decided to take on a little task where I asked my friends what they believed were their flaws. I then photographed their 'imperfections', and mounted them together to create a small collage.
I asked four different friends what their most predominant imperfections were, and I received a variety of different answers, some more obscure than others.
The answers varied from your traditional spots and moles to belly buttons and earlobes.
Here are a few I photographed:
I wanted to really highlight how people focus on the smallest things that they consider wrong about themselves, rather than focus on the bigger, better things.
I took this mini shoot on my phone, it was mainly to see how people felt with regards to me getting really up close and personal and how they felt when I was photographing their imperfections.
My intention with this mini photoshoot was so I could also practice interaction with my subjects. Even though the people I have photographed are my friends, I still wanted to practice the approach towards my subjects, e.g. how to politely ask if I could photograph one's belly button.
But where do I plan on going with this? I believed that with the practice I gained from this mini photoshoot will help me further down the line. Though I do not yet fully know what it is I want to do, I know that now I have had successful experience in asking people if I could photograph something they consider quite embarrassing and personal about themselves, I can use this practice for what it is I decide to do for my final piece.
Mary Ellen Mark
Jade Beall
I asked four different friends what their most predominant imperfections were, and I received a variety of different answers, some more obscure than others.
The answers varied from your traditional spots and moles to belly buttons and earlobes.
Here are a few I photographed:
I took this mini shoot on my phone, it was mainly to see how people felt with regards to me getting really up close and personal and how they felt when I was photographing their imperfections.
My intention with this mini photoshoot was so I could also practice interaction with my subjects. Even though the people I have photographed are my friends, I still wanted to practice the approach towards my subjects, e.g. how to politely ask if I could photograph one's belly button.
But where do I plan on going with this? I believed that with the practice I gained from this mini photoshoot will help me further down the line. Though I do not yet fully know what it is I want to do, I know that now I have had successful experience in asking people if I could photograph something they consider quite embarrassing and personal about themselves, I can use this practice for what it is I decide to do for my final piece.
Mary Ellen Mark
Mary Ellen Mark was a big influence to my previous artist Jade Beall. Like Mark, Beall photographed people who were "away from mainstream society and towards its more interesting, often troubled fringes." Her photography addresses a lot of taboo issues such as homelessness, drug addiction, prostitution etc. This relates to my theme as I too am focusing on the taboo aspects which are hidden by the media.
Mark was renowned for creating really strong relationships between her and her subjects. For example, she spent three whole months befriending the prostitutes on Falkland Road in Bombay, and from it she created a series of brutally honest photographs.
It took Mark 10 years to be able to photograph the women on Falkland Road, each time she tried she was unwelcome, men gathered around her, and the women spat and threw garbage at her, she was even hit in the face by a drunken man, however Mark did not give up, she returned in 1978 and became very persistent. She would return to the street everyday, and people began getting curious for her interest in them. "And slowly, very slowly, I began to make friends."
Initially, Mark became friends with the prostitutes. She realised how close these girls were with one another, being very protective over each other. Mark says they often used to meet at a local cafe called Olympia Cafe, which became Mark's favourite place on the street, and where she befriended many of the girls.
The girl in this picture is named Asha. She is a 17 year old prostitute whose parents are both deceased and whose boyfriend, Ragu, is a pickpocket who is constantly in and out of jail. Asha sleeps in the street, and hates being a prostitute, but has to be one in order to survive. She charges 10 to 12 rupees per customer, which is significantly more money than other prostitutes charge. "I wouldn't do it for less. It's not worth it. I don't have to: when people see my face they will always give me money for food." She told Mark. "What kind of a God is this to give me a face like this and then to put me in these surroundings?"
The madam who owns the brothels died of tuberculosis a few months after this photograph was taken, and so her girls were separated and sold to other houses on the street, separating Asha from her friends and throwing her into new, unknown surroundings.
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Young Street Prostitute Crying in Olympia Cafe, Bombay, India, 1978, Mary Ellen Mark
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Jade Beall
I came across Jade Beall when I found a video of her doing a Ted talk about her project "A Beautiful Body" (which can be found by clicking here). Beall creates very truthful images of women, usually mothers, wherein they are made to feel irreplaceably beautiful to counteract the photoshopped images that have taken over mainstream media.
I was inspired by the messages that Beall's photography was conveying, which is that everyone is beautiful. Beall's photography focuses on the features on women's bodies that are obliterated by the media such as stretch marks, freckles, cellulite etc and creates a beautiful, empowering body of work by emphasising these features.
She is defying the norms of the media, she is highlighting the problem the influence of the media has had on women over the years.
When Beall began her photography, she had initially used her close friends as her subjects for her photographs, but she was criticised by those who viewed her work, saying she became "part of the problem" because her subjects weren't supposedly "flawed" enough. She had been keen on photographing a range of different body typos for her portfolio, but the subjects she used just weren't broad enough. This was until she herself finally gave birth, and she was shocked as to how much her body had changed after childbirth. She then realised that she had the body she was finally looking for to add to her portfolio. "So, totally scared and suffering from post-partum depression, I dragged myself myself into my studio and took some self-portraits."
After having posted the pictures to her website, she began receiving floods of emails from women asking if she too could photograph their post-pregnancy bodies. And this, is how the Beautiful Body Project began.
Once again I have had to censor certain parts of the image.
I was inspired by the messages that Beall's photography was conveying, which is that everyone is beautiful. Beall's photography focuses on the features on women's bodies that are obliterated by the media such as stretch marks, freckles, cellulite etc and creates a beautiful, empowering body of work by emphasising these features.
She is defying the norms of the media, she is highlighting the problem the influence of the media has had on women over the years.
When Beall began her photography, she had initially used her close friends as her subjects for her photographs, but she was criticised by those who viewed her work, saying she became "part of the problem" because her subjects weren't supposedly "flawed" enough. She had been keen on photographing a range of different body typos for her portfolio, but the subjects she used just weren't broad enough. This was until she herself finally gave birth, and she was shocked as to how much her body had changed after childbirth. She then realised that she had the body she was finally looking for to add to her portfolio. "So, totally scared and suffering from post-partum depression, I dragged myself myself into my studio and took some self-portraits."
After having posted the pictures to her website, she began receiving floods of emails from women asking if she too could photograph their post-pregnancy bodies. And this, is how the Beautiful Body Project began.
Once again I have had to censor certain parts of the image.
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The Beautiful Body Project, Jade Beall, 2013
Above is Beall's favourite photograph of her series taken in 2013. It shows a 24 year old dancer, who always covers her belly because she is ashamed of her wrinkles, she doesn't want anyone to know this big "secret". This was the first time she had shown her body in this way, so Beall took a photograph of her loving children pressing against it.
Another shoot in the style of Gracie Hagen For my second shoot I wanted to use Gracie Hagen's techniques again where she uses the same model, camera angle and lighting, yet different poses in order to attain different effects in both of her images. I used her ideas for this shoot, yet instead of changing just the pose, I decided glam up my model a little bit by letting her hair down and putting makeup on her in the second image. I decided to use the same clothes as I wanted the images to be similar in some respects. I decided to re-do this shoot but with a few differences as I felt the previous shoot was far too similar, and I wanted to refrain from copying Hagen's techniques exactly.
Here are the unedited versions of this shoot.
 
I then went through and cropped the images in Picasa 3. Using the dodge/bun tool in GIMP 2.8, I added some dark circles around Shan's eyes in oder to make her seem very tired and slightly unhealthier in the first image.
In the second image, I used the smudge tool to remove any blemishes Shan had. In Microsoft Paint, I placed the images side-by-side, seeing as that is what Gracie Hagen does with her images.
Here are the edits:
 
Here is the contact sheet for my shoot:
During the shoot I tried out a few different poses, used different facial expressions and played around with Shan's clothes a little. These are two images I debated on whther using or not, before I came to the decision of using the image I showed previously. I decided not to use these as I prefered the other one, I felt it was a lot more raw than these two.
 
Here is the best edit for this shoot:
A shoot in the style of Gracie Hagen
I created a photoshoot in the style of my first artist, Gracie Hagen. I used her techniques where she doesn't change the camera angles or the lighting when photographing a model, and only by changing the stance of the model, she creates two very different results.
I decided to try out her style in a shoot of my own, I took a picture of my friend Shan in an attractive pose, and I then got her to change to a less appealing stance. I used the exact same lighting and the camera didn't move from one shot to the other, only the subject changed positions.
Here are the two images I have chosen for my shoot. I chose the first image as I believe my friend looks very natural, and as she is an attractive girl I didn't feel the need for her to be in an extravagant pose. I chose the second image as she is pulling a much less attractive face and she's in a rather unflattering pose as well. I thought these images contrasted nicely, just like those of Hagen's.
 
I then cropped these two images, I purposely didn't tweak any settings seeing as that could have influenced the final results. I wanted to make sure the only editing that took place in these two images was the cropping and, later on, stitching them together. Here are the cropped versions:
 
I then stitched the two images together, and this is the final result:
 I do like the end result and my image was what I'd hoped for, although my shoot was influenced by her style and her techniques, I realise now it is far too similar to that of Hagen's work. I'd hoped for my image to differ a bit more from Hagen's work than it ended up doing. Despite this, I am happy with my shoot as I believe it still carries out the effect I wanted it to.
Gracie Hagen
One of the artists I came across during my research was Chicago-based photographer Gracie Hagen. She is a self-taught photographer who, as a result, developed a unique style that really appeals to her. According to her bio, she wants her work to "show the core commonalities beneath our vast diversity." Her images reveal the true, yet sometimes uncomfortable realities of our hidden nature.
For her project 'Illusions of the body', Hagen uses the same lighting and the same camera angles for all her photographs, the only differences in her images being the ethnicity and gender of the volunteer models.
For her project she gets her models to pose in a flattering posture, and then in an unflattering one. It reveals how the same body can go from being considered "gorgeous to ghastly", which goes to show that the way one carries oneself can have a real impact on the perception of beauty with regards to their body.
Within the series she aimed to use a range of different ages, body types, ethnicities and genders in order to highlight how people are different shapes and sizes, there is no "normal".
I have had to censor certain parts of the images because the human body is frowned upon by the Government, and seeing as I am under the age of 18 I am not allowed to display any nudity.
The reason I have found myself really drawn to Hagen's work is because she is not afraid to speak the truth with her images. I admire how bold she is with her work, she does not alter the bodies of her subjects in post production to make them more flattering and 'socially acceptable' like many artists would. I was so intrigued by her work in fact that I decided to contact her personally and ask her a few questions about her work (you will have to click to enlarge).
I decided to ask Hagen about her motivation behind the work she has created, to which she told me that she makes art about topics she thinks that we, as a culture, need to talk about. I admire how she doesn't believe that she needs to 'stick to the rules' in order to create a wonderful body of work. She is not afraid of crossing the line and being bold with her art.
As I've previously mentioned, Hagen's technique is that of using the same lighting and angles for all her subjects, and that is the beauty of her work. It serves as a powerful reminder that the imagery we compare ourselves to is not real, it is a product of lighting, angles, photoshop and many other factors. "Don't compare yourself to something that isn't achievable."
I was intrigued by Hagen's opinion on why the natural human body is so taboo, yet at the same time is completely exploited by the media. I asked her this question to gain a bout more insight into her beliefs. I found her response to be very honest and truthful, much like her photography. Hagen told me that she believes it is because our culture is obsessed with sex, yet at the same time is absolutely terrified of it. She says it "Threatens their (the media) fragile senses and their place in the world so they decide it's bad and shame people who don't feel the same way."
Charlotte Johnson Wahl
 I watched a Sky Arts documentary on Charlotte Johnson Wahl, the mother of London Mayor Boris Johnson, and to my surprise, I actually really liked her work.
Born in 1942, and painting since the early age of 5, Johnson's Wahl's paintings have rarely ever been on display.
After having married her husband Stanley Johnson and having four children with him, Johnson Wahl found her life a little too overwhelming and had an intense mental breakdown aged only 32.
In 1974 she was admitted to Maudsley psychiatric hospital for 9 months. She suffered from depression and chronic OCD, she had such an intense phobia of contamination that she would sometimes wash her hands so vigorously they would often bleed. Johnson Wahl was one of the first ever people to be treated with Aversion Therapy (which Google defines as "A type of behaviour therapy designed to make patients give up an undesirable habit by causing them to associate it with an unpleasant effect.")
She completed around 80 canvases during her 9 month stay, one of which is titled 'Ask and get no reassurance'. The story behind this painting is that patients weren't allowed to discuss their problems and they most certainly weren't allowed to be comforted by the staff. Any time she were to ask for help, she was repeatedly told 'Ask and get no reassurance.'
Several of her canvases of the Maudsley time period all share thick, black lines which come to the fore and outline the overcrowded, oppressive compositions. She shifts to purples, dark blues and browns. She depicts herself in small-scale, surrounded by dominating figures of health professionals, doctors, etc.
Aged 40 she was diagnosed with early-onset Parkinson's. She lived in fear that it would get so bad she would never be able to paint again, a thought which absolutely terrified her. Now, aged 73, she's still going strong and she is still able to paint small canvases. Though she is still able to paint she is reluctant to starting any bigger canvases for fear she will not be able to finish them.
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