Ad Buster

This ad is soliciting foundation to women who do not want it to be apparent that they are wearing any. I believe the people that are being solicited are girls who wear make up which can range from ages around 13-50. Boys are clearly an audience that is not being solicited as well as women who may prefer to not wear any make up. This ad demonstrates that it is unedited so when you wear this make up your skin will look as flawless as the girl in the picture. 

My ad buster can be interpreted in a few different ways. My ad shows that Blake Lively (the girl in the original ad) is taking her own photograph and she is appearing on the camera screen as a girl with cake on her face. This ties into the term people use to describe girls that wear too much make up, “cake-face”. Although Blake Lively  does not appear to be a “cake-face” I wanted to change the meaning of the ad to show no matter what type of foundation is put on your face, it is visible. The ad is trying to play with girls minds by saying by using their make up your skin will be flawless and you will not look like this girl simply by applying it to your face. In order to get people to buy this product they want to trick people into thinking no one will know you are wearing any and they will think it is your natural skin. Every girl knows it is nearly impossible to hide the fact you are wearing make up. Most girls wear make up these days due to magazines and ads that show beautiful women with perfect edited skin. I simply wanted to show in my ad that make up is make up and if you are wearing it chances are, people can tell. 

Personal Photography

Nan Goldin inspired me to use my friends as my body subjects for this project. A concept I find interesting is body insecurity. I wanted to explore this topic because I have seen how the world and the media affect how I see myself and how my friends see themselves. Young girls are so easily influenced by what they see and hear and this often is apparent to me when I am with my friends. Although my friends may not be completely insecure I still witness us all doing things such as sacrificing some foods due to the thought of gaining weight, reading magazines to get information on appearance and putting on make up. I had my friends reenact some of these things so that I could capture what it is like to be a young girl under the pressure of society. I wanted to do personal photography for this project because I would be able to capture my concept exactly how I wanted it to be captured. 

I wanted to include some kind of text in my photographs representing something having to do with looks. I was inspired to add text in my photos by the photographer Clarissa Sligh. I think it makes photographs more emotional and interesting. However due to the fact that I am un sure how to do so, I included text by using a magazine. The main overall idea I wanted to explore was the need to have approval on our physical appearance. My four pictures represent weight issues (shown by a friend standing on a scale), society influences (shown by a friend putting on make-up), media influences (shown by a friend reading beauty tips in a magazine) and self appearance critique (shown by a friend looking in the mirror). 

I felt that the images by Clarissa Sligh were also very powerful because of the editing she used. I decided to edit my photographs to be black and white because I wanted them to appear more serious and draw more attention to simply what is happening in the photograph. I also think that the black and white tone I went with shows the tone of my photographs is more sad than happy.