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.