Final Piece 1

This extract is taken form ‘Body Work: Beauty and Self-image in American Culture’ by Debrah Gimlin: “They control women by preoccupying them with efforts to change their inadequate appearances and by draining them of self-esteerm. Because standards for feminie beauty are inherently inconsistent and impossible to meet, women must struggle with bodies and appearances that ineviably fail to measure up.Yet many women focus enormous energy on molding their bodies into the closest possible approximataions of the female ideal” (Gimlin, 2000, p.17).

My photographic images are trying to suggest that a women may lose her ideneity because of the pressure she feels from the media’s representation of women, women who are beautiful and almost idealised. Making it hard or impossible for women to reach these standards. By the arms suddenly appearing from the sides and placing the images on her face where she does not fight back is to portray the media’s representation of women can be very powerful and influential on some women. I wanted to create an overwhelming sense of claustrophobia and suffocation by the images covering her whole face, whilst the girl does nothing.  This is to show the pressure that some women feel to change their apperance becuase they feel engulfed by what they see in magazines of other beautiful women.  Her eyes move from side to side creating an eerie feeling to the photograph that the girl is powerless to what is happening to her.

After learning from my mistakes from previous photographic shoots I made sure I did not make them again. For example no sleeves or braclets on the arms. I also decided this time to paint the hands finger nails red, because I wanted to portray how the meida can glamoroize beauty (red representing this). Using ‘beautiful’ models in magazines, can make some women feel the need to confrom to these ideals. I also decided to make the girl move her eyes from side to side in panic, because the arms are covering up her face with images of other women. I am very happy with the final image and there is clearly now a stronger narrative than from the previous photographic shoots.