Continuation of work

This photograph represents my vision of the stereotype. In this case, a stereotype of a blond, of a secretary.
This look is often portrayed in films, or cheap easy-to-read love novels for women, often written by females.

I have used one of images from this set of photographs for my final photographs.

In comparison to the previous image, I have decided to include another self-portrait. This one, however, is of me, how I normally look.

This self-portrait is actually me. At that precise moment that was me. Even though I look the same, I will never be the same as I was at that particular time, because changes, big or small, happen in us all the time, even if we do not notice.

I have also included one of the images from this set to my final selection of photographs.

What I tried to show is that I am still the same person, yet by simply changing my hair, make-up and clothes I have created different people, as the way you look is the way you are treated by people.

We are full of stereotypes, views, opinions. We only consider one thing pretty, not willing to accept anything different, and to challenge that was very interesting, to show that looks is not everything, that it doesn't say anything about us, particularly through photographs, yet it is what we look at in magazines, on TV, in films, and we believe it, and wish we could have it.

Process of work: Heroin Chic

The inspiration for this set of photographs comes from 90's fashion and the heroin chic, the name given to the popular look in the model industry at the time.

What intrigues me about that era of fashion is that it has lasted for a rather long period of time in terms of fashion, and how different it was from the 80's. Also, I find it interesting because the first model you think of, when you hear the term 'heroin chic' is Kate Moss, and she is considered to be a fashion icon, so looked at by millions of women and girls, and the latter can be influenced by that 'heroin chic' look. But it isn't real. It was fashion, it was make-up, hair, clothes. It is artificial, so why do we look at as real? Why do we strive to achieve such perfection?

Here's a photograph, inspired by 'heroin chic', showing a tired, run down look.

Process of work

The photograph in this post have been inspired by a book by Vladimir Nabokov, which has also been made into a film, called Lolita.
It is a story of a middle-aged man who likes young girls, nimphets, and about his relationshit with one, Lolita.

I have tried to capture a look of an innocent girl in this photograph. however I wonder, what is innocent? Is a child innocent, I'd say yes. Is a teenager?Is a girl?

I have decided not to include a photographs from this set of photographs in my final images, as I feel it doesn't work as well as some other photographs I have taken, as I feel it doesn't fit in very well because of aiming at a look of a younger girl, while the rest of images show grown ups.

Process of work

I have continued photographing myself in different characters, taking influence from films, books and fashion.

The first photographs presented in this post are influenced by Audrey Hepburn's photographs, particularly by the ones taken on the set of the film Sabrina, and other strong-contrast portraits of her.

These are the photographs of her that I have taken inspiration from:

These are my photographs inspired by photographs of Audrey Hepburn:

I have used the top two photographs as my final photographs. I have taken them using black-&-white film.

Work process - A Man

After deciding to do the project related to self-identity, I kept on thinking about the film Boys Don't Cry, based on a real-life story,where the main character, a young woman struggles with gender identity and wants to change her sexuality.

Taking influence from that film, I have decided to take some photographs of myself dressed up as a man. The photographs are far from perfect, and some of them are in black-and-white, although taken with the digital camera, however I was also using a film camera, so the actual photographs are going to be from film and I'm going to work on them in darkrooms, so the photographs that I'm posting at the moment are just process of work and development of idea.

I quite like this photograph as even though I know this is me and everyone who knows that is me will now right away but I feel that I don't look like a girl in this photograph, and that is what I was trying to achieve.

The composition is not perfect. I don't like the fact that the background isn't plain but I will finish shooting my film tomorrow and process it on Wednesday, so I'll how these photographs came out on film, and perhaps I can get rid of all the bits of background that I don't need in the darkroom.

I quite like the rather plain lighting as I feel it adds to the subject of the photograph, just a "man" in a suit, not passing much of personality to the viewer, however the fact that the sitter is not actually a man tranforms the meaning, which is what I want to explore. How different we can be, what we are, what we show of ourself, and whether it is our true nature we choose to show or a shell we use to hide from people.

I like this photograph. I like the composition and the lighting. Mainly though, it's the subject matter, this typical image of a man with hands in his pockets, top buttons of a shirt opened up, tie undone. I think I have managed to tranform this arrogant kind of masculinity, which I feel is important as here it is challenged through being portraited by a girl, and that for me challenges the perspective on what is masculine and what is feminine, and how it is represented in media and seen in our society.

This photograph I feel is the least successful out of all of the "man" photographs.

I have attempted to create the rock-&-roll kind of look. The cool, bad-boy look, the kind of look to which the female magazines refer as"the boyfriend you would not want to introduce to your parents".
However, in comparison to the other two photographs, I feel this one doesn't transform the message of masculinity, to be more precise stereotypical masculinity. Perhaps, it's the set-up, the pose or the lighting, I am not quite sure what it is that doesn't work about this image but personally I see it as the least successful one.

Bad Photographs

I've decided to post one photograph from one of the previous projects, as it really frustrated me, as in my head the idea of that photograph really worked and then when I looked at the series of photographs I've taken, I was really unhappy with myself, mainly for being lazy and not using a tripod which resulted in the photograph being really out of focus.









The next photograph that I've decided to post comes from taking some photographs for this project to get ideas and see what I come up with. Once again, the idea and the outcome are complete opposites, resulting in a very dissapointing image, however it's good for the process of work as I learn from these mistakes.


Everything about this photograph is wrong. The composition doesn't work, the angle at which it was taken is bad, the lighting is bad. Basically, I've made everything possible to get as far away from the photograph I was trying to create, so I need to work more on them.

Ideas for my project

I have decided to continue to explore self-identity from the previous project.
This time, however, I want to concentrate more on how I am affected as a female by popular culture and female representation in it.
My interest is to explore and show how the standards of beauty in our (Western) society are affecting me.
It is many things that affect our personalities and the way we perceive ourselfs. Our families, friends, colleagues, media - all of the above shape our views on self-image, and their views are reflections of knowledge we gain through generations, which sets us into boundaries of what is seen as acceptable and how this can be challenged.
For my research, I want to look at a variety of photographers and artists, such as Nan Goldin, Cindy Sherman, Catherine Opie, Robert Mapplethorpe, Frida Kahlo, Egon Schiele, Francesca Woodman.
I also want to consider movie icons, pop stars and other famous females, whose images we are exposed to in the media now or have been in the previous decades, i.e. Audrey Hepburn, Marylin Monroe, Sofia Loren, Princess Diana, Courtney Love, Kate Moss, Margaret Thatcher, Angelina Jolie, Monica Lewinsky, Gia Carangi, Twiggy.

Influential photographs

As soon as I thought of influential photographs, I knew straight away which photographers to look at. However, I found it impossible to limit myself to 5 images that have influenced me. Therefore I decided to include few images of different photographers that I have found influential.

The first photographer I decided to include here is David Seymour. I first saw his photographs in International Center of Photography in New York. The moment I walked into the room, where his work was presented, I was mesmerized. I found his work very powerful and intense. His photographs didn't really need captions or any sort of explanation as the images seemed to speak for themselves through their context. After leaving the room, I felt like crying, so much human emotions and suffering I could see in Chim's photographs.

Ever since, he's been one of the most influential photographers for me and it was through seeing his work that I've developed an interest towards documentary photography.





Woman at Land Distribution Meeting, Estremadura, Spain, 1936
















Terezka, a Child in a Center for Disturbed Children, Produced These Scrawls as a Picture of Home, Poland, 1948











Another documentary photographer who I found very fascinating and influential is Weegee. I really like how he represented New York. I find incredible how he showed different sides of life of the city.



Summer, The Lower East Side, 1937
















Accident, 42nd Street at Third Avenue, 1946














Although, until recently, I have been mainly interested in documentary photography, I always had other influences as well.

Richard Avedon's photography has inspired me a lot, particulary he became influential after I have watched the film Funny Face with Audrey Hepburn and Fred Astaire. The fashion shoots stills that are shown in that film are of incredible beauty but they were not the first photographs of his that I've seen. Here I'm putting the first of his photographs that I have seen and which I found incredibly beautiful.






Dovima with Elephants, 1955




I like the elegance of the photograph and the striking contrast between the woman and the setting of the photograph, which I think is the reason this image works very well.






There are quite a few contemporary photographers who I find very influential.

For example, Corinne Day. However, it is her earlier work that I prefer and which has inspired me in my work. I really like the photographs of Kate Moss which she took throughout her career, but particularly the early 1990's photographs.






Kate Moss, 1990



The reason I really like this photograph is because it doesn't seem to advertise anything. It looks natural and spontaneous, and for me, that is the beauty of it. I find Corinne Day's fashion work very refreshing as it isn't something you expect to see, especially considering that at the time noone knew who Kate Moss was, whereas if these photographs were taken now, the meaning would change automatically because now Kate Moss is a celebrity, so she herself is advertisement now. Back in the 1990's though, these were an absolute sensation. For me, this is a perfect fashion photograph of the time.


It is not just Corinne Day's fashion photography that I like though. Even more influential for me are her Diary photographs, which are of events, friends, herself. They are very personal recordings of her life, which I think is incredible to look at, as they let us into her life in a way and let us think and guess about her life.





Corinne, New York, 1996












Tara, 1997















Another photographer who I find very inspiring is Lauren Greenfield. As well as being a photographer, she is also a documentary filmmaker and photojournalist. Her work focus is on contemporary issues related to the influence of popular culture in our lives.

I first saw her work, while doing research for my project on eating disorders in college. I watched the documentary film Thin that she's made and I found that it was one of very few eating disorders related media projects that showed what it is really like. Here I want to include some photographs from this project that depict the women who were treated for eating disorders and took part in her film.

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