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The Appropriation Task
April 2012 |
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder they say. I couldn't agree more. Think about the beautiful faces that we see all over the media but the thing is, they all look very different and so are we, the normal average people. People are unique.
I love incorporating my interests in my photography. Why shouldn't I? I mean isn't that what it is all about, and what makes my photography personal to me? As part of my
Experimental Approaches to Photography module at University I have looked at
Blind Photography and
Pinhole Cameras. I have recently been looking at Appropriation.
Now, what is that you say? Well for those who are unsure of the term, it is something that the majority of people do all the time: Steal images. We may be tagged in a picture on Facebook and save it to our own computers and even more so, we may want to edit that picture in black and white to make it more artsy or even recording a cover of a favourite singer and placing it on YouTube. That is Appropriation on a larger scale beyond the Arts but you get the idea.
Appropriation plays a part when researching images for educational purposes for sketchbooks and things like I have to do. At University Level we now have to reference the artists name to show that the work we put in isn't ours. If we don't say, then the examiners will discard any belief that someone else created it, even if it is a famous artwork. It was funny to be told that we had to Appropriate an image and strangely enough it is something that should be so effortless and easy but I found it quite hard to think of something to Appropriate.
So here we are full circle, or where I began this post - Beauty.
My inspiration of this came from
Jochim Scmid and
John Stezaker, two famous Appropriationists.
From this, I thought of people and looks and people that I admire. Identity and insecurity are things that crop up in the mind of a young woman leaving behind her teenage years to blossom into the real world. Males and females feel insecure during their teenage lives but I know from women, particularly they look at other woman and wish they had their eyes or chin or body because they hate a feature of their own. I have only felt a mild case of this so I haven't felt too affected. I have picked four of my favourite beauties for my Appropriation task I have put together a face that includes some of their best features to show that if a woman was to have a feature of another woman, it wouldn't suit them and it wouldn't be right. What I am saying is, that we should be happy in own skin and I'm not excluded the men out there either. In addition, I would like to point out that the beauty I have picked out may contrast with your own views and that is perfectly fine.
The image at the top is my result. I have highlighted beauty in hair colour, beauty in the eyes, nose, lips and even though thats how far I have gone here, but beauty continues to go down further, right through to your fingertips and to your toes.
Now, would you say that picture is beautiful?
I would say somewhat yes but somewhat no. When I think of the definition of ultimate beauty the is symmetry and proportion of face but the little things that are out of proportion can still make a face beautiful. The same sized eyes, nose and mouth would look a bit odd wouldn't it? I don't think we should worry about the beauty that is photographed these days because in fact what you see is probably not what they look like underneath. Forget airbrushed perfect photos, we are all imperfect in someway but confidence is accepting our flaws but learning to feel happy with it.
And these are the images I used:
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(hair)
Alison Sudol
A Fine Frenzy |
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(eyes)
Hilarie Burton
One Tree Hill |
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(nose)
Anne Hathaway
Devil Wears Prada |
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(lips)
Taylor Swift |
Want to visit my Flickr photostream with the featured photos in my blog and more then click the following link:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/brown_eyed_dreamer/
