So now our journey comes to a brief halt. Suddenly I found myself asking the question “Why?”
Why did I want to explore beauty? Why am I bothered? What do I have to say?
All these questions produced one simple answer because I wanted to feel as if I could be worth something. Behind the charade of giggles and the inappropriate hacking up of posters I’ve realised that I projected my image onto these celebrities, I wanted to look like them. I wanted people to feel as if they can be just as good as anyone else. I wanted to show just how beautiful I could be. Yes you could say that I’m vain or I’m an attention seeker or whatever words spring to mind but in the end we all want to have our voices heard. I’ve always been one to put up and shut up, if someone told me I was ugly I would believe them. Heck if you’re told for long enough that you’re not worth anything you will believe it. I’d always had trouble with bullying particularly because of my appearance I was always the girl whose glasses were just a little too big for her or the girl whose nostrils warranted a camping trip. I was always told; that people would flag me down because my teeth were so yellow they’d think that I was taxi, that double doors were invented for me, that no one would marry me because I’d never fit down the aisle. I’ve never said this to anyone before but I feel like now is my time. I’ve learnt that I’m just as beautiful as you and I can do anything I want to do. I’ve found people who love me and think I’m beautiful even when I tell them to shut up. And if I can be confident in myself then so can you.
This raised the question; Am I beautiful yet?
When do I get to be beautiful? When will I think I’m beautiful? Do I look good enough yet? Can I take your breath away?
I’m posing the narrative as a question because I don’t have an answer. It’s up to you to decide. I want people to look at my work and think how in the heck did that happen? Ew! She looks awful why an earth does she think that she’s beautiful?
So I set up a photo-shoot. I wanted the process to feel very intimate so I used my computer webcam as a viewfinder for my camera which I turned onto myself. I exaggerated my make up so that it would show up better on the camera and draw attention to the eyes because beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
Through the editing process I was able to experiment with different ways in which to make myself beautiful. The first I edited my eyes to look brown because I had read in a magazine recently that people with brown eyes are the most attractive. I made my hair darker, brightened the colour of my lips and eye make-up, hitched up the contrast to max, played with the shadows and lighting until I got to this final image. (See Figure 1) I added the question to the bottom of the image because I still want text to be relevant in my work.
After that I edited a series of images which took several weeks, adjusting the layers, experimenting with the question layout and colour, editing specific facial features (Darkening the eyes or adjusting the skin midtone), building up the multiple layers, changing the colours completely.
