Since looking at other artist I have been thinking how I can really recreate my own room and make it much more personal. For me this would be letting the audience see what I really think and feel. For me I went through a stage in my life in my mid-teens maybe when I was 17 I started to print images of people I wanted to look like and I would print these images out and stick them round my mirror when I was getting ready. Also what I would do is get images of me and draw on it what I wanted to change in myself. I think this was a difficult time for me as I just started college and I was meeting all these new people and I then really started to notice more certain fashions and trends in looks and high street fashion. I become very obsessed with how I wanted to look and I lost a lot of weight over this period of time I was in a size 6 jeans. Which I have never been and I doubt I will ever be again.
So for my degree show I want to recreate my own dressing room which is my own personal space which is somewhere I really only go into my boyfriend and family are normal shut out in the morning until I feel it is safe for me to come out.( I am not that bad any more, but I was for a long time.) so to show this side of what of how I use to think and how much I wanted to change my own appearance so by showing this I am going to print a range of images like I use to have around my room and dressing table mirror. The images will be ones of my face, ones of makeup and face space/perfect face mask or surgery before and afters.
I also think that this is something I want to share with the audience as I think this is a scary thing they need to see, seeing images like this lead young women and teens into a slippery slope of self-destruction. I have known some girls that have become very obsessed with certain images off the internet of skinny woman or perfect faces, however what they don’t realise is that most of these images from the internet and magazines are edited and Photoshop have been used to make these woman look very skinny or have perfect skin, as editors would cut out the pieces they don’t think are ‘perfect’ and this is very hard for a young woman to think about they just see this ideal image and they inspire to look like them, in much like I use to.
I have finished taking my final images for my degree show I think these ones work the best out of all the images I have taken over the degree show build up period. I have really tried to think about what I want to achieve through these images and what I want them to achieve.
For me they sum up so much for what I wanted to accomplish from my final degree piece. It symbolises to me that struggle that I face every morning then I wake up and look at myself in the mirror. That look of what I am going to do with this!? It is something rather hard for to face and something I have felt is always a difficult subject for me. Which is what I have always wanted to achieve for my final piece, it was always meant to be about me breaking my safety barrier and trying to really push myself out of my comfort zone. I think I have achieved that for this image.
I have spent a lot of time on these images it took me a long time to take them as I wanted them to represent exactly what I wanted it to. In some of the images I was looking the wrong way or not making the right face I wanted myself to be making. I have also spent a lot of time editing these images on Photoshop so the final image was really clear and perfect when it got printed. I have edited the background so it was not blurry and I removed the shadow from under my chin so it looked better. Sadly I couldn’t remove the shadow from the back of my head as part of it was in my hair and it was to difficult to remove it from there and you could see where I had tried to cut it out as it made some parts of my hair blunt and you could notice it much more than the shadow, however I finally finished it and I am very happy with it.
This week I have been preparing all my stuff ready to put up in my space for the degree show. I have planned that I will get my wall ready this week so it will be all ready and freshly painted on Tuesday when I can come in a put all my work in place ready for the show.
I have been editing my photo ready to be printed I have been playing around with dimensions and size, as the image quality was good but not good enough for when I printed it off as I want the image to be pretty large to feel as much of the wall as I possibly can. I have had to use one of my newer images instead of previous ones I had took as the quality of them where really poor sadly.
Also I have got my dressing table sorted finally and I am at the end of the process of making it. I have made a white frame and have bought light fittings and light bulbs to go around the edge of it so it looks like an old fashion movie mirror. I just now have to set it all up and put it in place. I have had to carefully measure the edge of the television so the frame will fit snuggly over the top of the television, this has been the hardest part on the process as I have had to fit and fix it all together (with a little help from dad for the electrical side making of it).
The television is ready to be put up to, it has been tested and I have bought the bracket ready to be fitted to the wall. Also my photo book has arrived so I am hoping now that I am well on the way to getting sorted.
Since taking the last lot of picture I have re took some to see if I would like the look more of the full length photos. However I don’t think they really work they are not what I wanted to achieve I wanted to my work to purely be about just my face and not about my whole body. I don’t think they work as well.
I have retaken image also of just my face and I think they work much better I really like how they have come out. I think they hold a lot more tension as I am staring into my eyes. I am the viewer and the audience, I am being judged and I am the judge. From that point I think this is what makes the image far more powerful. The audience are just looking on I feel they have no power over the piece, I hold the power thought the exchanged of stares between myself and I feel this is what make the piece much more powerful.
Today I have been trying to take some photos of me full body length for what I can use in my degree show. However I am not sure they are really want they want or that they work particularly well. I am unsure where to make it full size now as I got my large image I printed of a Barbie and I wasn’t too sure if it worked all that well. Also because I have had to edit the images so much to make the one flowing images they are not as clear as I would like them to be. So I may make some more photos but this time just of my shoulders and it doesn’t look right I feel down to my feet and plus I can’t reform that part of my body like I can my head are.
I think what might work well for the show is maybe one or two large but not massive, maybe a bit bigger than normal head size in frames. I think in a frame it will give it that mirrors edge effect and also they will be a lot clear for me to work with.
I will take some other images of my side on and see if they come out any better but I feel at the moment that using my head and neck would be more appropriate instead of my whole body as I have never wanted the piece to be about my body more about my transformation through make up.
