Discussion - Personal Opinions

When first researching and thinking about the topic of personal opinions, I was quite stuck with what direction to take my work in as there are so many options available within this topic. Through creating a mind map, I was able to narrow my ideas down to focussing on beauty standards, feminism and social media/technology as many of my previous ideas were quite unrealistic. I want my work to send a message but I would like to do this in a subtle way rather than writing statements or making my message obvious as I believe that subtlety can often create a greater effect. Over the next few weeks, I hope to narrow down my ideas to one theme and then eventually to one photo series.

This image follows the theme of feminism and shows how the tools women use everyday for beauty are almost surgical tools. A photo series such as this would need to be shot entirely in the studio due to the composition of the images. I could develop the topic of feminism in this way as I could portray the everyday rituals of different women and see whether or not they follow the stereotype of a female. 

This image expresses how dolls targeted for young children can already set unrealistic beauty standards. This shows a clear comparison between unrealistic and realistic beauty, as the photographer has combined two images of a Barbie doll and a real person. If I were to do this, I would create this image through Photoshop and I would need to ensure that the features of the face lined up perfectly.

This image portrays how attached we have become to technology and how, when we don't have it, we almost feel lost and unnatural without it. The way that the woman and young girl are both sitting shows that they are almost stuck in a position where they are holding their devices where they are constantly attached to them. They are also both ignoring each other, implying that the improvements in technology have lead to a fall in the quality of interactions between people.

The three images above are all from the three themes I mentioned that I would like to explore. Looking into example images has given me inspiration and helped me decide in what direction I would like to take my work. It had also shown me how to portray a message or opinion in a subtle way but still make an impact with my work.