LYDIA BALMFORTH
Photography
Body Image: (un)Friendly Fire
Model 1: Marella.
For the duration of this model's part of the photoshoot, I used the insults she has heard about herself. Within the recording, I asked her for additional insults she has heard.
I think it was a slightly uncomfortable experience to recall all of the insults she has heard and had to face.
Due to the nature of this photoshoot, i really wanted to have the models show their bare faces. The beginning of my video makes it seem as though i am concentraiting on a negative outlook. However once you see the models wiping away the insults, it almost changes the general opinion stright away.
For the last segment of each model's parts I wanted to show the reverse of the insults they have recieved. After wiping away the insults they have faced, they then began to wipe their face again, to show compliments. As these models are my friends, alongside the compliments they told me about, I also included compliments I thought about them. This is due to the fact they were reluctant to say compliments they have recieved.
For each models segment, a song was chosen personally by them. Each song is meaningful in a way to themseleves.
Song: Blue Artist/s: Big Bang
The actual group Big Bang describes this as being a song about loneliness and feeling sorrowful with warm vocals.
Marella (the model) chose this song as when listening to it, she feels as though 'spring has come' despite the sadness within the lyrics. Despite the context, the 'warmth' of the song is uplifting and makes her feel beautiful.
Model 2: Ezra
For Ezra's segment, I feel as though she had faced some of the worst insults out of all three models. During the process of writing these on her face, it is evident that these words are unwelcome and she looks exactly how she feels; deflated.
She has faced racial slurs when she isn't of that race.
During the process of wiping off the insults, the model seemed almost relieved to get rid of the horrible words.
At first she was quite nervous to be on camera without having makeup on, but she soon opened up to the idea.
She finally understood that this whole project was to show natural beauty and inspire people to accept themeselves.
Ezra seemed to give the least ammount of compliments of the three models, therefore I decided to add more of what I believed about her.
Song: Heaven Artist: Ailee
Ailee describes this song as being a love that shows the woman gaining courage and moving on from her last partner.
Ezra interprets this song as simply gaining strength from the troubles you face.
Model 3: Ashlyn
For Ashlyn, compared to the other models, her insults heavily outweighed the compliments, even with those that I added.
From a personal point of view this was extreamly saddening due to the fact that Ashlyn is a close friend and usually appears very happy, despite the horrible words that have been bogging her down.
I noticed that Ashlyn had faced a lot of insults aimed towards a sexual nature. This seemed to upset her greatly as the words could not be further from the truth.
In this part of the video, the model almost seemed relieved to get rid of the insults on her face. Although as she was taking the insults off she was joking about making sure her eyebrows were fine to lighten the mood.
When the model saw the compliments that she had said and that i had added, her face had visably brightened.
Song: That XX (That Bastard when translated)
Artist: G-Dragon
This song is originally about a man singing to the woman he loves who has left him for another man who frequently cheats.
However Ashlyn looks at this song in a way that she can feel empowered, because it's a song made by her favourite artist who she admires.
For the concept of this photoshoot/video I wanted to show the way insults aren't the only thing we should focus on. I also wanted to show that you can find compliments in the oddest of ways. The use of the backwards footage to reveal the compliments is to show that you can wipe off the bad and wipe on the good.