Valedictory Final

At the start of this shoot, I dressed her in a suit because she is someone who doesn't display herself as very masculine, and it's not something you see every day. Then, I placed her in the forest to contrast the suit decision because usually you don't see women in suits in the woods. I wanted to play with the idea of the absurd, and have surreal situations with realistic and artistic photos. In addition, the three different settings are supposed to tell a story; this forest setting has her very uptight, with her hair in the tight ponytail and the suit fully intact to represent oppression and being alone in the woods is to represent a feeling of isolation. They are a progression of relaxation, these two being the before images.

Here, she has let her hair down and is in a homey setting. She is starting to relax and to rid of her worries, even though the serious face implies that they will always stay with her, and the suit is still in tact. The no smile is also to make them more artistic looking and less commercial, though. She is also still alone showing continuing and isolated feeling. Also, I'm really glad I did the purple suit because it has worked into my color scheme for all three settings very well.

I didn't originally plan to take the milk photos, but after discussing Annie Leibovitz and some of her work with my sister and some friends, they said that they would help me recreate Annie's famous picture of Whoopie Goldberg in a bathtub of milk. What I did; however, was took Annie's concept and incorporated it into my own series of pictures. These pictures represent the final stage of relaxation that the woman lacked in the first setting. She submerses herself in the milk as a figurative baptism, freeing her of her worries for the moment. Also, another person shows up in this set of photos to show that she is no longer isolate--no longer alone. The suit is undone and ruined, her hair is all over the place or submersed in the milk with her.

My valedictory project was loosely based on Annie Leibovitz's photography, which is mostly fashion portraits of celebrities for magazines like Rolling Stone, Vogue, and Vanity Fair. However, Annie's style of photography is iconic, and different from the normal portrait photographer because she takes photos that display celebrities in an interesting way. Whether she is putting them in a setting that corresponds to whatever work they are doing, or making an artistic statement by taking a familiar face and showcasing it in a rather absurd and intimate way, her portraits always make you stop and think about them, and you can always tell that she has a connection with her subjects. That is what I aimed to do with this project. I wanted to do fashion portraits that were also very artistic, and that made people stop and notice them. I wanted to make them look real, but on the edge of surreal, and I wanted, most of all, to make people think. I think this project was a great way to end the year for me. This type of more fashion-based and strange portraits is something we didn't really get to do this year, and I feel like I was able to experiment with editing and photographing in a way which I came to really like. I feel like I learned a lot about myself as a photographer with this project. Before, I was a lot more comfortable and felt a lot stronger with documentary-style photos, and to some extent I do still feel like I am better at that, but I know I definitely have broadened my horizons. I am very pleased with these photos, particularly the ones in the milk.