Project 1 Reaction to "Simulations"

When given the task of capturing a photograph that explores the ideas of the hyperreal as describe by Jean Baudrillard in his book, Simulations I immediately thought of how women in American culture are a perfect example of what Baudrillard was writing about. Everyday almost all women in the United States start out their day by applying make-up and doing their hair in order to look more attractive and put together. They put on a mask in order to cover up their flaws or perhaps enhance their already existent beauty. However, in either case women are distorting what is real. Baudrillard uses the term "unmasked" to signify realness, and that "realness" is exactly what I tried to capture in my final photograph.

The first step that I took was to talk a set of 100 images to simply develop and expand upon some ideas I had running through my head. Here are 15 of those photographs which I have made available through my Flickr account. The first few are more literal in that I have no make-up on and my hair is messy. However, the silhouette images are more symbolic and portray the message that every girl is kind of in the shadows, for society sets unrealistically high expectations for women and their images. We never really see what women truly look like, and that goes hand in hand with what Baudrillard discusses in Simulations.

The second step was to narrow my 15 photos down to 6 and then print them on 8x10" pieces of paper. The following 6 images are the ones that I chose to print:


 

Image 1

Image 2

Image 3

Image 4

 Image 5

Image 6

From here I went on to chose 2 photographs that I would print on a scale of 17x22" and present them for a classroom critique. These are the two that I chose:

17x22" print #1

17x22" print #2



After viewing these prints I was really disappointed in how they turned out, for they were extremely pixilated. In the end I decided against both of these photos and ended up picking the following photograph for what would be my final image:

30x40" print

I like this image better because not as much of my face is visible, and I really like the whole "profile" look which I steered away from in my second 17x22" print. This final image will be printed on a scale of 30x40", and I am anxious to see how it will turn out. In order to get a preview of what the quality will be like when I print the final product, I printed the below image on an 8x10" print. I was happy with how it turned out, so my hopes are high for my 30x40" print. 

 8x10" preview

I also thought I would include my original of this photograph, just so you guys could see some of the alterations I made. Well, that's a wrap for this project. I'll keep my fingers crossed to see how the final print comes out!