final self-assignment
For the last five weeks of class, I decided to go back to the theme of bodies. Originally during the first iteration, I focused a lot on the curves and lines that bodies make, and how different experiences create different marks. This time around, I wanted to keep focusing on the idea of the lines, crevices, dents, etc. that bodies have, but in a way that doesn’t focus on the fact that it is a body. I wanted to create images that allow viewers to look past it as just a body, and more of an organic form made from different curves, folds, hills, and valleys. I wanted to make the body be seen almost as an object, per say, of which you can see the imperfections and the way that it bends and moves to emphasize various shapes that the body has. I did this completely of self portraits, to allow me to spend some time with myself personally and look past all of the things that I am uncomfortable about with my body, and see them as their own forms and landscapes. I avoided having my face in the photographs, to help viewers detach from the idea that this is a body and to detach people from the immediate sexualization that comes when viewing a woman’s nude body. I wanted the photographs to be part of me, but at the same time I wanted to feel distance from them and view them as something other than myself.
mary b photography 