As a photographer, when some of the raw images of Jennifer Aniston’s 2006 Harper’s Bazaar photo shoot emerged, I was relieved. I ended up in photography by accident when I started shooting local Los Angeles bands for fun two years ago. Since I have no extensive formal photo training and have learned mostly through experience, I feel some insecurity regarding my technical skill. Seeing how Alexi Lubomirski’s outtakes mirrored some of my own was reassurance that I am, in fact, doing everything right. A cursory glance through his portfolio reveals a body of work that is thoughtful, exploratory, and beautiful (Not surprisingly, his conceptual photography is a lot more engaging than his editorial shoots). It appears as though he has worked with Jennifer Aniston before, producing luminously gorgeous if shallow images of the actress. Indeed, sometimes simply creating an indulgently beautiful image is gratifying, a sentiment that often guides my own work.
Whether or not the outtakes are actually doctored seems to be just a petty legal argument designed to protect Hollywood’s middle school egos. When I first encountered the outtakes, they seemed like the logical by-products of any photo shoot – especially a shoot involving unpredictable natural elements such as sunlight and sand, and I could not understand the uproar they generated. I suspect that the sometimes harsh reactions originate from a total misunderstanding of photography in general, so I have attempted to recreate the settings which I imagine contributed to the Harper’s Bazaar outtakes and subsequent published image.
It was in an afternoon yoga class 10 years ago that I realized my relationship with my body had been profoundly changed.
Gazing up at my legs, glistening with sweat in shoulder-stand, I realized that I wasn’t searching for signs of “imperfection” or scrutinizing my body with the negative self-talk that too many of us have with ourselves on a daily basis—the abusive dialogue I had with myself most of my life.
For the first time I could remember since early childhood, I wasn’t critical of myself.
I wasn’t looking for parts of my body to control and change.
A distorted body image, self-criticism, and the pursuit of “perfection” by any means necessary is a perverse inheritance passed down from the women in my family and influenced by the unrealistic and prolific images manufactured by the larger media culture. Given this environment, I never had a chance to emerge unscathed, self-esteem intact. The women in my family were constantly dieting, tracking calories in food diaries, lamenting weight gain, celebrating weight loss and sizing other women up. An unhealthy pre-occupation with my body and food was set in motion before I hit puberty and manifested in all sorts of dangerous methods to obtain thinness: diet pills, colon hydrotherapy, fasting, legal and illegal stimulants, calorie restriction, self-induced vomiting and excessive exercise.
The routes to freedom presented themselves at about the same time, feminism and then yoga. Feminism offered the ideological tools to examine my tortured relationship with my body systematically and deconstruct mediated images. Yoga provided the practice that rooted the things feminism had taught me. It is one thing to intellectualize self-love and acceptance, it’s another to embody it.
While pursuing fine arts in college, I took two years of figure drawing classes. A living, breathing nude model is probably one of the best ways to learn how to draw the human body, but more than that, I was exposed to many different shapes, both male and female. Focusing on my technique, the bodies before me were never sexual, they were learning tools. Each body offered new challenges, new opportunities. I found that drawing fuller bodies was easier, with long, sensuous strokes, and that thinner bodies called more on my understanding of the skeleton. In this way I learned to appreciate the human body as a marvel of organic engineering. As an artist, I remain fascinated with the human form in space, and fashion photography is an extension of that.
I work for a sample sale site called 365Hangers, and while shooting our products for August last week, one of our models looked so stunning in this pink BCBG dress that I asked her for a couple more shots. She said, “I never thought I could wear a dress like this!”
All shapes and sizes are beautiful, and you should never let anyone’s standards prevent you from wearing a dress you want to wear. Your greatest accessory is your self-loving confidence, and it looks fabulous with everything.
Originally posted at 365Hangers, cross-posted with permission. Urban Outfitters image via The Frisky.
So a few months ago, I brought up the fact that armpits are the latest in a string of bodily flaws of women that needs to be airbrushed out. After the photos of Lindsay Lohan in German GQ got released, where her belly button is missing in one shot, and then is suddenly moved up to her ribcage in another, I figured it was, yes, horrifying but a hopefully a one-time thing, not a new trend. However, this weekend, I came across pictures of Jersey Shore star Jenni “J-WOWW” Farley in the latest issue of Maxim magazine – and guess what’s missing in the bikini, midsection baring shots?
I can’t help but wonder – with imperfect: bruises, blemishes, cellulite, tattoos, arms, legs, waists, butts, hips, thighs, calves, noses, wrinkles, hair, and armpits, all deemed unacceptable by the magazine photoshopper standards in their natural state – what’s next? What’s left? While pondering this question, I honestly couldn’t think of anything else that hasn’t been airbrushed at some point, on some female celebrity; image editors have “fixed” absolutely every aspect of the female form at some point. I’m beginning to wonder why take photographs at all? Why pay a celebrity, photographer, lighting, hair, make-up, and an entire crew of assistants, if the end result is never good enough. How long before we see entirely computer generated images of celebrities on the covers of magazines? Only time will tell.
I found Meghan Daum‘s latest article, ‘Mad Men’ shares a lesson on beauty, in yesterday’s Los Angeles Times fascinating.
The women of the 1960s and their ‘period bodies’ with normal proportions are rare today, and something to be envied.
The fourth season of “Mad Men” starts Sunday, and with it another round of opportunities to both marvel and gasp at how much things have changed since the early 1960s. Much of the genius of the show, of course, lies in its ferocious attention to period details. From the entrenched womanizing and nonstop drinking and smoking (even while pregnant!) to children who play with plastic dry-cleaning bags and family picnics that end with a flourish of litter shaken insouciantly onto the grass, “Mad Men” leaves no antediluvian stone unturned.
That includes body types. Watch some of the commentary features on the DVD editions and you’ll hear the show’s creator, Matt Weiner, refer to “period bodies.” What he means is that just as the show applies painstaking care to finding sofas and kitchen appliances exactly like those you would have seen in that era, it also seeks bodies — particularly female ones — quintessentially of the time. That means no ripped abs or fake breasts, no preternaturally white teeth. (A lot of people wear eyeglasses too — the horror!)
Read the complete article here. Thanks to Diahann for sending this my way.
An ephemeral drawing is one that is created to be destroyed. It addresses the relationships between medium, subject, and significance.
over it is the documentation of an ephemeral art piece that talks about overcoming disordered eating through the creation and consumption of a cake with a scale drawn on it with icing. Though its narrative is deeply personal, the experience is nearly universal in our image-obsessed culture with its narrow standards of feminine beauty.
Liz Acosta is a photographer, writer, artist, cyclist, and activist in Los Angeles. With a degree from the University of Southern California, her work is primarily focused on questions of the body and its relationship to gender, sexuality, and performance. She blogs at www.happyland2007.com and will be joining the Feminist Fatale family as a blogger in the near future.
Barbie is a cultural icon. With her long, silky, blonde hair, perky breasts, cinched waist and mile-high legs Barbie represents mainstream definitions of physical perfection, the paragon of beauty and ideal femininity. Her shiny pink corvette, swanky townhouse, and oodles and oodles of perfectly accessorized outfits indicate her success within the consumer culture machine. Collectively, her physical and material assets (Eurocentric beauty, white-skin and class privilege rolled up into one statuesque doll), represent the collective dream spun by post-WWII advertisers and reinforced by the culture at large.
For more than 50 years, she has not waned in popularity (gained a pound, developed a wrinkle or gray hair) even in the face of mounting criticism.
Despite some of the negative headlines Barbie is still a hit with girls across America and the world.
More than one billion dolls have been sold since her inception, and according to the dolls makers, Mattel, 90% of American girls aged between three and 10 own at least one.
While Barbie is a manufactured fantasy, she remains an emblem of idealized femininity and a key element of gender socialization.
Barbie fan Danielle Scott, 16, said: “Playing with the hair, the brushes, switching outfits. It really just made girls be girls.
“All the characteristics of what to look forward to and what girls really could do…” she said.
While it is true that Barbie has had approximately 125 jobs over the last half-century (jobs that presumably allowed her to purchase her multiple homes, extensive wardrobe etc. etc)., Barbie is not famous for her resume. She is most well-known for her flawless figure and coveted beauty.
Today we’re inundated with images of a false reality that concentrate on one ideal form of beauty. Altering images via Photoshop, ultimately exposes us to millions of images are not “real.” Our project takes a look at the dangers of the media, from Photoshopping to white-washing to an emphasis on an unattainable perfection. Collectively, the images in the media do not represent the diversity found in the larger population; not all women are tall, thin, white, heterosexual or young. And in real life, nobody is Photoshopped. Where are representations of “real” women?
The advertising industry sells us images directly aimed women’s mounting insecurities. The for-profit consumer culture exploits these insecurities and rakes in billions of dollars each year. Ultimately, these images dehumanize, hypersexualize and disempower women.
Having struggled with our own body image issues and eating disorders, we know first hand the amount of pressure the media can exert on women and the psychological and physical costs. We wanted to address the serious nature of these issues and focus on the importance of a healthy body image.
Part of our video was inspired by our in-class project, the body collage that covered two walls from floor to ceiling with images of women in the print media. We were shocked to see the onslaught of these homogeneous all at once. This experience inspired our project as well as the Feminist Majority Foundation campaign, “This is what a feminist looks like.” Ultimately, our statement “this is what a real woman looks like” is a reaction to the exclusion of women in the mass media and the erasing of age, race and authenticity as a result of the standard industry practice of altering women that already reflect an incredibly small percentage of the population.
The video is a mosaic of our own stories; our struggles with our own body image, our relationship with our bodies and our message of self-love and acceptance.
I didn’t celebrate my first period my drinking bottles red wine with the women in my family, wine purchased on the day of my birth in anticipation of this rite of passage. I didn’t call my friends giggling to share the wonderful news. There was no fanfare of any kind. In fact, there was nothing but fear and shame. I kept silent and stuffed my panties with layers of toilet paper that would peak to a v and eventually shred to bits. When”outed” by my mother, I fiercely denied the truth while simultaneously wishing that I would tell her the truth and get some maternal support (and a box of pads). Sensing my reluctance and discomfort, my mother bought a box of pads and left it under the bathroom sink. This silent delivery of bulky, winged pads continued in silence for years. The absence of celebration and generational bonding leaves me with a small hole in my heart. The shame I felt about my maturing body and the cultural messages that equate the vagina and menstruation with a noxious cesspool robbed me of an opportunity to love my body and its unique life-giving properties.
Examining representations of the female body within pop culture would not be complete without a critical examination of sociohistorical attitudes toward menstruation. After all, the advertising industry is replete with messages that reinforce ancient notions that menstruation is a cringe-worthy, filthy subject. How can a girl love herself completely when she has been raised in an environment that sees the female body as dirty? Shameful? How different would we feel about ourselves if our first period was met with revelry and joy?
