perfection
By Maddy Lazarow
This series is a digital photo magazine that focuses on the complexities of body image and beauty standards in media. I, like most who post on social media, have edited a picture to make me look taller or skinnier: the reality is, we are all trying to be something we are not. In my portfolio, I do not camouflage the Photoshopped elements of my pictures in order to eliminate the stigma around editing a picture. My magazine starts with an idealized world of blue skies and butterflies, (images 2 and 3), highlighting the edited-to-perfection world that we live in. One cannot look on Instagram or flip through a magazine without seeing a cleaned-up version of reality where the wrinkles disappear and thighs don’t touch. The photos in the magazine turn unsettling as you progress to provide a stark contrast to the perfection that the media has normalized us to be (images 4,8,9). The final photo is wiped off makeup to symbolize the amount of change that we put ourselves through to be perceived the way we want to be. The series sends my viewer through fallacy and truth, through perfection and imperfection, through reality and the made-up world the media has taught us to live in.
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BACKCOVER
FRONTCOVER