Learning Objective 1
1.1 Investigate the role of photography as
a visual communication medium.
My project is all based around beauty and
whether or not there is one idea of what is beauty, so therefore I am going to
be looking at beauty campaigns and look at how photography has played a huge part
in this whole ideology.
More than just marketing
magic and kitsch catchphrases, beauty campaigns have documented the changes in
women's lives throughout the 20th century - from 1940s wartime austerity and
1950s aspiration, through to sexual liberation, equality and a more diverse
attitude to beauty. We've delved into the archives to bring you this
retrospective of some of our favourite beauty campaigns from times gone by.
Elizabeth Arden, 1945. This beauty
campaign illustrates to us that throughout generations and generations of women
beauty was always considered one of the more important things in life.
Beauty campaigns play a huge part in what
we as a society perceive beauty to be. The way the photographs are edited and
the models chosen indicate to us that this is what we, as women, should all
aspire to be. They also make us believe that if we buy the product they are
trying to sell to us then we too can look exactly like the model on the
campaign and in turn we will be considered as beautiful women within society.
Yardley, 1967. The photography used here
and throughout all beauty campaigns, is designed to draw your eye towards the
area of the face that their product is enhancing. By choosing photographs that
have this effect on its audience, means that they can show off their product
and in turn this results in a successful campaign.
In more modern times the whole idea of
beauty has taken a whole new level with the development of Photoshop and after
effects. These new pieces of software have literally changed the way women
look, as now more than ever more and more advertisers are using Photoshop to
help promote their products by selling us a false idea of what is perfect.
After conducting further research into
this new generation of Photo shopped images, I came across an article on the
Mail Online (Daily Mail).
The following images are described in the
article as; Unrecognisable: The
Helena Rubinstein campaign images of 49-year-old Demi Moore bear almost no
resemblance to her real face, with its natural skin tone, signs of ageing,
lines and angular contours. Even her ears seem to be in a different place -
above her eyeline in the airbrushed photo, much lower in the real one.
Learning Objective 1
Believe it or not this is the
same woman. For me this clearly shows how we as a society are being sold this
false idea of what beauty really is as the models and celebrities they use in
their campaigns don’t even look like the images we see as consumers.
Beauty products were there for
us to be able to enhance what we already have however now it’s all about aiming
for the impossible. A perfect face and body to match.
The
images used within campaigns clearly play a huge role in the way women think
and react. The article also stated; psychologist Dr Linda Papadopolous, who has
researched the topic extensively for the government, said excessive airbrushing,
can have the direct effect of making women feel bad.
We're
exposed to more images today than at any time in our history, so we're more
likely to compare ourselves to them,' she said. 'There's no end of studies that
show that consistently seeing airbrushed images makes women feel worse about
themselves.
'In my
clinical psychology work I'm seeing more and more 40-year-olds with anorexia or
body image disturbances,' she adds. 'They feel as though they don't have the
right to age and have wrinkles. There's a phobia of our bodies going over the
age of 18 or looking anything other than young, slim and supple. Advertisers
are selling people insecurity.'
Photography
plays a huge role within this industry as without it the products simply
wouldn’t sell. The companies that run within this market use photography as a
way of tapping into the insecurities that we as women have and use it to try
and change our perception of what we believe we should look like and by selling
us a false interpretation of what beauty is. Knowing that we can never achieve
such a look means that their products will keep on selling as women will keep
on buying in the hope that one day they will achieve their dream look.
