diversity now!: evaluation

For my response to the Diversity Now brief, I wanted to create a piece of work that built upon my previously explored interests and talents to end up with something that could still fit within my personal portfolio. As much of my work tends to focus on aspects of femininity and youth I focused my piece on women and girls and the diversity of appearance and style, to send out the message that there is not only one kind of beauty, or one “look” that is acceptable or fashionable. ­­

I based my images around the phrase, “roses are not the only flower”, which connotes femininity, natural beauty – and the diversity/variety that is seen throughout nature. In our last module I found my own personal interest in still life photography, but I thought it was important I included people in my images because of the subject matter, so I involved props (the bouquets of flowers) to combine my interest in still life with fashion/portrait photography.

I feel I put myself out of my comfort zone here as directing fashion shoots has never been something I feel confident in, but with the short amount of time we had to complete this brief I was forced to get on with the work and produce these images even if I was afraid they wouldn’t turn out how I wanted. On the whole I was pleased with how the final photographs came out. I feel I captured the mood and message that I wanted them to. I wanted the images to be simple, minimal but colourful and fun, capturing the natural beauty and youth of my subjects without me having to direct them too much or edit the photographs.

I was pleased with how my addition of the simple digital illustration turned out as well. If I’d have had more time or organised myself better I would have liked to experiment more with the illustration and perhaps try something more unusual with the photographs, but I think what I did created a bold and strong message that didn’t get lost when the images were finalised.

This was a piece of work that I really enjoyed as it forced me to work under pressure and believe in my ideas more, as usually I spend a long time deliberating before I create something. It’s also something I could see myself developing further on in the future; perhaps continuing to take portraits and adding to this series to end up with a larger collection of images highlighting diversity in beauty.