The day prior to planning this shoot I impulsively bleached my eyebrows. I sent photos of myself to my family to get their reaction. My Nan and Grandad thought I had sent a picture of my mum with a colleague and they were furious that she wasn’t social distancing. When I explained it was in fact me she was with and not a colleague, they didn’t believe it. Alternatively, my mum’s boyfriend couldn’t put his finger on what had changed about me. 

 

These responses led me to the idea of shooting myself just as I am, dressed in my regular clothes, bare faced and with understated posing. I chose to edit them in black and white to remove the distraction of my colourful jumper and keep the focus on my face. I have included: two photos with fairly relaxed posing so you can fully see me as I am normally, one photo of me smiling to add personality and emotion as well as an image where I am using the Kubrick stare to give an unsettling edge to the image.

 

I decided on such straight forward portraits having recently seen the spring/summer 2020 cover shoot of Metal by Teddy Iborra where they keep the posing neutral which allows the viewer to focus more on the face. Having the model staring directly into the lens also breaks the fourth wall between the model and the viewer creating an interaction which grabs the viewers attention.

 

The intention of this shoot is to draw in the viewer through intense eye contact and clear edits and cause them to wonder “what is wrong in this photo?”. Eyebrows frame your face and bleaching them so they are almost unnoticeable makes the photos unsettling just like the uncanny valley concept where an object or creature almost perfectly resembles a human but there is a tiny difference which is enough to repulse the viewer.