The concept being approached was to literalize the intangible, in this case fighting internal and external struggles of cystic acne. While modern beauty photography is meant to be portrayed bright and airy while highlighting the typical “flawless woman”, it does not consider how unrealistic this expectation really is. Even the photos taken for these ads include massive amounts of makeup, and even then it finishes with advanced levels of retouching. This led me to realize there have been many satirical reinventions making fun of these unrealistic archetypes. Therefore I wanted to dig into giving an outlet to express the true pressure of bad skin, and feeling like it’s the first if not the only thing people see about you. Considering my specialty revolves around headshots and tight studio portraits I found it easy to create a beauty setup while adding my own flare. I adhered to the bright airy feel and even was able to pitch the treatment to a cosmetologist also attending FIT who was on board to collaborate. Ultimately, I decided to use bubble wrap to represent the pimples and cysts, to recreate the feeling of being blurred by the imperfections, I draped the bubble wrap in front of the subject’s face, distorting her features. With some bubbles being painted red, it gave an uncanny valley effect where you can see the person, but are blinded by what sits in front of them. The climax of the shoot, reaching rock bottom, feeling suffocated by your acne. However, like all things, there is a silver lining, to find a product that empowers you to overcome the self battle.
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