Thesis & Background: Your thesis about the body of work and point of view you’ve chosen to explore, as well as background about the artists that lead you to your thesis.

Mental Health and the Female Body, Quarantined

The photographer that I have chosen is Lauren Greenfield and her photobook Girl Culture, which was published in 2002. This photobook concentrates on the female body, in its various forms, and tells the stories of women who are self-conscious, proud, young, old, among much else. It undeniably allows for not only her subjects, but her readers, and even Greenfield herself to reclaim how female bodies are portrayed. 

This work is relatively recent, and Greenfield was 35 when she released it. She too was a relatively young woman, married, and a mother who had her own career. This work undoubtedly had an effect on her as a photographer because of her identity, and it certainly would have compelled her to tell the story that Girl Culture does, as well as her other works which all focus on women as well. She took these pictures and got to know other women who may have been similar to her in some ways, while being much different in others. These explored different cultures and different events, and exposed the lives of a variety of women. She took these photos recalling her own life now, as a career woman, a wife, and a mother, while also recalling her life as she grew up as a young Jewish girl.

Greenfield said in an interview that her goal with Girl Culture was to “provoke questions…provoke conversation, there are no answers here. I think there’s power in deconstructing the world around us and power in understanding it and questioning it and not taking things at face value. I hope this provokes conversation between girls, between girls and boys, and between girls and their parents” (Greenfield, 2009). Her point is significant and she makes it repeatedly through her photographs within Girl Culture. No woman shares the same story and nor the same body, but that does not mean that they are without value. There is beauty in difference, and self-esteem issues can make that hard to see at times. However by exposing these issues she is continuing to give women agency by showing them that they aren’t alone in that. There is no one way to exist as a woman, and there will never be.

This, and especially the three images below are what sparked interest in Greenfield and her photography and the stories she tells. I want to further explore what it means to be a woman today, and the intricacies involved. I want to explore body image, familial ties, and mental health, and reflecting on Greenfield’s work will undeniably help me achieve that goal. The titles that I am playing with are “Women in Isolation” or “Mental Health in Quarantine” as the current situation also leads to an interesting view of the things Greenfield herself explored.

 

(This photo make me think of what does it mean to pose, or to be alluring for someone else, versus what does it mean to do or be those things for yourself)

 

(This image especially spoke to me because of how often my own spaces have looked like this, and not because I’m a messy person, but because of the constant pressure to appear a certain way and to make sure the way you present yourself is acceptable to other. For me, it connect to mental health.)

 

(I love this image because of the fact that it is of a mother and daughter. I want to explore familial ties and the affect they have on women.)

Anjelica,

This is an excellent beginning. You’ve chosen three very different photographs to emphasize and I can’t see either of your titles actually fitting with these photographs. A couple of things to pay attention to going forward (and in editing this initial project statement):

First, when you quote, be sure to cite the source, usually as a hyperlink if that is where you found it.

Second, please add Greenfield’s titles to the photographs. They are relevant and influence how a viewer looks at the photograph.

Third, check your sentences (e.g. grow up as . . . should be grew up).

I think you’ve taken a challenging approach to Greenfield and I will be interested to see how you follow through.

DDM

Methodology: What are the methods your artist uses in his/her photography? How did you attempt to see through his/her point of view by taking your own photos?

Lauren Greenfield’s photographs in Girl Culture are some of the most direct images that I think I have seen thus far in class. In a way, the images that she takes are blunt, there for the audience to see and they tell the story of the woman or women that are the subjects. They are bright, vivid, and exposed.

Her subjects at times seem posed, but in others they are performing to no one but themselves, with Greenfield as an onlooker. The backgrounds too embody that of the women’s lives, at times messy, sometimes clean, but always capturing the story even further. These photographs deal with sexuality, age, beauty, self-consciousness, and above all, womanhood.

 

 

With my own images, I too want to tell a story of womanhood, and the nuances and intricacies that define it. My images are going to also be of women, including friends and family, but also self-portraits of myself, that I will take at varying times and different places. I want them to be a variety of bold, forward, shy, private, and revealing, just as the images that Greenfield captured. 

I want most to be bright and vivid, as Greenfield’s are, because in doing so she was able to make her images eye-catching, and hard to ignore. I too plan to include mirrors in my own photos because they are such a powerful metaphor in Girl Culture, giving depth to the lives of women and not only how they see themselves but how they are seen by society. This additional reflection provides audiences with the many complications womanhood brings.

 

I am looking for certain things in my images, because I want to put mental health on display. I want to show how women are impacted by depression and anxiety and how they are visible in daily life. The time we live in currently is strange, and many of my images will include more technology than Greenfield because much of the access I have to friends is through a screen. The quarantine will undoubtedly have an affect on women who have issues with mental health, as I know it has already had its effect on me. Using Greenfield’s techniques, I will be able to expose these effects and tell the stories of the women in my life.

Anjelica,

You’re proposing a complex methodology and I suspect that you’re not going to be able to do all of things that you say you want to do, which is fine. As you start to take photographs, think about some of your visual goals and how best to achieve them. I think, then, that you will be able to achieve some of the emotional goals in the process.

Please fix your methodology statement since your photo placement interrupts the word “include.”

DDM

 

Photos & Analysis: Presentation of your own photographs inspired by that point of view. Text articulating what taking your own pictures taught you about the photographer’s point of view and its relevance. What is liberating about the point of view you’ve chosen to explore? How does it challenge you to look at the world differently?

I found the process of taking photographs like Greenfield both challenging and liberating. The most challenging aspects were my limited availability in subject matter, which of course meant that I had to take more photographs of myself, which is something that Greenfield didn’t do in Girl Culture. I was self conscious, doubtful, and frustrated. In the end though, I think it worked to my benefit because it aided in what I had intended to capture, which was female mental health. Mine has never been great, and displaying my uncertainty showed the complexity of mental health, and the affects certain moments have on it.

Gallery:

Taking pictures of my sister was so interesting, because she’s handling the situation we’re in so much differently than I am. I found what worked best was to take photographs of her when I caught her off guard, because it was during those times that she truly is showing her expression, be it sadness or joy. My favorite ones of her are where she is dancing on the road, as I walked behind her. It was our first time outside in a while, and she loves to dance. After being so cooped up, she was doing something that made her feel better, happiness clear on her face.

 

Selected Photos:

One of the things I hadn’t seen when I took the photographs was how much emotion that can be captured. In the photographs of my sister and I putting on makeup, our facial expressions are much different, as are the emotions captured, despite the fact that we were getting ready for the same event – my grandfather’s funeral. My sister has a tear on her cheek, she’s obviously solemn, projecting her sadness. I am conflicted and guarded, sad, but also angry. While I knew I was feeling those things, I didn’t expect them to present themselves so plainly in the image. The same day I captured my mother, at a distance, through a window. We weren’t able to hug, her hand making the sign for “I love you” being the primary focus of the camera, but her own expression visible, her emotions on display in the parts of her face that you can see.

Slideshow One:

 

Something I decided to do was take a series of self portraits in a mirror while I was wearing different makeup and wigs, followed by an image where I was fresh from the shower, no make up, no wig. I found these photographs to be the most liberating, because they showed the complexities of my moods and the way I portray myself. In the photographs where I’m wearing the wigs, I’m confident, but I’m also so much more posed, almost acting. In the photograph where I am not, I am fragile, nervous, and it’s not my favorite picture to look at. However, seeing both sides makes me feel proud of myself, because I came to the conclusion that it’s okay to be both, to not always be perfect.

My approach did evolve, because I realized it was going to be more difficult to capture the things I wanted with the lockdown in effect. It’s mostly just my sister and I in the images now, whereas I wanted more of my mother, grandmother, and friends. This ended up working in my favor, I think, because my sister and I do handle our feelings much differently than the other, keeping our mental health in check in ways that aren’t even a little similar.

Slideshow Two:

Taking these photos really made me appreciate the difficulties that photographers face, and the amount of time that goes into capturing the perfect photographs. I think there’s a certain theme of audiences looking at some photographs and thinking “anyone could take that” but really, not everyone can. After taking my own photos, I’m sure Greenfield took hundreds of more photos than are present in Girl Culture because they weren’t what she wanted, or the moment was not just right. Every picture included in Girl Culture carries significance, and only Greenfield could capture them in order to depict the right moment, the right facial expression, the right body movement, the right actions. I also learned than she undoubtedly knows a lot more about capturing colors and brightness, which I in most cases, could not recreate in my own photographs. However, I think that’s okay, because while Greenfield was able to do something by making her photographs pop, I was able to capture certain lighting and colors in just even attempting to replicate her process.

When I looked back at Greenfields photographs, and compared them to my own, I really appreciated the vastness and variety of Girl Culture even more than I had previously. She spent a long time capturing these photos, and traveled across the country, and then she sometimes even followed up with the subjects years after taking their photo. I didn’t have as long, and with the pandemic, my subject matter was certainly limited. I was not able to capture the diversity that Greenfield did, which made me appreciate her photos even more. I found myself further impacted by the stories she included about her subjects as well, because I found myself forming the stories behind my own photographs. Capturing these pictures are intimate, and they carry a lot of weight – with the photographer as well as the subject.

Anjelica,

Good photos. Glad you could get them up. You’ll need, unfortunately, to reload the ones from the first two sections. I wonder about the two photos with legs in the same position. Consider using one of the ones of the woman where you see her in the mirror without the bent leg.

DDM

Anjelica,

Excellent and insightful reflections on your own photographs as well as what they led you to see in Greenfield’s photographs. You’re right that people think it is “easy” to take photographs because it is: just snap the shutter. But to take photographs that speak to diverse people, that express emotion or states of mind, that convey a social or cultural critique, that is much, much more difficult. I am impressed with how you overcame the pandemic challenges and used the possibility of self portrait (including “disguising” yourself–do you know the photographs of Cindy Sherman, not a photographer we have discussed? she uses that technique all the time, staging herself often very elaborately). Your decision to contrast your mental mood with that of your sister was a good one and helps to put your photographs in dialogue with Greenfield’s. I wonder if you might want to drop the first Greenfield photo taken outside on the beach and substitute one of her bathroom shots of women putting on makeup. The color would work much better with your photos. I really like your self-portrait in the small mirror.

DDM

 

Conclusion: Did you come to understand your Jewish photographer differently after taking your own photos? What did you learn about your thesis?

After taking my own photographs, I think I came to understand the idea of “girl culture” much more than I had previously. It became clear to me why taking and viewing these photos of other women impacted Greenfield the way they did. As a woman, I think that it is nearly impossible to not see a bit of yourself when you are looking at images of other women, especially when they are those that depict the struggle to present yourself in a way that makes the public please, even if you yourself are not happy. I learned much throughout this whole process, and much was gained through taking these images. Not everything turned out the way I thought it would, or the way I planned, but I think that goes to show the complications of photography as well as those of women.

My thesis was about looking towards women and their intricacies in order to understand their mental health and its relation to the way they present themselves, and how it affects their relationships. Quite clearly, I shifted my view from relationships because it was harder to capture during this time. I still think that mental health does affect female relationships, but I also don’t think it’s essential in investigating it. Without it, I was able to learn more about how it affects the individual. I was also able to learn much more about myself, and how I portray myself externally even though I may feel something different internally.

 

My thesis also helped me to find that if someone is dealing with difficulties that have a negative effect on mental health, such as depression or anxiety, a certain amount of performance happens in order to either disguise, distract, or get through these problems. This is clearly something that differs from my sister and I, seeing as she distracts herself by amping herself up (through dance, for example), while I do so through disguise. 

                                                    

Doing this project in the 21st century definitely influenced my interpretation of the 20th century, but I don’t think it was in the way I expected. I think that we have come a long way, but I don’t think it’s without complications. I’m definitely not convinced it’s become any easier to be a woman, infact, I think it may be harder. Greenfield displayed so many of the complications in mental health that the women she photographed were facing, and then through their interviews. Girl Culture was published in 2002, and the world has changed drastically since then. While women may have more agency and freedom, they still face consistent pressure. They are pressured to keep up with fast-fashion trends, have a stylistic and refined social media presence, as well as the day to day expectations society has for women.

While I think it’s become a joke among millennials that girls from generation-Z look better than we did when we were in middle school, it also introduces the fact that younger girls are expected to look like women even when they are not yet teenagers. Realistically, it is incredibly problematic that young girls are expected to match a certain level of maturity in their looks when they aren’t yet grown.  I know I have my fair share of mental health problems due to the societal pressure I faced regarding my appearance, and frankly, looking at the expectations they are faced with meeting, I’m not sure I could’ve survived that. After reading Greenfield’s conclusion in Girl Culture, I am inclined to think she’d agree with me. She captured those that grew up at a different time than herself, and while I did not, it is impossible to not see the shift happening and its effect on girls. This is what girl culture, “body projects”, and the intricacies of being female looks like, and while it changes over time, it stays ever so complicated.

Anjelica,

Very thoughtful conclusion. I appreciate that you tackled the question of change and whether it has occurred and, if so, in what directions. I also appreciate your reflections on mental health and your discovery of the performative responses that shape how girls and women deal with it. Even though Greenfield took photographs in the late 1990s for the book, they remain relevant today because so many of the underlying forces producing “girl culture” endure (e.g. corporations selling products, advertising, media, heterosexual demands).

Please break up a couple of your long paragraphs into shorter ones for easier reading. For example, “While I think it’s . . .” could be the beginning of a new paragraph (also, drop the “but” in that sentence).

Please check to make sure that you’ve identified all of the photographs by Greenfield in your final project. Don’t leave them unidentified. You may also want to add a video with Greenfield in the first section of the project. And don’t forget to list your sources. I think you would find it interesting to check out Rachel Weissman’s interpretation of Greenfield.

Finally, you must give your project a title!

DDM

Sources: List of all your sources with hyperlinks. Be sure to separate photo sources from written research sources.

Research Sources

Furman, Anna. “Looks Like Teen Spirit: Intimate Portraits of 90s American Girlhood.” Vice, 27 Oct. 2016, www.vice.com/en_us/article/kzeay3/lauren-greenfield-girl-culture-90s-photos.

Greenfield, Lauren, and Joan Jacobs Brumberg. Girl Culture. Chronicle Books, 2017.

“Interview with Lauren Greenfield on Girl Culture.” Youtube, Youtube, 2009, www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTlFRu91coo.

Kahn, Mattie. “Always Redefine What It Means to Run ‘Like a Girl.’” ABC News, ABC News Network, 1 July 2014, abcnews.go.com/Lifestyle/redefines-means-run-girl/story?id=24377039.

“Lauren Greenfield.” Instituteartist.com, www.instituteartist.com/lauren-greenfield-1.

“Lauren Greenfield.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 20 Apr. 2020, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lauren_Greenfield.

Photo Sources

Collections Database, museums.fivecolleges.edu/info.php?v=2&museum=all&s=lauren%2Bgreenfield&type=all&t=objects&f=&d=&page=0.

Greenfield, Lauren, and Joan Jacobs Brumberg. Girl Culture. Chronicle Books, 2017.

Lauren Greenfield, Koch Gallery, www.kochgallery.com/artists/contemporary/Greenfield/girl_culture/07.html.

“Lauren Greenfield’s Girl Culture.” GIRL CULTURE – Lauren Greenfield, v1.zonezero.com/exposiciones/fotografos/girlcult/greenfield29.html.