Beauty
In the very classic way, beauty photography sells makeup or skincare products, possibly even beautifying treatments that reach the extension of plastic surgery. Just like Pantone sets the colour(s) of the year, the beauty industry has a massive influence on our perception of what is seen as “pretty”, “healthy”, or even “sellable”.
When you scroll through this section, you’ll hopefully notice that my photography doesn’t fully follow this path. Of course, you’ll stumble across a jewellery editorial or skincare photo, but hopefully you’ll also raise an eyebrow or scruff your nose at one or the other image. What may be obscure to you, might be beautiful to me. At the end of the day, I highly doubt a full face of glitter would be considered a daily makeup choice. (I highly doubt it would be seen as something practical either, unless your aim is to retell the story of Haensel and Gretel with a sparkly trail that doesn’t quite sound as environmentally friendly as the original story line).
Anyway, thankfully I’m not the only one out there, going beyond those “classic” standards. We’re living in a time and age where beauty is being re-defined every day, acknowledging imperfections and flaws as the new norms. Can you believe that freckles still aren’t seen as beautiful across the globe? That’s just mind-blowing to me…
Tiring from over-analysing symmetry in faces, perfect ratios and following set beauty standards, this part of photography to me is more about exploring creative concepts on faces and turning a models’ skin into a canvas. Whether that canvas is being “painted” in a high-end makeup setting, or spontaneously covered in theatre paint with the use of a toothbrush in the middle of the living room, beauty can be created everywhere, so hopefully you’ll find some of it in my gallery below.
