PETRA COLLINS: SELFIE

I explained how I’ve been feeling a little lost within my project within my latest tutorial session. I have so many different ideas going around in my head at a million miles an hour, but I haven't really stuck to any of them and produced solid pieces of work yet, causing me to come to a bit of a stand still. 

Jennifer introduced me to the work of Petra Collins in the hope that this would give me some inspiration to move forward and get back on track. I’m grateful for this guidance, as I hadn't heard of Collins’ work before and I feel as though it really channels the type of first-hand/real life imagery that I wish to include within aspects of my own work. When researching further into her various works, I gained the most inspiration from the selfie series as it loosely portrays the same message as I am wishing too, however focusing solely on selfie culture, rather than social media as a whole. 

Selfie:

'ongoing series started in 2013 – now examining selfie culture in teenage girlhood and the power for young women to create, curate and distribute their own imagery.'

What inspires me most, is how simplistic and effortless the final outcomes are, almost giving you the feeling that you are there in the moment within the image.  Making a final outcome that is relevant and relatable is something that I want to achieve as I think that when you are engulfed within a book or a story, etc. that has real life values and situations throughout it, it explains the message to the reader on a personal level which improves the success rate of the outcome.

REFLECTIONS

• I’m still unsure whether I wish for my whole project to have this same style of imagery throughout, or whether to mix and match this with editorial concepts. By experimenting further with portraiture photography techniques in real life situations, compared to staged studio versions I will be able to make an informed decision on which helps the development of my ideas the most productively. 
• In these early stages of the project I need to be testing as much as possible to ensure that positive changes can be made to improve the quality of work and that I can gain as much feedback as possible from my tutorial sessions.