Perfectionism

These are some short pieces on perfectionism, which were forwarded to me by a friend, who sourced them from a counsellor. They focus on the psychological side of perfectionism, how to identify yourself as a perfectionist.

This led me to look at people who undergo surgery to achieve 'perfection' in their appearance. It's a really common thing with celebrities, which I think influences people to follow a similar route to try and change their appearance, unrealistically. A lot of the time, the surgery is unnecessary too, below is an example of it, Megan Fox who didn't look bad beforehand, had surgery anyway, creating a bad influence for young girls particularly. 

Although the change in Megan Fox can't be seen a lot in that picture, some change themselves to look almost inhumane because the surgery is that drastic.

As well as surgery, advertisements featuring celebrities are also unrealistic, mainly because of the amount of makeup plastered on them, and how much they are edited and manipulated. They are made to look 'perfect', which gives an unrealistic view on how people look, mainly women. This is a good example, Beyonce on the cover of Vogue is made to look absolutely flawless

When without makeup and editing, her skin isn't as smooth and bright, her eyes have have bags and darkness and her face doesn't look as skinny. 

They wouldn't be able to put the real photos of Beyonce on the cover, because she doesn't look 'perfect' enough, so it wouldn't sell products, whereas this unrealistic version of beauty that is portrayed will sell, because people aspire to look that unrealistically good. 

This led me to think about how I can link my work in with this, shooting photographs in the style of Vogue and other popular magazines, but with real people, without the editing to look like the real Vogue. I might create a series of front page spreads with 'real' women, maybe even with a couple of articles to go alongside expressing views against plastic surgery.