Frida Kahlo de Rivera born Magdalena Carmen Frida Kahlo y Calderon; 6 July 1907 – 13 July ) was a Mexican artist who painted many portraits, self-portraits and works inspired by the nature and artefacts of Mexico. Inspired by the country’s popular culture, she employed a naïve folk art style to explore questions of identity, post colonialism, gender, class and race in Mexican society. Her paintings often had strong autobiographical elements and mixed realism with fantasy. In addition to belonging to the post-revolutionary Mexicayotl movement, which sought to define a Mexican identity, Kahlo has been described as a surrealist or magical realist.

My Response

Within my response I wanted to incorporate her idea of portraying the taboo topics within society and beauty standards. People expect to look like models and Instagram posers so they go to extreme lengths to achieve this programmed look.

In my shoot I used a younger model due to the standards being passed down to even younger generations than before. I then incorporated Frida’ natural look he had. Through some research I found that during the Roman Empire Era, facial hair on women was a sign of intelligence and nobility. In a way, Frida reflected these traits whilst going against her modern day standards. 

Final Images

Analysis

VISUAL

Within these images I wanted my main focus to be my model but not have a plain background. Within Kahlo’s paintings shes depicted infront of either shrubbery or a earthy coloured background. So, i put my model in front of a field to capture the nature as well as the model. 

TECHNICAL

In order to create my blurred background, I firstly set my cameras depth of field so that it only focused on my model, then once i began processing the image my background wasn’t blurred enough so I used the Photoshop blurring tool so that only my model was in focus. As far as lighting goes, I only used natural light.