I want to explore “girlhood” which is the period when a person is a girl, and not yet a woman, or the state of being a girl. In this I want to delve into what I consider the parts of growing up as a girl (both as child and a teenager), shared experiences, the coming of age memories/moments, friendships, and the societal ideas of femininity. This matters to me because I grew up in a house with 3 brothers so I only had my mother to identify with in my development. Despite my love for dolls and stereotypical ‘feminine’ toys growing up, I would instead find myself playing with cars and sports (stereotypically masculine) with my younger brothers as I spent a lot of my childhood looking after them while my parents worked. To express this project I have thought about many different ways of capturing it: still life close ups made in the studio of personal items or items I link femininity to (childhood teddys, personal cards/notes, beauty products, etc.), and portraits based around friendship (groups of girls hanging out together, helping each other etc) and femininity/growing up (close ups of facial features, hair, wrinkles, etc). These photos will be a mix of documentary and tableaux which I will put in a photobook. I want some images to be very simplistic and structured (close ups), and some to be chaotic and busy (portraits), this is because I want to display the messy way that we grow up (and signifying the ups and down in life). Additionally, I want to try and keep my images faceless (apart from the close ups of faces) so that its not too personal that any girl can identify/relate with the photos.