Angela Marklew is a photographer who mainly focuses on portraiture, in particular the headshots area of it. Marklew was born in Canada however she now takes residence in Los Angeles. Besides portraiture, Marklew also takes beauty photographs and photos for advertisement. Marklew has a feminine look to her photographs which is created by the soft colours and the way in which her subjects are posed in her photographs. One of Marklew’s collections called ‘skin in the game’ really represents femininity as it shows how women feel the need to fit into society standards even though the process of it is painful.

Marklew’s work is also just based on women models, often wearing brightly coloured makeup, mainly eyeshadows, which adds to the aspect of femininity that is displayed throughout her work.

Skin in the game

I am choosing to base my response to Angela Marklew’s work on her collection ‘skin in the game’. This is because I feel that it truly shows how difficult it is for women to feel the need to use cosmetic surgery to look good in today’s society. In the photo above you can see clips and tape pulling on the models face to create a lifted look, however this is only one side of the photo. This shows how easy it is to create a false look when taking photos for things such as magazines and social media. Many women are unaware of the fact most of these images are altered whether its using photoshop or other things which makes them feel like they need to look that way too.

Analysis

 

The photo above is a portrait of a woman with a syringe on her cheekbone with blood pouring down her cheek. The expression on the woman’s face suggests that she is in pain however the hand on her chin is keeping her in that state. The gloved hand makes me think of plastic surgery and fillers, the needle also supports the idea that the photographer was trying to give the viewer the impression that the model is getting some sort of cosmetic surgery done. The blood dripping down the models cheek suggests that the injection is painful and reminds me of the expression ‘beauty is pain’. The photo shows how many women feel that they must look a certain way to fit the social standards that are set from things such as magazines and social media which all tend to be extremely unrealistic versions of people. This photo is from Marklew’s collection ‘skin in the game’ which represents that beauty comes with a painful price.