ADORNED: A Photo Series
Modeling: @iamkyrajaneice, @bethdodge, @angeldrippinghoney, @ishtar_unveiled, @thatbabeshortyy & @haileyj.model
Women no longer feel the need to please the previously-ordained-in-media's "male gaze." Females are finding their voice and their own visions in how to adorn themselves: women according to women. No need to lower her own innate vitality or intelligence because it may displease the male voice of power. No need to oppose or disprove, but by the refusal to please and accommodate that only a deep belief in one's own gift can counteract. As Virginia Woolf so eloquently writes,"What genius, what integrity it must have required in the face of all that criticism in the midst of that purely patriarchal society, to hold fast to the thing as they saw it without shrinking." This is the new vision emerging: the female gaze.
Each woman in this series chose the color, the sequined garment, and the pose that made them feel powerful.
The colors represent each female's choice, the sequined garments and any jewelry or added accessory represent each woman's aesthetic, not chosen to look good for "a man," but for herself. And the clouds represent the feminine presence that pervades the world without as much notice as a man's presence. Always present, beautiful, stormy, light, invisible, all of it in many forms.
These pieces, colors, posings and "wearings" were carefully considered and artfully planned to all represent a piece of what an emerging female confidence and right to "take space" in media and in real life represent.
*All cloud backgrounds were personally painted by me, the photographer & artist