My group wanted to create a photography zine book that was simplistic, showed beauty, and could be useful to someone. We knew how we wanted to make our zine look, we wanted our whole zine to have a theme and to look amazing. The pictures in our book represent us creating our own beauty standards and not paying attention to society expectations. We added special yellow card stock pages in-between the pages for each of our condensed essays, we didn't want to put the text on the actual paper where our pictures were. We also added a pocket in the middle where we put an insert that has recipes for self care like lip scrubs, and shower melts. Our zine was focusing on body positivity, not on why it is a problem. We pressed flowers to symbolize femininity and growth. The topics that were discussed in our zine were body image, female masculinity, beauty standards, and sexual abuse. I chose the topic of masculinity in women because athletics have always been in my life, and many of my close family members face the issue of not liking their body because it's too big. I remember ever since I was little I would get really mad at them because they would put themselves down because of something hey couldn't control and that were just muscles. And personally I think they are beautiful and really cool. I have also had many people tell me I have big shoulders for s girl or being told I should do something so I don't get bigger. So when I thought about this topic in body image it was something I felt wasn't talked about as much and how this is also negative body image so I wanted people to be aware of this.
Each person was to contact an interview a social advocate for their issue that lives in San Diego. I chose to interview someone I found from social media that was training for the NPC Figure show and was documenting her journey on an Instagram page. I think this interview and literature research helped me understand how this issue is very important in because there is many perspectives around "feminism" and the list could go on about the issues. I definitely learned something new within my groups topics. After the CV Zine Fest, I was most proud of selling almost all out zines because of a purpose. Almost every client asked what it was about and individually about how this topic was important to us. I think the conversations were my proudest moments. Taking what I learned into future work, I think just getting meaning out of whatever you do. Making someone get something out of your work is always the best. Making it interactive not just something thats there for no reason. |