New Direction

After having my individual meeting today I have decided to take an entirely new direction with my work this semester. After reviewing and taking into consideration the theme/path that my work is already on I have decided to deal with the issue of women in uncomfortably masculine or violent (something that our society considers much of the same -masculine and violent). Specifically I am thinking of dealing with women in combat. I find it so interesting that women can be these violent and aggressive creatures in combat and yet still have all the qualities of women (inbred things like vanity and neutering and caring). The ideas that caring mothers at home can the "bad guys" in war. The way that I want to visually deal with these issues is by either authentically recreating old war images with women or changing the images by putting women in them by using digital manipulation. It is not just the idea of women being thought as as violent that interests men but how women can play these "bad" roles, but yet still be considered hot, pretty, or beautiful. The idea is to not over dramatize how beautiful the women in the photographs are, but for the viewer to not even realize that the image has been recreated using women at first. I want the viewer to just instinctively know something is different and then when they really look, they notice women filling the frame. Then taking it one step farther, making the people in the photograph portray violence, hate, struggle, but yet still maybe have their hair done, or their makeup done. May be their uniforms show a little more skin.....anyway, the whole idea fascinates me and I can't wait to further plan out my thoughts.