Cate Keegan

In this project, I tried to create two perspectives, the side of yourself that you show the people around you and the side of yourself that you keep hidden. I wanted to show this idea through photography. In the beginning, there are photos of myself in warm lighting, with soft makeup, and a lot of light and shadows. This was meant to create the emotion of love and happiness.

With the warm-toned lighting, it draws you into the photo. I wanted to convey raw emotion in the second half of the project. I put on dark makeup and used cold tones to create this cold aura around myself. After we took a few shots out, I came up with the idea to wear the blue dress in the shower. I had runny makeup, wet hair, and a wet dress. It shows raw emotion and cold eyes in the photo.

The blue dress was my inspiration for this project in the first place. Just because you put on a mask, the dress, and you present yourself as warm and welcoming, you still can be sad behind the mask. You feel alone, trapped, confused on the inside but you put on a persona. The blue dress is meant to represent you are still yourself, with all of your emotions, makes up the person who you are.

Overall, the main ideas of this project were just to express the emotions you show and the emotions you don’t. That being said, I only showed the sadness one can feel behind the mask that they wear. One can feel anger, guilt, shame, but you can also feel excited, engaged, and more. Emotions are a complex thing which cannot be expressed through a handful of photos. I wanted to show one side of what people may feel.