This unit has been all about exploring identity through photography. My personal theme for this identity unit was to focus on manipulating identity, during this project I wanted to change the common perception of portraiture. Portraiture is usually about capturing the subject looking their best, an improved version of ones self. Within studio portraits the sitters appearance is often improved or altered through the use of make-up and clothing, however for my own identity project I wanted to manipulate the way a sitters portrait is usually taken. I took a lot of inspiration for this project from photographers such as; Richard Billingham, Man Ray, Nan Goldin and Diane Arbus. Looking at these photographers I realised they all have something in common, they all photograph their subjects in a raw and unflattering states, testing the boundaries of what society calls beautiful.

During my shoots I took on board how each of these photographers work to photograph their subjects and push the boundaries of portraiture. I took on certain quirks of how each of my researched photographers work and used them to improve my own way of shooting. I completed four shoots for this unit and each time I slightly changed the way I manipulated my project. My first shoot I took inspiration from Man Ray and changed the features of my subjects face and replaced them with un-natural features. This I found to be a really successful shoot, the way I placed the props to line up with the sitters actual features in these photographs was really effective. In my second shoot I took inspiration from Man Ray and Nan Goldin and used the camera technique of motion blur to manipulate my sitters appearance. Although I got some effective shots I was not happy with the overall standard these photographs came out. Finally for my third and four shoot I combined the use of flash and make-up  to manipulate the subjects appearance.

My final two shoots had the most effective results in my personal opinion because I used inspiration from all of my previously researched photographers. If I had the chance to go back and change something about the way I conducted my project, I would have done more shoots and experimented with more elements to use in the manipulation of the subject. Editing was a big part of this project, I chose to change the photographs into black and white and adjust the curvature and colour balance, I chose to change these elements using photoshop because it gave my images more detail and a better sense of manipulation. My final four image consist of two images from my third and four shoot and two images from my first shoot. I chose to include two from each because I feel the images work well together as a sequence. In conclusion I have enjoyed this project, if I could improve anything about the way I conducted this project I would have liked to have done some more artist research so I had more inspiration for my shoots.