Miss Aniela Photography

Here’s my rant on beauty. I hope that some parts of this will appear in my press release for my exhibition at Camara Oscura, Madrid, April 17th - May 31st, along with some other issues my work seems to have raised…

There is one remark that lots of people make about my work, even when they are praising it; that my pictures owe themselves to the model’s [my] physical beauty. Unfortunately, though that remark is usually harmlessly made, and/or meant to flatter me as an aside, (‘you are talented but of course being beautiful helps!’) Most of the time I take it as a compliment. But lately, it seems it’s the only comment people make – the first thing they write in a message/email. At these times I feel at best undermined, at worst, insulted.

Of course not every email I receive is from someone who has stumbled across my work, originally looking for porn, who thinks they can talk to me as a ‘hot’ pretty girl, even as a prostitute. Luckily I don’t get many emails like that. What’s sad is that 75% of the messages I receive from intelligent viewers of my art feel obliged to reduce their commentary to one throwaway remark about my looks.

This is rather an embarrassing subject to talk about, but it shouldn’t be, because I am not here to talk about how I look in real life, but rather to point out the absurdity of people’s assumptions, the naïve postulation that in real life I look as I do in my pictures. Therefore it applies to ‘ugly’ comments as well as the ’beautiful’ ones, because of course, not everyone thinks I look beautiful.

The person who sent me a message, after watching me talk on the BBC interview, to say that I am ugly in real life, was a different matter altogether. That’s called ‘rudeness’, and is entirely another topic.

I am not saying here that I am ‘ugly’, nor that I mutilate the shape of my body and face in Photoshop to any unrecognisable extent.
What I am saying is that it is gullible, as well as irrelevant, to attempt to make a judgement about the self portrait artist’s real physical self, from my embellished and processed art pieces.

I choose to use myself as ‘a model’ for the moment of the photograph. I am not trying to sell myself a model in the commercial sense; I am not looking for an agency. I am not of that visual calibre – what I mean is that I am not a stereotypical ‘model’. This is not just me being modest - this is me trying to argue that my images make me pretty, not the other way round.
What is so amusing (and sometimes disappointing) is that certain people are fooled by my images, they are sucked into the ‘beauty’ of them, into thinking that I have inherent great looks that are captured instantly and effortlessly by a camera. In fact, it takes great effort and skill to make a self- portrait; at the first level, by the angle of the camera itself, and then by the selection and digital processing of the final image.
There is a clear barrier between my pictorial self and my real self, simply because still-photography behaves differently from reality, and from the moving image. Still images are static, frozen hyperbole, drawn with light and colour and further idealised and obscured from ‘reality’ during the post-processing stage where any number of tools can embellish the image that was initially caught by the lying camera itself. That is a craft. And this is what I emphasise when I insist that the artist wants to be recognised for her craft.

That craft could equally be used to specialise in visions of ugliness from picture to picture.
Compared to other certain female self portrait artists who ‘uglify themselves’ (apparently popular in the contemporary art scene at the moment; who turn themselves into victimised figures, low-key and obscure with the frame) you could say that artists like myself attempt to do something fresh; to celebrate beauty, without shame.
People may ask, is my work all about beauty then? No, but I have a taste for the visually fantastic; usually the visually fantastic woman, that is my chosen aesthetic style.
If my work were all about beauty (speaking hypothetically, as it is not) I would still expect an unpatronising appreciation for having crafted that beauty, which is what traditional art, at least, is appreciated for. Would we look at a Renaissance painting, for example, and dismiss the model as too beautiful for us to appreciate the hand with which it was painted?

Moreover, if my work were to be taken purely for its beauty, that would naturalise the notion that the audience looking at my images is predominantly made up of men. To add to the stereotype, those men are labelled as lascivious and simple-minded, which is an immediate sexist outlook. Then of course, arguing for why a lascivious man’s point of view should not be sexistly taken as the dominant male interpretation is only half of the story, as that leaves out 50% of the audience – women, and their responses to my work.

If you think I am still being harsh when I complain of being called attractive, think of it like this: I am not complaining of being considered attractive, what I’m critiquing are people who use my work to judge what I look like in real life (whether ‘beautiful’ or ‘ugly’) and then deny my work praise or appreciation (that they would have given otherwise, if they like my style) because they consider my looks first; they doubt my skills because they believe, naively, that my beautified pictures helplessly and exactly replicate my supposedly stunning self. I am flattered when my viewers compliment the way I look, but only in context with a fuller appreciation of the work I do as an artist, not isolating a shallow opinion of my work into one brief and final judgement. I also see that Lara Jade has had thoughts similar to these.

There are figures in the ‘elite’ sphere of art ironically taking up a mainstream view of my artwork and distorting me to the level of a puppet or model, when over on Flickr are everyday people who praise my artistic skill before anything else. Let me show you the worst example of the issue in hand. Martin Parr, a well-known British photographer came onto my blog when I was discussing ‘Picture This’, a Channel Four photography programme he participated in as a judge.

He said:
“I looked at your self portaits. [sic]. You are an attractive woman and therefore the images look good. However
I am not sure what your images are about,this is where Lizz scored because she had a strong message she want to communicate through her images. Remember we are all most critical of the work that is like our own.”

I responded with a virtual sigh that his words, of precisely the same attitude I have been critiquing here, are of a “naive, school-boy’s assumption that my pictures are born of some ready-made natural beauty”. I also remarked, “Perhaps my looks makes it easier for people to look at my pics. Doesn’t make it any easier to create them.”

For Martin Parr to put forth that one single remark after looking at my work was what I would deem an immature response, particularly coming from someone with a professional photographic reputation. There was no allusion at all to my craft as an artist in the sentence “You are an attractive woman and therefore the images look good”. The structure sentence immediately and deliberately sets out to attribute all of my visual achievements to being “an attractive woman”. I am not sure whether ‘condescending, sexist twat’ would have been a civilised response but the presumptuous attitudes to artists like myself are even remarkably insidious in even other people’s well-meant words. In responding to people like Martin Parr and in writing this critique, I want not just to defend my own work, but the work of many a female self portrait artist whose skill of juggling both sides of the camera is quite a feat, and too often, even in a harmless, friendly manner – is undermined.