My proposal: For my final project I want to take serious and emotional portraits of the elderly women in my life. This idea sprouted from a specific vision I had where I wanted to take a portrait of my friend’s grandmother in their 60’s tile bathroom, a space that I saw as the model. The images that resulted from the shoot were so stunning I wanted to explore this aesthetic or style more. The soft yet dramatic lighting highlights all the subtle details on the face, with an emphasis on the imperfections and wrinkles of a mature woman. While talking with my model, she was very insecure, and didn’t feel I should photograph her, continuously calling herself ugly throughout the shoot. All of my models did this. Women are highlighted in our society with natural beauty, yet are held to such unrealistically high standards as to how they should look. Along with this, a woman who shows her age is frowned upon, creating this cycle for many women to fall into where as soon as they age they lose their confidence, feeling of beauty, and self worth. I mean to challenge this idea by bringing to attention and appreciating the beauty of a matured woman in her full age, shown through the emotion she carries with her from living a full life. By talking with the model while taking pictures, the face reflects the emotion in their thoughts and pondering creating such genuine feeling in these pictures. Most of the conversation remains serious or reflective on their life to purposefully bring comfortability and naturalness to the portraits. My models are also people that are all close to me personally, which creates a little more ease and comfort in the pictures.