Personal Photography

For the personal photography project, the subject of each of our projects is the body and how it can be viewed. In my case, I used images of bodies to represent another image, the way how I see the individuals in the photos. For my project, I decided to delve into a very controversial topic within the sports world. For years now, there have people players suspect of using performance enhancing drugs, like steroids, in the great game of Baseball. First off, I chose the subjects of each of the images based on their infamous reputations, like Barry Bonds, Mark McGwire, Roger Clemens, Jose Conseco and Alex Rodriguez. These people have all been accused of using steroids in the sport, and I wanted to show my vision of them as I see it, and also my vision of baseball as a whole. The first image shows the commissioner of baseball, Bud Selig surrounded by infamous players with the words “MLB? More like SMH” (SMH stands for shaking my head). This image shows the disappointment I feel every time I think about the use of steroids and how it makes baseball not fun to watch. The next images show players with appropriated images to represent how I feel about steroids enhance the performance of the user, which makes the game sort of unwatchable. Using the idea of objectification, I used appropriated images over the players, allowing the viewer to see the players through my eyes. These people in the images no longer have an identity, rather they are known as “users”. This idea is of interest to me because of the way I wanted to present my images. I want the viewer to, as I said, see what I see, and in this way objectify the person in the image.