Media Does Not Matter: A Junior Design Student Conceptual Project by Aashia Mehta (2015)

I am exploring the feeling of powerless through the experience of being bullied by the media. In spirituality, the mirror symbolizes not only our appearance, but the reflection of our consequences or revealing their dark side. For example, in the past many people believed that vampires did not have a reflection because of their evil souls. On the other hand, the Barbie doll epitomizes a fantasy world and a stereotypical ideal for young women. As the Barbie doll looks into the mirror, you can see a focused reflection of the doll. Most would expect a mirror's reflection to be symmetrical; nonetheless, I broke the symmetry by shooting the image at a lower angle from the side. This viewpoint intended to exaggerate the Barbie doll's small structure in comparison to the mirror. I applied a vignette on Adobe Photoshop to tightly crop around the subject and increase the image's impact. Because of the low, yellow lighting in my room, I had to add a single adjustment layer to fix the temperature and exposure of the image. I used the pen tool to select the hair of the Barbie doll reflection, saved this selection, and added a filter called Rough Pastels.

When the doll looks into the mirror, she constantly self-evaluates herself. The spiritual mirror brings out the Barbie doll's flaws and brings out the negative critic inside of her. Her reflection is powerless to the unrealistic image she has brought upon herself. Her hair subtly represents how she is becoming a total mess and changing her appearance will not change what is inside of her. Similar to the esoteric Barbie doll in the photo, many girls around the world are being accustomed to society's uniform standards and invariably lowering self-esteems. An interpreter of the piece may feel an emotional response, hoping that the doll nurtures her unique qualities and realizes her appearance does not define her.