crossing cultures

finals

process work

NPF 558 - Issues in Design

Project #2 – Crossing Cultures

By Leigh Farrell

“Crossing cultures” can mean many things, whether applied to race, geographical location, language, job, media, and the list goes on. Rather than going down the obvious path (race), I decided to explore crossing ages or generations.

I immediately thought of using an object that is associated with a child and juxtaposing it with something adult-related and came up with my “Barbie soft porn” concept, as I call it.

The concept is fairly self-explanatory; the element that makes this piece effective lays in the fact that it is risqué while still being photos of a child’s doll.

For my project, I took a Barbie and did a nude photo shoot of her using a Nikon D90 DSLR Camera and a Nikon Speedlight SB-600 to achieve desired lighting. Using a piece of blue Bristol board, I created a seamless backdrop.

I posed the doll in the most realistic ways possible, as I wanted the viewer to almost do a double take of the photo, thinking it’s a person and then discovering it’s actually a doll.

Though some may see this series of photos of a nude doll to be just that – a series of photos of a nude doll, the piece itself brings up the issue of children growing up too quickly in our fast-paced society. I wanted the photos to be eye-catching and humorous, while still holding meaning and thoughtfulness within them.