Visual Analysis of A Photo

The photo I am choosing to analyze by Lauren Greenfield is the one in which a dancer from Little Darlings in Las Vegas is backstage and hiding her tampon behind her back. For copyright purposes, I will not post the photo, but rather another one to go along with the theme.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Playtex_tampon.jpg

Visual Strategies

• Angle: When first looking at the photo, it is pretty easy to understand why the picture was taken from this angle. If it were taken from the front, the audience would not have been able to see what the woman was hiding behind her back. The vantage point allows us to be able to see that this girl is in fact hiding a tampon in her hand.

• Framing: The are other women backstage that can be seen when examining the corners and edges of the photo. The other women are placed there to help enhance the idea that the girl needs to "hide" her tampon from other people. She seems to be embarrassed that she has it in her possession. Furthermore, she seems to be leaning in to see what is going on with the other girls as a way to take attention off her and place it upon somebody else. 

• Dominance: When I initially saw the photo, the thing that immediately drew my eye was her bare bottom and that she was hiding something. I thought it was extremely interesting how she had no shame of being naked around the other women, but had shame in holding a tampon. In all honesty it seems kind of backwards. It truly goes to show how women are sexualized in today's culture- they are fine with being bare, but are embarrassed over something that is totally natural for the female body to go through.

• Balance: The visual weight of the photo is slightly off centered towards the right. This allows the focus to be on the blond woman with the feminine product, but also allows us to see what is going on the background with the other women.

• Contrast: The bright/white colors and dark colors were clearly contrasted in this photo. The woman worried about her period is holding white products and is even wearing a white shirt, whereas the women in the background are wearing darker colors. The contrast helps to draw our eye to the main focus of the image (the blond woman). This contrast further serves as a commentary because while the woman is afraid of the other girls seeing her tampon, she feels confident enough to wear white clothing and have white surroundings around her (i.e. the towel and even the tampon packaging). This is significant because women tend to avoid the color white when dealing with blood because of how easily it can be stained. 

• Focus: It appears that the woman with the tampon is in in focus, while the rest of the women are out of focus. This was done by Greenfield in order to display the subject she wants her audience to center their attention on, while also providing some context for the photo to be interpreted.

• Scale: Lastly, the scale of the photo seems natural; if it were to change, there would probably be an alteration in subject dominance, photo balance, and more.

Simple Visual Analysis Based Off the Above

As I mentioned earlier, I find it extremely interesting that this woman is hiding something as minuscule as a tampon, but is fine with being completely naked from the waist down in front of other women. If she is so comfortable around them (enough to show her private parts), why is she so afraid of the thing that all those women more than likely have in common- menstruation? Lauren Greenfield probably wants individuals to think about how women are inherently embarrassed by their periods in today's culture. (This by no means means that there is period shaming, but to some extent, there is clearly an awkward element to this biological process.) Greenfield also probably wants people to think about how a girl can be so comfortable with sexualizing herself, but not even be comfortable with her body, or what happens in it. In order to accomplish this message, the photographer used all of the above strategies (angle, focus, dominance, contrast, etc). A larger claim I feel that I could make as a result of this interpretation is that girls should not have to think they need to hide feminine products or their period in general from each other. We all go through the same things, it should not be hard for us to be understanding and accepting; the period itself is painful enough without the personal shame behind it. Periods are a natural thing that happens to girls, and no one should feel ashamed or embarrassed because of it.