#wokeuplikethis

I love Instagram and I’m on it constantly. I came across the hashtag #wokeuplikethis and was kind of surprised to see more than 200,000 images exist on Instagram with that hashtag which is why it’s such an important element in the title of the project. Imagery and photography are now more important than ever, thanks to things like Facebook and Instagram which rely almost solely on visuals to engage us. The downside is that image and appearance have also become more important than ever in how you present yourself to the world. People almost decide whether they like you or not based on how you “appear” to the world on social media. Especially with some celebrity accounts, it just feels like there is no such thing as a spontaneous moment for many people in a public way and some people would never dream of presenting themselves to the world in anything less than perfectly groomed fashion and I think it’s kind of damaging. It can’t be good for people’s self esteem to be following some of these social media accounts every day and encountering what they may not realize are perfectly controlled images or “moments”. I wanted to create some images that were devoid of all the elements that go into typical shoot with models and present images that were more about the subject in a raw sense.