Cara Phillips’ ultraviolet portraits reveal beauty in blemishes:
When I was doing research for my first body of work, Singular Beauty, a series of interiors of cosmetic surgery offices, I came across B&W images of people with their eyes closed on doctors and medi-spa websites. I was immediately struck by the portraits, and discovered that they were made using a type of medical photography that reveals flaws beneath the skin that is invisible to the human eye.
My first thought was that the images reminded me of early post-mortem/memorial photographs, but they were also a kind of anti-portrait that was new to me. The aim of a portrait, in commercial and vernacular photography, is primarily to hide flaws — to present a two-dimensional “flawless” version of the person. Even before photoshop, photographers would hand paint negatives to enhance or improve the subject’s appearance. But these images’ function was to enhance and reveal flaws. However, the images themselves were beautiful, and I found that dichotomy intriguing and decided to push it even further.
See more of Phillips’s work here.
The Dish 