Ever pry your eye open with one hand, sweep mascara on with the other, and wonder if other girls look the same in the morning? Photographer Noorann Matties reveals everything you have ever wondered about foreign beauty routines. Rituals – a photo series featured in Inconnu Mag’s Fog issue– captures various young women in their daily prepping and priming. The photos pull back the curtain on “effortless” looks, and capture the delicate moments we spend with ourselves.
The artist writes about the project:
“Forced to examine ourselves in ways many normally avoid, Rituals as a project sought to capture the moment in which we in our lives become devoid of distraction and we become intimately aware of ourselves. By photographing people’s personal beauty rituals I attempted to capture this awareness, this intimacy that occurs only when one is forced to examine their own body, the most basic thing that is theirs, and build upon it.”
The series pulls mixed emotions from its audience – it is partly sad, partly loving, partly haunting. We are left wondering what these women are thinking or feeling as they stare at themselves and alter their appearances.
Watching other women’s routines is strangely voyeuristic; even when we get ready in groups we still spend most of our time staring at our own faces in the mirror. These photos demand a pause during a moment shared between a woman and her reflection, which is so often overlooked.
