Eva Lia
- Nov 7, 2016
- 2 min read

Halloween Photo Essay

"How can identity and individuality be revealed through the modern American's desire to celebrate Halloween?"

Reflection

Due to the amount of work my friends and I had on the night of Halloween, we we unable to go out and celebrate on October 31st, a Monday night. The rest of the week dragged on and we all felt that not having celebrated a holiday we all love was wrong. So, we planned a Halloween redo the upcoming weekend, November 5th.

When we decided to do Halloween on the weekend after the 31st I developed an idea: How does Halloween as a holiday shifted the idea of identity and individuality in American youth?

My friends and I felt cheated when we were unable to express our creativity through costume because we missed Halloween. Though we did go out over the weekend before the 31st, we never got the opportunity to "dress up." The main difference between halloween and any other holiday is the chance to express yourself by dressing up as something different than the everyday get-up.

I decided to trace our transformation, particularly my own, through make-up, into my chosen costume: Dr. Frank n Furter from the Cult classic film Rocky Horror Picture Show. I had come up with this costume months in advanced and was excited to have the chance to bring this character to life and take selfies for my social media, so as to show my followers that I had not missed out on Halloween, I was simply "fashionably late."

I worked with color and saturation to dramatically render my night as a vibrant and exciting night, in an effort to emanate the excitement and colorfulness experienced on the actual night of Halloween.

The Essay