Sarah Wilson

Style without boundaries was a competitive brief that challenged and

explored the use of new imagery in street style created by iPhoneographers using the photo-sharing social network site and iPhone application, EyeEm. The resulting collated and live streamed imagery were shown at London Design Festival on 23rd – 25th September 2011.

The research aimed to use the images captured by Eye Em iPhers and examine the differences in image construction and subject portrayal across gender, age and cultures in relationship to Fashion bloggers.

The live streamed event included over 750 images from over 120 respondents. Entries were submitted from all over the world including US, Germany, Australia, UK, Columbia and Ireland.

The key findings in this study are the differences of image capture between iPher and blogger and how they choose to frame and present their subjects online. Bloggers in co-constructing the image with the stop-and-pose subject give rise to a staged performance that presents public selves in a public physical space that is reiterated in the public blog – in each stage of image production they curate self for public consumption.

Whereas the iPhers discreet capture of subject both hides and displays their own and their subject’s persona. Hiding in that the subject is ‘off guard’ representing their veridical private self in a public scenario that is iterated on a digital platform; Displaying in that iPhers as well as the blogger gain social currency in the display of their images. Their discreet curation of subject leaves more for the viewer to interpret but does reveal elements of the iPher’s self in who and how they capture as the subject. This difference in how bloggers and iPhers capture imagery might have greater relevance in how we all choose to hide or display aspects of ourselves through imagery online. 

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