FINAL PROJECT

Ava reading Little Women photograph by Livv Welch

Louisa May's Grave photograph by Livv Welch

Gibbet Hill photograph by Livv Welch

21st Century Woman photograph by Livv Welch

Conforming photograph by Livv Welch

Perception photograph by Livv Welch

Comfortability photograph by Livv Welch

Blurred Lines photograph by Livv Welch

Queer Love photograph by Livv Welch

Sequence photograph by Livv Welch

Little Women by Livv Welch Photography Final — Sequenced Body of Work.
Shot with Canon AE-1 Program on Kodak Tri-X 400, Printed on Ilford Pearl RC paper. Shot, developed, and printed by me.

This photo series started by photographing friends of mine at Gibbet Hill and Author’s Ridge cemetery, both of which locations are associated with the novel Little Women. As I made these photographs, I began to think about what it means to be a woman. I thought about the fight for women’s rights, suffrage, and how queer folks were always the ones leading that fight. Most people now accept trans women and nonbinary people who use they/she pronouns as women, not as womxn, not as “other”, but as just simply women. Or, more importantly, as whoever they want to be. According to present day scholars, Louisa May Alcott herself (author of Little Women) possibly identified more as a man than a woman, she is quoted saying “I am more than half-persuaded that I am, by some freak of nature, a man’s soul put into a woman’s body.” (Thomas, Villarreal). I tried to make this body of work about the fact that labels don’t define us, and the binary definitions of gender and sexuality are arbitrary at best. I tried to display the true fluidity of being a woman or queer person through these photographs.