These images are from a project called “In My Skin” about young people under 25 in the UK who are challenging their body image. I am looking at those who have had or are considering having cosmetic surgery in order to become more acceptable to themselves and achieve their ideal of being ‘beautiful’. Social consensus in Western society today is particularly focused on physical beauty and achieving and maintaining the ‘perfect’ face and body.

Intertwined with this I am also documenting body dysmorphia as young people try and conform to this social expectation resulting in eating disorders and body transformation. Lastly I am documenting transgenderism and the struggle young people have to live within a body they were born into but have no affiliation with.

- Michelle Sank

Michelle Sank is an internationally recognised social demographic photographer. Her practice is concerned with the notion of encountering, collecting, and re-telling. She is interested in creating sociological landscapes, interplays of human form and location that are significant in their visual, sociological, cultural and psychological nuances.

She has undertaken numerous commissions for prominent galleries and magazines in the UK, Europe and the USA and has been the recipient of numerous awards. With this series she won a Portfolio Selections Award in the 2014 San Francisco International Photography Competition.

Visit Michelle Sank’s site