Appropriation is a project based on the idea of “the use of borrowed elements in the creation of a new work.” Appropriation is a common strategy employed in photography, both within the frameworks of artistic or commercial practice. Inherent in our understanding of appropriation is the concept that the new work decontextualizes whatever it borrows to create the new work.
Commercial photographers appropriate imagery to sell images, to inculcate specific feelings and associations such as nostalgia, classic glamour or humor. Artists use appropriation to play with commonly understood, iconography, decontextualizing, subverting or inverting received notions to generate debate.
For my project I decided to reproduce three Images of Greek-style booster photographs of three different decades: 1920, 1930, and 1940. Around the decade of the 20s, the people who had their own cameras were the professional photographers. Families or couples who wanted to have a booster photo had to hire one of them, since compact cameras and cell phones did not exist in that time. Because of the stringency of that time the photos had to be produced according to specific standards. For example, in Greece around 1920, the standard way to take pictures of couples was with the man sitting and the woman standing next to him. The 30’s and 40’s follows, however, the standards and the stereotypes begin to fade away.
I tried to cache style of the Greek booster photos of these three different decades, in professional photographic studios. I tried to duplicate everything: culture, origin, and time. I then added an extra element as my personal touch to the pictures, white and expressionless masks on their faces.
My maternal great grandparents in 1920.
In 1920 it was necessary in every booster photo that the woman had to stand next to the man. In this specific photo, my great grandmother was pregnant, but even so, she had to follow the standards of time and stand next to my great grandfather. The fashion style of my great grandparents and the background of the studio looks classy and elegant, a fact that shows that my great grandparents were upper class.
My paternal grandfather and his brother in 1940.
This photo is from the 40’s. It depicts my grandfather and his brother. My grandfather is only 19 years old and for this reason he wears sport clothes (right).
His brother was 7 years older and for that reason he wears a formal suit. Both of them were middle class so the background of the studio looks quite poor and plain. The photo shooting was at a studio in a middle class neighborhood. The proof that the photo is from the 40’s is that the photo shows how relaxed they posed in front of the lens. In the 40’s, they didn't have the same strict standards for the boosters photos as they had in the 20’s or 30’s in Greece. 
My paternal grandmother and her sisters in 1930.
This photo depicts my grandmother (in the middle) and her sisters. Because my grandmother was the oldest, she is the only woman sitting. They wear simple clothes and the photo has a simple scene because they were middle class.