Images and text by Cara Phillips
After spending most of my life in the beauty business, first in front of the camera as a child model and then as a retail make-up artist, I found my way to photography in my late twenties. And in 2004, I began shooting the interiors of cosmetic surgery offices around the U.S. The resulting project, Singular Beauty provides a rare glimpse into the world of luxury beauty treatments.
People always ask why was I drawn to document the offices of cosmetic surgeons. The original impetus was personal; I had a long history working in the beauty industry and my own body-image demons. But the project evolved into something much more than I had anticipated. The final images have come to represent a moment in our history where money, technology, and a new standard of beauty collided.