An 18-year-old girl, lost in thought, sits by an aquamarine swimming pool near Los Angeles. A pristine white surgical bandage is slapped across her face, from eyebrow to upper lip. Most of her school friends had already had plastic surgery -- breasts reduced or enlarged, fat removed, noses done. With a workaholic's obsession, she has become fascinated by wealth and fame and by what she calls "the influence of affluence" -- how people try to ape the way the rich live. Her output has been prodigious: some 300 photo essays for magazines and newspapers across the extremes of consumer culture: "bling, celebrity and narcissism."

Source: CNN June 12, 2017 09:11 UTC