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Experimental Photography

Lusi ndoja

The Dark side of human emotion

Final Images

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For my photography project I decided that I would base my idea around peoples dark side of emotions. I was interested in making my images look graphic. I decided I would use the mask as a prop as masks are quite mysterious and can hide a lot of emotion or in some cases they are used to be a different character. This got me to think that what can behind the mask? What are people hiding behind it? As we see different people in our everyday life some people might not be how you imagined or your judgements on them may be wrong.

For my project I took the images in a studio as I wanted to capture clear photographs of my models face as this was the main focus for my images as the features is what I was working with. I took a range of head shot images this was so that I could decide which ones of the head shots I could take forward and use as one of my three images and work on it. On Photoshop I changed the image slightly as I wanted the head shot image dark so I played with the brightness of the image. The background looks grey. Also the features such as the hair and the top half such as the shoulders blend together as they brightness is low, making it look like a silhouette. The face is what draws in the attention as it’s the lightest part of the photograph. I used the masque mask as this was to focus on the eyes as it’s the first thing that will grab you attention. My second image I wanted to capture a shot of the model looking down at the mask. The mask acts like the fake face the model is illustrating that the real side of them is emotional and dark. I wanted to achieve a sad emotion as the mask is like a shield and a protector to hide the other side of a person. Again on Photoshop I changed the effect, this time however I used a black and white filter, this idea was inspired by a photograph I came across when I was researching. I wanted to use a similar technique as I could see that using the filter worked with the expression of the image the model had expressed. The colour black also plays an important part in emotion as it relates to the hidden, the secretive and the unknown which is what my project is based on. This colour fits in well with the theme of the project. My third image is also in a black and white filter as for the same reason as my second image. I felt that this was appropriate as on the last image I chose the mask is on one side of the face and the other side is revealed. For my project I used mixed media as part of my experimental photography, as the project was a fine art unit I felt that this would be an appropriate technique to use as it involved to manipulate the images by hand yourself and using lots of materials such as acrylic paint, inks and also a knife to add in the scratches on the image with the eye mask.

Overall view

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1For my first image I decided I would keep this in colour from the other two images. This was a close up head shot as I wanted to focus on the face and the features such as the eyes and the lips. For this techniques I decided to use red ink. With a knife or anything sharp I scratched the photographic paper. Then with the ink I went over the scratches, I wanted to make the photograph look like blood. On the lips and bottom half of the face ink was used and also on the side of the lips I scratched a smile. This inspired me from the Joker from The Dark Knight rises I thought this would be appropriate as I was going for the dark side of emotion look. With the eyes I decided to burn them out as the eyes are one of the most important features on a persons face and also the eyes are the first thing a person is drawn two. This works well with the image as the The white background has be made brighter in Photoshop as the image was dark when I edited first on Photoshop. This was followed with red ink to make the photograph look like there is blood dripping.

With some of the feedback I got from my peers in class is that the first photograph looks like an album cover, something they would see on a heavy metal band.

On the right hand is the album cover of the rock band Bring Me The Horizon, the cover consists of one of the members wearing a mask over the face, similar to my image. Blood is dripping from the under the mask. Looking at my image with the album cover you can see the similarities which made my peer think and remind her of this. Also the eyes on the right are made to darker, where as on my image the eyes are bold and stand out with the white background. As I used mixed media my work involved experimenting with materials Photoshop was the final tool I would of used to finish off the piece. I didn’t want to play around with the image. I edited the photograph by making the image brighter to bring out the colour red as it’s the main focus, I believe I have achieved this as the colour red is vibrant and bold as the red is such a powerful colour and it screams out to the audience.

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2My second image was extreme than the first image. Following on with the same techniques as i used mixed media throughout I decided to take a different approach. This time I used acrylic paint