Utopia

The Oposite of my Manifesto

The piece I created today were a series of photographs that gradually became more and more 'unreal'. The piece consisted of a total of 8 images. 

When I decided that I wanted to focus on making the utopia of my original manifesto, I decided that I wanted to include the manifesto in the piece.

I decided to experiment with photography because it meant I could experiment with it more, and edit it in numerous different ways. 

Initially, I thought about creating an image that had multiple people in it, and that the people in the foreground would be lit up, while the manifesto fell into the backdrop. 

While planning my experiment, I chose the place that I wanted to take the image from, and the ideal frame I wanted to work with. To do this, I planned out placement of the studio lights that I planned to do, as well as the spot that I wanted to take the photograph from. Since I wanted only the people properly lit up, I decided that, by placing a light behind the manifesto would mean that the front would not receive any light, and decided to use 2 more lamps that were placed so that they did not directly hit the manifesto piece. 

Before I started on the actual set up, I also considered different types of composition I could use, and how I could incorporate my research into visual story telling. Because I was focusing on the Utopia of my manifesto, I put some thought into what I considered to be the opposite of a society that insults and is sensitive, which, for me, was a carefree society.

I thought about creating another projection installation that had a combination of photography and video, by taking an image using the shot I was going to, but placing it in front of a looping video of a blue sky, which would symbolize hope.

(Health and safety: I taped down all wires so that there were no trip hazards, and made sure that the wires I was taping went only in one direction to refuse the risk)

When it came to testing, I used two studio lights to see if it could work without the back light. Unfortunately, even when adjusting the brightness and the bulbs that I could use it each different light, it didn't look how I wanted, so I added another studio lamp. The last studio lamp was a lot brighter that the other two, so I pointed the head of the light upwards slightly.
I had also experimented with using the flashlight setting on an iPhone, by placing at a subjects feet, however the light wasn't strong enough to light up the subject as I wanted, so I didn't follow through with the idea.

Instead of taking a picture with multiple people in the frame, I decided to use just one person. I was going to try and use photos taken with the lights on against a white backdrop and then Photoshop them into the frame I wanted to use, however I decided instead to have the person stand in the frame as I wanted the space, with the lights off, and have them move around. 

After researching into composition, I had decided to use the Golden Ratio composition, and so planned it so at least one of the images I got would fit the criteria of the composition. While taking the images, the person I had asked to help started doing whatever she wanted pose wise, since I had given her no instructions except to look happy and where to stand, which resulted in some really carefree images. While I wasn't thinking about it at the time, while editing the images, I realized that they fit my theme of a carefree society. 

When editing the images, I had originally thought of overlaying the images with different opacity's, however it would work, so I decided instead to cut out each separate image I was going to use, and move them in the places I wanted, changing the images as needed, and experimenting with opacity. From there I began experimenting more with changing the brightness and contrast, and then experimenting with the curve, so that in the end, the images were all very colourful, and lost the 'real' element of them, without actually changing anything but the colours. In the end, the colours were very bold and bright, and I wanted, the manifesto sunk into the background because of the colours in the image. 

When it came to presenting the images, I decided to use all 8 different experiments and put them up as a story, to show the development, and how I reached the final image.

I like how it turned out, overall, especially the simple presentation and the involvement of my manifesto piece, however I feel as though the images could have been executed better. It was suggested to me that next time I present work in the way that I had, that smaller images could work better.