Reflections on NM4210
18 years ago
So excited about the final project because I get to do montage again. Realised that I actually like to manipulate photos to bring out my ideas and concepts than doing straight photography. Guess straight photography is so much harder. It requires great knowledge on where to take what kind of photos that is intended, and one can really just station there for ages for the right weather, right opportunity and timing. Not quite an expert that I could convey my concepts and ideas just by mere straight photography. Shall train and practice more though. But for final project I guess I should still do what I like best and that best represent me and my style.
Theme: Look into the ordinary
Concept: Feminism
Ideas:
- Daily objects such as TV, TV program, knives being masculine
- Superimpose the objects onto male/female bodies, putting emphasis on the objects and the body parts
- Objectify the body parts like what commercials does, also critiquing on how media is objectifying people and reinforcing patriarchal norms
- Specific idea (1): superimpose TV onto full naked male body
- Specific idea (2): female in kitchen preparing food, holding the knife that is symbolic of male phallus etc.
- Specific idea (3): a pair of female legs amongst a 'forest' of male legs, with the female wearing red high heels and the male with typical black leather shoes
So here are the photoshoped version to bring in the mood:
Lonely, Solitude
- Wanted to use the footprints to signify a person walking the path alone, and thus evoke the feeling of lonely and solitude
- Used photoshop to remove the colors - black and white it, then adjusted the curves and added on a spherical black and grey gradient to give it more tones
Class Critique:
- looks nice, as if it is on cement
- feels more like progression than loneliness because of the footsteps progressing towards the viewer
Calm, Tranquil
- Chose the photo where the waves are retreating back into the sea to portray the calmness and tranquility
- Removed all the people at the background except those people under the tree, which is away from focus and thus not violate the rules for the assignment
- Enhanced the colors to make things more intense and warmer with emphasis on depth
Class Critique:
- Need to be more orange to show more warmth 
Progression, Advancing
- Wanted to keep the focus on the phone booth, something that the world has forgotten about it with the invention of mobile phone
- So I remove the colors of the phonebook, signifying it degrading and forgotten
- Wanted to add like black horizontal lines to make as if it is disappearing, but didn't know how to make it look that so I just keep it like for for class
Class Critique:
- Potential photo, probably need to remove the tree
- The phonebooth doesn't look like it is black, looks out of focus
Retakes:
After the feedbacks I decided to change the concept for the lonely into progression because it does seem to fit into advancing and progression more. Then I decided to retake photos for the negative mood. So I went around to find loneliness, chaos, mess, disorder etc. And here are what I have as retakes for abandoned and mess. Look out for the edited version in blog post: final portfolio.
Weather has been very bad these few days esp over the weekend. So had to dig photos from my previous retakes for symbolic of the to see which one I can use to at least show something during the class on Monday. Managed to narrow down to 3 of them:
New World Order- Changes made: Basically took in the suggestions about the eyes, and making the pliers more visible but yet maintain the focus on the mouth. So I layered and mask the mouth area and chose a deep blood red for the lips to keep the audiences' focus on the mouth while maintaining the opacity of the pliers. To improve the composition for the eyes area I played around several times, planning to cut the upper face areas into little pieces and scattered around the photo, but was too messy so instead settled on the current way of presentation. Chose green for the eyes so that there come focus could be place there as well and green is a nice color to complement the red lips.
Class Critique:
- Need shadows
- Can try distorting one of the eyes to play around with the proportion
- Distort the mouth too because there is alot of details in the mouth
- Change the tone of the background, to show depth i.e. orange/warm foreground & blue/cold background
So taking into consideration all the comments:
FINAL
Photos used:
Photography copyright Sharad HaksarTaken by a famous leading Indian photographer, Sharad Haksar, who is well known for doing commercial photography and taking photographs of people doing unexpected things near advertisements, the image is arguably filled with satires and cultural commentaries that could be read by the viewers.
When reading the above image of the boy urinating at the wall and the advertisement with Nike's famous tagline, "just do it" on the wall, the tagline itself seems to be instigating "just urinate"; as the tagline means: "don’t think, don’t ask, don’t talk about it, don't regret it, just do it" (Wikipedia, 2008). A satire on Nike's tagline is evident. Additionally, with the advertisement being old, dirty and ruined, a satire on the brand (image) could be read, seeming suggesting the brand name of Nike to be as such too. On top of that, with Nike being infamous for using sweatshops to produce its shoes and products, the photograph seems to be playing with stereotypes of dark-skin people and children which often are associated with poverty, exploited, oppressed, to highlight the infamous incident. And these satires and cultural commentaries are consistent with other of Haksar's work:
Mastercard: "Priceless" campaign; Coke: Coca Cola... Real
Colgate: "Strong teeth"; IBM vs. Apple(s)
Intel vs. outsourcing issues; Evian: Natural spring water
When reading the above image of the boy urinating at the wall and the advertisement with Nike's famous tagline, "just do it" on the wall, the tagline itself seems to be instigating "just urinate"; as the tagline means: "don’t think, don’t ask, don’t talk about it, don't regret it, just do it" (Wikipedia, 2008). A satire on Nike's tagline is evident. Additionally, with the advertisement being old, dirty and ruined, a satire on the brand (image) could be read, seeming suggesting the brand name of Nike to be as such too. On top of that, with Nike being infamous for using sweatshops to produce its shoes and products, the photograph seems to be playing with stereotypes of dark-skin people and children which often are associated with poverty, exploited, oppressed, to highlight the infamous incident. And these satires and cultural commentaries are consistent with other of Haksar's work:
Mastercard: "Priceless" campaign; Coke: Coca Cola... Real
Colgate: "Strong teeth"; IBM vs. Apple(s)
Intel vs. outsourcing issues; Evian: Natural spring water
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Final Project: Documentation18 years ago
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The End … ?18 years ago
