Concept
The overall concept of the long-term project is about emotions. The topic I choose for this month is Not Your True Self, also thought of as never being seen. Communicating emotions can be difficult for many including myself. Carrying your own pain by yourself can be a burden and doing that while carrying other peoples issues can be to much for people. Which causes them to be depressed themself and may cause them to lash out and show a side of them they never want to show. For the concept of my piece it is to show that people keep parts of themselves to themselves. Which does not reflect their true self and it is a part that will never been seen.
Research
For my research it will be focus of the photo shoot part of this process. Lighting is a main part of this picture. There will need to be high contrast but still need to show great detail in the colored part of the picture. I will need to find technics to create a sharp line of a shadow and non-shadow part.
After doing some research I learned that I can create the same photo with three techniques. I can create it while taking the picture and putting something on top on the light, like a piece of paper, to create the line or I can take a picture with regular lighting and put the shadow in later or just creative shadows from everyday shadows.
If I do the "paper" method, I will also have to receive help from another to perfect line myself up. The paper method might also create a soft line instead of a sharp line like I want. To create the sharper line the paper will need to be closer to the face. After going into the studio and using a cutting board, I realized our light sources are much to big for this technique to work. It might have working if I tried covering it creating a smaller light source or using a phone flashlight. I definitely would like to retry this technique later in the future because I think with practice it may work.
This link will is for shadows to do in a photoshoot and how to create sharp and unique shadows: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=krWQ3wwv97Y
This link is how to do shadows in photoshop: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IxQfl7yiRiE
Process
The Idea
For this piece I actually started with a piece I like the concept of and then I created a meaning that I felt belonged to the piece. I started with the inspiration, something that grabbed my attention and then the meaning came along with it. The concept of my piece is show the parts of yourself that you want to show and not being the real you. It also represent the idea of not being seen. You hide parts of yourself to protect others but then these people that you are protecting are not even bothering to realize this is not all of you. You are only showing them the good parts of yourself and you are not showing the parts were you might lash out and scream or are just unhappy.
Inspiration
Set up
For the set up I had to put up lights and then I took red and orange (which I created with pink and yellow) film and put it on top of the light and I had someone else hold a cutting board to create the shadow this did not work due to the light sources being to big. So, I moved on to the photoshop technique where I try taking the pictures without the shadow. I tried multiple photoshop techniques. I tried changing the background color and keeping my skin a normal color and I also tried changing my skin color. I will Also be testing out random creative shadows I find.
Photoshop
After taking the shots with different shadows and different places of light I took it into light room to edit the one with he showdown include and created the image I wanted.
For the photoshop piece I first put it into photoshop and followed the video to add a shadow, after creating the shadow I put it into Lightroom to get the lighting and coloring how I desired it.
Results
Reflection
The pieces coming from two similar photos but showing two completely different results express exactly what I want. It shows the good and the bad sides of you. The first piece represents the parts of you that you show to others. The good parts, the days where you are nice and laughing and the shadow is there to show that's not all of you. The second picture represents the days where you stay in your room and you feel alone and angry and the shadow in this shows the parts of yourself that you like to hide even from yourself. You tend to think the worst of yourself and forget the good. Overall I like how realistic my shadows came out and I believe that the meaning of my pieces can be very relatable.