Best Images From Photoshoot 25-03-21
For this photoshoot, I wanted to improve the concept from the previous photoshoot by correcting the lighting technique and using more dynamic poses to emote the right emotions to the viewer from my mother’s perspective.
We selected several photos we liked the best between two of us, which is a method I will continue from now on to strengthen the collaboration between the two of us, refer to figure 0.5.
In figure one, we decided to select this image as it perfectly portrayed my mother’s need to fight back against those who forced her to conform completely, and I felt it worked in sync with a short section in my mother’s short story. The posing of the model kicking out toward the viewer and the warm yellow tones illustrated a subtle, playful tone to the photograph, which was something me and my mother discussed after the previous photoshoot as she did not want her personality to be portrayed as depressing or dull at this point in our collaboration. I feel this is a powerful image in my final images as it represents my mother’s resistance and determination, which I truly admire about her. I did create the bright yellow colour through the use of Lightroom as I felt the pure white was too angelic, which my mother and I did want to keep portraying, but rather a presence or a memory of a figure to establish boundaries between the viewer and my mother.
Referring to figure two, I colour graded the image by changing the shadows to 29% saturation in yellow, the highlights to 6% saturation, and the mid-tones 50% saturation in yellow. Hence, the depth and shadows behind the model are not entirely lost.
In figure three, my mother explicitly chose this image to be included in the final roster of images as it accurately represents the pure euphoria she experienced when she was reunited with me after being sectioned as she finally lived what she had been dreaming about for years. I completely agreed with my mother on her selection as the pose and pink colour complement each other and remind me of a popular song by Cyndi Lauper my mother used to refer to, ‘Girls Just Wanna Have Fun’. Sheer joy is represented in this image, which may come off as a cliché, but I feel it fits with the section at the end of the short story as it is my mother depicting the character’s rejoice.
I especially like figure four as it visually resembles a person underwater drowning, which is not the tone I was intended for. However, I saw that I could develop this image further by overlaying it on top of my imagery from the beach photoshoot, using Photoshop, inspired by Gareth McConnel’s photographs where he places a portrait on top of or beside a landscape image. I believe this will change how the viewer interprets the portrait of the woman as it is surrounded by an imposing photograph of the sky filled with colourful clouds that resemble galaxy photographs.
