Maps & Networks: Times are changing

So,

After the last shoot myself and Nina were planning on shooting our next crop of images, and then we had a lecture that changed everything. The lecture was on the concept of 'The Other' a topic I previously new alittle bit about but never fully looked deeply into, I referenced it in my research post (this this I have added a in depth definition of "othering' to the post as I've learned alot). Long story short Mine and Nina's previously planned conceptual idea "conversation on culture" is rather problematic in how instead of it being a "interesting look on ethnicity" is not good, I know from my point at least I do Not feel comfortable making a piece around that concept as its not my place and I had to check myself and say that it was very misguided and we really should have thought of the possibly implications of that idea.

Moving on from this we have decided to change our idea. As I use art as an emotional outlet especially in the sense that it gets me more involved with the piece as it becomes personal. Myself and Nina decided to do a more personal piece. Stumped at first, I remembered one of my favourite music videos; Eclipse by Kim Lip. The video (shown below) has a very strong red motif giving it a very strong impactful 

Screenshot From Eclipse By Kim Lip of LOONA
Music Label: Blockberry Creative

cinematographic style as it contrasts the dull worn buildings and stark white sets. I found this simple use of 1 colour against white, black, and worn brown brick, very striking and effective and drawing in viewers. The reasoning behind the colouring in for this K-pop groups music video is simply that each member of the group has a set colour and her happens to be red.  Even with this basic starting point they complimented the overwhelming red with neutral tones to give the music video more contrast in its visuals creating a more dynamic colour palette that I feel matches the contemporary dance heavy visuals. I wanted to use the power of red in this project as it would be a great way to punch through a message of an art piece. So, from this myself and Nina started brainstorming the colour red. 

We looking tion the psychology of colour around red and its connotations. All of the connotations of red are to do with passion in some form for example; Anger, Love, Excitement, and Power. All of this along side how red is a very stimulating colour visually as it's the only mid toned prime (yellow being a light prime, and true blue being a dark prime). This makes the colour very versatile in its use.All of these connotations easily translate into emotions making our job easier, So from this We realised that these intense red connotative emotions are ones that myself and nina both usually struggle with. finally we have our new Maps & Networks project concept. We wants the make a photo series around around the theme of the inability to handle red connotative emotions and the connection between us and how we both bottle up these emotions. We want the project to be a studio style but it's less about  a message and more of a documentation of our inability and our relationship together. We want to create this project through a series of images with a simple minimalistic style to make the viewer focus on the subject, us, as this is a personal piece for us both. We also are sticking with photography as it is a media that follows 1 sense, sight, and this cut senseless aspect of photography will help portray our image. I feel this because emotional disassociation is such a mental thing it doesn't fulfil any sense we want to keep it as minimal and possible in that aspect to reflect how personal and unknown this subject matter can be.

With this revelation I went back to the last shoots images and edited them quickly along the new theme to get us prepared for the next shoot.

1st Shoot edit with New concept theme

1st Shoot edit looking back closer at the research

The 2nd image shown was a rough edit looking back at our research, we looked into a lot of mixed media artists would i tried to visualise what that could look on the style of portraits we've taken. The first image I've shown above is just a look into a possible shoot outcome where we shoot in re lighting. It was easily created by tinting the wholy image and then placing the original on top with a blend mode on multiply and the opacity at 45%, then creating an almost black rectangle on top of the image and rubbing out the centre with a 0% hardness brush and then dropping the opacity on that layer to about 20%. From this edit we decided to plan the next shoot around this red lighting and potentially combining it with a re do of our 1st shoot to create a more visually interesting installation. We could also bring in the mixed media in this way too by having a red image and a white image but to make them cohesive having red mixed media aspects on the white image.  We played around with different ways to portray the action of bottling up emotions in a more obscure way as it's not a noticeable trait in a person. This kind of obscure art style in my and Nina's personal favourite as it causes the viewer to look into the piece deeper. 

Idol modeling and promo pictures belong to SM Entertainment and JYP Entertainment

This is just some quick edits of images in the style of what we want to capture and how they could be edited in the future and methods in which they could be installed. The top left image in the main way we are thinking of installing as it makes the piece more interactive as the audience would have to move around the piece in order to see all of the images fully, representing how bottling emotions is like hiding them. Like the images would be doing.