Space:

Hallway.

Place:

Our ten-year-old Aloe Vera.

Our little Christmas tree.

Environment:

Messy corner in the house.

Internet-based interactions.

Stuffed animals we grew up with

Siblings unfinished painting and art area

Image One: Message.

Images two  and  three:  Abstraction

Self-portrait.

Portrait of a pumpkin.

Portrait of a star.

Proposal:

I have always thought that art is the physical representation of one’s mind. With the help of my camera, I will create images that will allow people to understand what it means to be me. I want to allow people to have a visual representation of my everyday thoughts and experiences. Having been diagnosed with depression and ADHD, my daily life is a constant struggle. With my final project, I hope to allow people to feel exactly what I am feeling, especially to those who struggle to understand mental illness. I have had trouble in the past when trying to explain my mental illness to my family and maybe a visual representation will help solidify my explanations. Conceptually, I will have to find ways to visually manifest emotions and thoughts. I will have to think about how my images make other feel and how I will accomplish my goal. Cooler tones, lower brightness, and lower exposure will be used when taking images because of how they make images darker and “unhappy” looking. Technically, I will have to be able to create these images on my own with the help of props and my Nikon D70. I will also need to access a tripod as I have some ideas that will require a steady camera. I may come across an issue using photoshop because I am not that experienced in manipulating images and images don’t always come out the way I want them to. I am, however, already planning of using the Filter section of photoshop as well as the smudge tool for one of my ideas that will be a distorted self-portrait.

Outcomes:

The practical outcome of the project is that I will be able to produce images that have a solid theme and will showcase the skills I currently have as a student photographer.

I will become more experienced using photoshop.

I will produce seven processed images that I will post to the research journal blog.

Methods and Materials

Camera: Nikon D70 with several lenses, I don’t know the specific names of them.

Lighting: Sun, flashlight, room lighting

Tripod

Props that will be used in the images

References:

Edward Honoker – photographer

Janelia Mould – photographer

Gabriel Isak – photographer

This is the edited image I created of myself. I took separate photos of my hands and cropped  them  to  the  best of my ability. I also attempted to blend both hands into my head, which in all honesty could have been done better. I am unfortunately a complete beginner using photoshop though. I also used the spot healing tool to remove stuff from behind me, some paint splatter on the wall and some blemishes on my shirt.