1. PROJECT TITLE – All of the Lights
2. PROJECT DESCRIPTION

(250-word description of the final project proposal posted online in Research Journal)

Describe the theme and subject of your project, including technical / conceptual issues.

You may give insight into the background of your work in relation to this proposed project.

I would like to do a series about lighting in different environments and how these different warmth levels in the lighting can affect the mood, and relate this to Seasonal Affective Disorder also known as the “winter blues”. According to Mental Health America “The reduced level of sunlight in the fall and winter months may affect an individual’s serotonin, a neurotransmitter that affects mood. Lower levels of serotonin have been shown to be linked to depression. Brain scans have shown that people who had seasonal depression in the winter had higher levels of a serotonin transporter protein that removed serotonin than in individuals who did not have seasonal depression” This is largely due to the loss of daylight during daylight savings time and the natural climate patterns of winter. Im interested in how color can project a certain mood to a work of art and establish a tone, and would like to explore that in my works. Additionally, I’d like to explore how certain colored lighting is placed strategically in its environment to impact the people within the area and encourage a certain behavior. For example at a hospital it is brighter because people are busy and need to be stimulated, and the light is usually warmer toned to evoke a sense of welcoming and hope. Whereas in certain solitary study areas it may be dimmer. I’d like to believe Christmas lights can help combat this during the winter season, which is why people enjoy them so much be it subconsciously or not. I do not plan on including models in my works because I want the focus to be on lighting and tonality.

3. OUTCOMES

What are the practical outcomes for your project? (bullet points/list)

Describe what you will produce; what are the expected material outcomes to your work? Be practical and quantify the amount in literal terms. How many artworks, images? How big? Where?

-study of different lighting

-study of how color affects mood/tone

-study of lighting based on environment. ie. hospital, library, home etc.

 

4. METHODS AND MATERIALS

Identify and describe the production methods, media, materials and the process involved in making

your project; specify any special equipment, printing, lighting and relevant tools. (bullet points/list)

-Nikon D3300 Digital Camera

-Photoshop

 

5. REFERENCES

Identify and list at least three (3) relevant study references for your research: artists, artworks,

exhibitions; art historical precedence and contemporary works; books, essays and publications.

Posted online in Research Journal.

RESEARCH JOURNAL AND SUPPORTING MATERIAL

This proposal text and the above 5 sections should be posted in your Research Journal along with the journaling of your practical work: a journal of research, including documentation of your working process, to include references, sketches, ideas, notes, samples, videos, etc.

Alone Together is a photo project by Aristotle Roufanis that looks at the “loneliness of cities during the blue hour.” He discusses the social alienation found in metropolitan cities. His works are light-based and have a somber blue tone to them.

I really enjoyed Daria Virbanescu‘s work depicting what loneliness looked like and a lot of it included light as well.

According to the Research Article Hippocampus written by Joel E. Soler, Alfred J. Robison,Antonio A. Núñez, a study was performed on rats by providing a group with dim lighting and having them perform certain tasks, whereas a control group was provided with bright lighting and completing the same task. Supposedly, “The rats that had been exposed to dim light performed poorly on spatial learning tasks and showed a 30 percent decrease in their hippocampi, which is a brain area that is key to learning and forming new memories.” Psychological approach to how lighting can affect us.

 

Prompt: Discuss one way in which digital media (photography, video, etc.) has brought positive  improvement to our lives and society, civilization etc. Discuss critical aspects within this issue.

Photography and its increasingly accessible nature has created ample opportunity to open dialogues for controversial aspects of our society, and confront the unjust directly via social media. Many instagram pages have been created as a source of minority representation, in reaction to the lack of representation in film, commercials, advertisements, magazines, and photography as a whole. This lack of minority representation aids in the notion of whiteness as the default for beauty, and destroys the self worth of women of color, or people who generally do not fit this mold of beauty (white, tall, blonde, skinny, perfect facial symmetry/ ideal Eurocentric features). Many cultural influencer instagrams have been cultivated to counteract this Eurocentric model, and allow women of color to feel comfortable in their own bodies by normalizing the representation of people who look like them. Examples of such instagram pages include @browngirlgang, @brownhistory etc. which post photographs either of portraits or digitally rendered texts as forms of cultural representation. This allows people to relate and break down cultural and social barriers.

 

Exposure bracketing:

Angle/Point of View:

White Balance:

normal

cloudy

fluorescent

Blurring and Freezing:

Shallow and Deep Depth of Field:

 

Low and High ISO

 

Amaal Said Presentation

Amaal Said Photography

Presentation Notes:

Amaal Said is a Somali photographer and poet. She was born in Denmark, is currently based in London and is a Contemporary Artist in her mid twenties. 

Most of her artworks are portraits or include people as her primary subject. Said uses a vibrant color palette and shows a heavy inclination towards capturing females of color.  

She doesn’t tend to title her works as individual pieces, but rather as a simplistic title for the whole series. I have chosen to focus on her photographs from her series “Dubai” and “Portraits”. This simplicity enhances the delicate aesthetic she emphasizes in each of her works. 

Amaal Said’s works stood out to me due to her imaginative use of color– she enhances the photo’s saturation and tone to represent the world with intensified perception. We see the world not as it is, but how she wants us to see it. As said by Saint Heron, a creative agency created by Solange Knowles, Amaal Said “captures beauty in its most natural state”, which is especially true in giving women of color a platform to be displayed as beautiful in a society where white females can be seen as the “default” for beauty. She redefines this standard for beauty by including women of all backgrounds, all within their “natural state”