Of the four themes, I decided to do the "Thyself" theme as I felt that it provided the most flexibility. While coming up with ideas, looking for objects, and doing the overall process behind making the sunprint conceptually, I realized how much the objects that represent me are impossible to translate onto the tiny paper. I began very specific, with a camera, a basketball, and maybe some equipment related to them.
Only when I branched out and looked at my life as a whole, did I begin to find a concept that was easier to grasp and easier to translate onto a sunprint. I took relatively meaningless objects/made some, such as cut up paper, cards, and a bunch of sewing materials. In practice arrangements, I wanted to appear chaotic but have order. They seem like polar opposites, but they can feel the same from a broad viewpoint (Ending of Avengers Age of Ultron made me think about this). The paper and string had great potential to express that, so I experimented with different arrangements as shown below. When arranging them, I was looking more for a satisfying composition to my eyes rather than putting an intention with them (which is kinda bad in a way but it turned out great in the end).
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| Practice Arrangement (phone) |
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| Practice Arrangement (camera) |
The above two were decent, but I mainly just because of the three cards. I wanted to change that by manipulating the rest of the elements, and perhaps even eliminating some of them if needed (which I ended up doing). I was watching for a chaotic but orderly composition, and an aesthetic one at that. The photo below is my final composition.
I must also add that the cards themselves were attractive, but were distracting me when arranging all the objects together, even though the ending sun print would only capture the "silhouette". It's why I faced it down.
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| Exposing decided arrangement to sun |
The morning sun was pretty angled, which caused an unintentional shadow from the sewing bobbin. It ended up benefitting the final photo however.
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| Washing off chemical |
The above image was taken after wiping off the light sensitive chemical away. Forgot to take a picture while in the actual act of wiping it.
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| Drying off sunprint on newspaper |
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| Final product |
After this photographic process, I thought it was an interesting way to teach the importance of composition in photography. One can surely shoot an image that's candid and require next to 0 preparation, but there's also so many opportunities when one actually plans the entire concept. It was also an interesting way to teach the fact that light is the root of all photographs, and manipulating it's effects to expose an object to create contrast is really all there is to it. A photograph without light is just a blank canvas.
With my sun print, I was personally satisfied with the result, despite playing it somewhat safe with the composition. Everything about the sunprint can be loosely compared to my lifestyle. I am always looking to ascend, not just a step ahead, but two steps ahead, which is why the third card in the "staircase" is staggered higher than from the 1st to the second card. The sewing bobbin string loops through all of the paper triangles. The bobbin represents my roots; a staple I'll always have throughout my life. To always recognize where I came from, and the people along my journey (represented by the triangular paper). I cut them in triangles because (and this is kind of a stretch) all moments in life consist of a beginning, middle, and an end. People enter, make their impact, and leave eventually. But their moments will forever be a part of one's "lifeline"; represented by the string.
If there were something I would want to change for this project, I'd just try a different arrangement. I enjoyed playing around with simple shapes and objects, and would be interested in trying something different. Experimenting with different objects that have translucency factors in them would also be interesting.
