For the project, I thought it was important that who I wanted to represent in these photos is truthful to myself as a person. Hence, I decided to embark on this project with that in mind: finding images that were true to me.

Me –

For the first part of the project, I wanted to take shots of the things that were closest to me, as I felt they represented me most as a person. My collection of books, my computer, and the belongings I carry with me daily in NTU are representative of the journey I am on right now as a student. As material as they are, they are the greatest representation of my character.

My Object –

For the second part of the project, I started out by looking at the objects closest to my life as well. I realised that Les Miserables is the closest thing to my personality and my character right now. I wanted to find a physical representation of this importance to me. I finally settled on the book because it’s about the book’s transition from musical to movie, as I was first exposed to the musical through the movie. The colour scheme of red, white and blue to show how the book’s ideals can bleed into real life.

I wanted to depict my relationship with the musical itself. The hugging action is meant to show how close it is to my heart, and the book being a part of my face is meant to show how my character and personality was formed through the contribution of this book and how it’s now metaphorically part of me.

The next picture is meant to show my emotional death after seeing the movie, and how deeply it had affected me. It’s influenced my ideas and my character, and I not only wanted to show the emotion I experienced after I watched the movie, I also wanted to depict the dying of my old self together with this book. My exposure to the book elicited a deep change in the way I viewed and experienced the world, and I want to illustrate this in the way I positioned my body.

My World –

For the third part of the project, I wanted to show the importance of a library to me. The aesthetic of the Orchard library particularly appealed to me, in addition to the collection of books. I wanted to be able to document the process of reading in the library, almost akin to a journey.

Starting from the bookshelf to the fantasy feeling of finding yourself lost in another world, to the compact feeling of reading in privacy and the actual movement of reading. I also wanted to show music and media sometimes contributes to that feeling as well. 

Reflection –

From this project, I was able to learn how to weave emotion into the pictures, and how I could convey sequence into my the pictures. All three parts are to culminate in a representation of myself that people can understand. Through the process of the photo taking, I really had to look deep within myself and search for the things that I thought represented me the most so that I could make use of them in the photos. I not only learned more about the photo taking process but I was also able to explore various facets of my character in conjunction with the project. By gaining a better understanding of myself, I was more able to translate the various emotions I felt into the photos that I took.