in Project

Curating Self

Task 1: Me

For this task, I wanted to show a more mysterious, brooding side of myself. While I wouldn’t consider myself to be a very “mysterious” person normally, I believe this is a side that everyone has but most keep to themselves. With this photoset, I had aimed to embrace this aspect of my personality. By choosing photos that were taken in the dark, I attempted to amp up the “mysteriousness” factor in the photos.

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This photo was taken at the Botanic Gardens. I attempted to convey a sense of myself stepping into the unknown, from a dark area to a lit area and pulling apart the hanging tree stems. Because I have my back facing the camera and am in action, it gives the feeling that I am venturing somewhere or looking at something. To me, this photo represents myself venturing into new territories, especially since recently coming into uni as a freshman and starting a whole new chapter of life.

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This photo, also taken at Botanic Gardens on the same night, depicts me in motion underneath a tree with messy, knotted and tangled branches. One thing I enjoyed about the Botanic Gardens is that there are lamps around the trees which light up at night, and they are not all the same colour which gives interesting effects as seen in this photo and the previous one. In this picture I attempted to show a more sprite-like and playful side of myself on top of the mysterious one, and also represents my love for exploring.

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This is the final photo of this set which is of myself at a free exhibition at the Art Science Museum. Not only was the surroundings dark at the time, but the atmosphere was also gloomy and slightly macabre as the exhibition showed videos that were unsettling and slightly macabre (you can see it in the background of the photo) and my friend and I were the only ones there. As such, the room at the time felt like it was shrouded in mystery and uncertainty. By having myself in the bottom corner of the photo with my face partly hidden by the darkness, this photo to me is a direct representation of the “mystery” in my personality.

Task 2: Object and representation of self

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My chosen object was a cigarette or rather a packet of cigarettes. Initially I hesitated to choose this as my object for the task as smoking is an activity which has certain stigma attached to it and as such some people may not feel comfortable with me talking about it. However, my story of why I picked up smoking is something that I am often asked and I guess smoking is something ingrained in my life because while I would not say I am an addict, at times it does seem like I am dependent on it for stress relief/boredom/social interaction purposes. Hence I decided to go ahead with this object as it would be interesting and somewhat “meaningful”.

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While this was not a very well taken shot (camera was moved hence blurry shot, bad lighting), I feel like this is part of the charm of the photo and it kind of depicts the hidden aspect of smoking. As I stated earlier, there is a stigma attached to smoking hence some smokers would try to hide their habit from their friends and family to avoid being judged. The photograph, which is taken from my back view with me looking over my shoulder, makes it look like I have been “caught in the act” of smoking, especially with the plant in the foreground which conceals part of the picture.

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This photo shows me lighting a cigarette using a friend’s cigarette and is meant to show the social aspect of smoking. For some people smoking is just a social activity, personally I have made quite a number of good friends through smoking as well. This photo depicts the close bond between my friend and I as you would normally only light your cigarette this way with someone who you are very close to.

 

For this set of photos, I was especially inspired by the photos taken by Nan Goldin that were showed to us in tutorial. Nan Goldin’s photos were often of the grittier, grimier side of life and she did not take photos that were visually aesthetic but instead showing the realities and ugly side of life. Many of her photos featured people partaking in activities such as drinking or smoking, or people that had been abused. Ms Lei mentioned that I could emulate Nan Goldin’s style more effectively by using flash in the photos as this was a technique Nan Goldin used so I will attempt it in the future.

Task 3: My World

For this task, the location I chose was East Coast Park. Living in the east, my home is a short distance away from ECP (30 mins if I skate) so I go there often to relieve stress or to chill with friends and it’s my “good vibes” place.

Photo of the sky at ECP. ECP is situated near Changi Airport so if you lie on the beach and stare into the sky, you will see and hear many planes such as this one. Because it is an airspace, certain activities are prohibited at the park such as kite flying.

These 2 pictures were taken at the newly completed underpass at ECP. While I am extremely familiar with ECP and have explored it many times over, this part was new to me as it had just completed construction so for me it was an interesting experience to explore it.

This photo was taken at ECP during one of my brother’s races as he is a competitive sailor. Because he is a sailor, sailing is important to my family and a lot of our weekend activities revolve around the beach and his training schedules. I attempted to do a long shot for this photo but Ms Lei commented that it may have been more appropriate to take a portrait-style shot as I have done with the top 3 photographs so that the photos will look more coherent as a set.