Through this project, it really taught me about how important the story and meaning behind the photos are, not just for aesthetics. Its amazing~

Task 1: Me

This series of photos captures some of the insecurities I have. Most of my teenage years, I have struggled with body image, worried of how people perceive me when they look at me. However, over the years, I have learnt to appreciate my body despite my imperfections and flaws. Appreciating my body for what it is because God has created me uniquely and wonderfully (my belief as a Christian). Hence, the series is to show that there really isn’t anything wrong with having small eyes, or having a flat face or even having tummy fats or fats in general because there really isn’t a perfect body type. Each one of us are unique and special in our own way and we should just embrace it.

I decided to use close up shots for these photos because there is a sense of intimacy and vulnerability. The feeling of nothing to hide and zooming in to the flaws. Also, when I think about my insecurities, I usually pinpoint a certain flaw and zoom in to that one thing and think about all the bad things about it and I wish could be better. Similarly, I think the photos convey that kind of idea where the imperfections are zoomed in on and focused.

I wanted to make them black and white, to bring out the contrast and make it more dramatic. I was worried that having it in colour might also distract the viewer from what I was trying to portray and hence I feel that the use of black and white in these photos are appropriate.

While showing the lecturer before the submission week, she told me that the photos reminded her of Amanda Heng. She is a Singaporean artist and she is famous for one of her photo series “Another Woman”, where she takes photos with her mum and they are all close up too. Though she wasn’t an artist that I referred to while conceptualizing, I thought it was really interesting to find out more about her. While thinking of my concept, I was briefly inspired by Nan Goldin. She really struck me because she was able to be so raw and vulnerable in her photos but she also tackled hard societal issues and that was really what I wanted to portray in my photos.

 

Task 2: Object and Representation of Self

The object that I have chosen is a transistor radio. I chose it because it was given to me by my dad a few years ago and its really fascinating. For this series of photos, I wanted to recreate the moments when one uses the transistor radio. Using a transistor radio is not that easy because you need to tune it to the right channel and have it in a sweet spot before the distortion stops.

Hence, the first photo shows my frustration when I can’t find the channel that I want to tune in to and second photo shows how happy I am when I finally do. Lastly, the third photo shows me enjoying the music being played when I finally find that sweet spot. I also decided to take these shots at different locations to indicate that you might have to go to different locations to find the channel.

Growing up in this generation, I didn’t get a chance to use the transistor radio and it is quite rare to see one nowadays. Therefore, I really thought that its a meaningful object to me and to be able to have one now is pretty cool.

 

Task 3: My World

  

The first thing that came to mind when I saw the theme for this task was my home. I definitely want to photograph my home. I am a family oriented person and growing up as the youngest child, I really received affection from my family, which consists of my 2 older sisters and my parents. However, I really wanted to focus on my parents in this series as kind of an ode to them.

Now that I am 20 this year, I started thinking about how time really flies by and that I’m already stepping into adulthood. Life has already changed so much for me in the past few months and I thought about how things might change in the next few years, or even in the future when I have to move out. I will definitely miss these small and seemingly mundane things. For example, seeing my mum and dad watching tv in their spaces, my mum cooking and my dad chilling. I feel that I really take these moments for granted and it occured to me that my parents won’t always be there for me. Hence, seeing them just doing the mundane things is good enough for me because then I will know that they are still around and familiarity.

I did not want for them to pose for the photos in this series because I really wanted it to be candid and that I am peeking at them. Hence, my shots are mostly taken from afar and all back facing me. I think that this invokes a certain emotion of longing and distance, longing to be with them but also knowing that it won’t last forever.

 

Presentation Layout:

 

Thanks for reading:)