1. Please give a title for your work if possible.

Title: The Skeleton in the Closet

 

2. Please include a Before and After image of your work.

Before

 

After

 

Final

 

3. Please include your artist statement/concept (What compelled you to make this image)

This image is about personal growth, about how I made myself overcome my shyness and insecurities in public speaking. I have always had a fear of speaking to new people, especially when I was young. It was not easy for me to come out of my comfort zone and interact with others, as I was incredibly shy. I often avoided the gaze of others, preferring to look down, and stay hidden behind my fringe. However, through my own efforts, and forcing myself to talk more, I have learnt to speak up, and open up about myself more naturally. This journey was not an easy one, hence, I did not want to create a ‘happy’ image, and chose something darker.

 

4. Please include your technical decisions (Camera and Digital Processes)

Borrowing the phrase “coming out of the closet”, which means revealing something from your past which might change others’ perspective about you, I decided to hide in a closet for my image. To highlight my previous introverted nature, I covered my face with my fringe and looked towards the floor, avoiding the viewer. I chose a downward camera angle too, making me look small and mousy, like I once was, before I found my own voice. The slightly tilted angle created a sense of unease too. I also took many photos of my hands so that I could add them into the main photograph.

 

My hands represent my own fear which held me back from speaking up in the past, and gave me constant anxiety, whenever I had to deal with people. But conversely, they also represent the act of me actively opening up, and revealing my natural self to others. I arranged the hands, to be reaching out from the closet and towards me, as if pushing and pulling me out of the closet. Notably, the two hands in front of my face are placed to look as though they are parting my fringe, symbolising the act of me helping myself become more brave in front of others.

 

I edited the colours in the image to be desaturated, except for the exterior of the closet, giving off a moody feel to the image. I also added blue and green tones to the image, making it cold and a bit sickly-looking, to emphasise my fear of talking in front of others. I applied a cool filter to give the image an unsettling and uncomfortable feel, further pushing forth the fear element. I used the black paintbrush to add extra shadows around the hands and the surroundings of the closet, to give the image a darker and more claustrophobic atmosphere, like the feeling I used to get when I had to speak up. I feel that the shadows also helped to unify the hands together with my main photograph, to make the transition more seamless.

 

After listening to Bryan’s feedback, I decided to darken the left and right sides of the closet, removing any distractions that were not part of the closet. I then cropped the sides of the image, since there was a lot of blank space on both sides after removing the extra subjects. I also edited the colours in the image by adding more cyan and a bit of yellow, enhancing the horror effect. Lastly, I added coloured grain, making the image more noisy, and creating a more mysterious atmosphere.

 

 

5. 2-3 Artist References (What/Who were you looking at and how did it contribute your image making process?)

One of the artists I looked at was Alexa Moon. Her photographs are generally very dark, with a lot of black shadows, especially at the edges of her photographs. I feel that this made the mood in her images all the more mysterious and encapsulating. I wanted to add a sense of mystic in my image, since I thought it could help with my capturing the idea of fear in my work. Thus, I also added a lot of shadows in my image, making it really dark. One of her photos, “Fear” especially resonated with me, as it shared a similar concept to my image.

 

Another artist I looked at was Hans Bellmer, recommended by Bryan. Even though I thought that his photographs were too scary for me to take in, I appreciated how he experimented with compositing body parts in a unique way. I was inspired to take many photos of my hands at various angles, and to play around with the arrangement of the hands in my image.

 

6. Most importantly, please include a link to your google drive where I am able to download your .tiff file.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1qk9EEkA6L0_anp4AtnydTR6vgBu-VMgm/view?usp=sharing