Picture Story – Curating Self Presentation

 

Task 1 – Story

I am always in a search of new books to read, whether it will be in the library, book stores or even movies trailers. Most of the time, I will spend time reading at home or while travelling. But I rarely go to the library as I would rather buy a book than borrowing it. By buying it, I can keep it and collect all the books that I have read over the years. And I would like to have a shelf full with books, just like in the library.

I am someone who have difficulties expressing myself verbally. Maybe I just could not find the exact words to express myself or I just do not open up to people easily, which makes me hard to express myself. Through reading I more than just understand the character, I will always find a little part of myself relating back to the character.

It always astonished me how an author can make me feel; sadness, happiness, excitement, anxiousness. They can also write about a story that reminisces on my youth or perhaps my long lost love. Some authors can write about a world that I have never dreamed of. Possibly a fantasy world. When I am are stuck somewhere, trying to find my path out from the dark clouds, words from authors who have experienced a similar situation, can lead me to the brighter road. This are the reasons why I am always engross in reading.

Task 2 – Story

This room is significant to my two younger sisters and me. To us, it contains most of our memories and secrets between us and the four walls. In that room is where we chat, laugh, quarrel and cry together. There are so many memories build in that room over the pass few years.

Being the eldest sister, I get to take up the most space and sets rule for my younger sisters. As shown in the image, I do most of the things and how it is arranged.

This room shows the different type of personality that each of us has. I am the bookworm and artistic type of person, while my sisters are the sporty and messy type.

Our bedroom is always dim, as we wake up early in the morning for school and reach home in the evening. So we rarely allow light to enter the room. We also keep the lighting dim, as it is easier for us to take naps and rest during the day; making our room relaxing.

Reflection

Throughout the process of this assignment, I have learnt that angle, composition and lighting play a part in creating a mood in an image.

For angle, perspective can be one of it. Like how I want the book shelves in my images to be. Do I want to the one point perspective for book shelf so that my subject can be the main focus? Or do I want the book shelf to be part of the focal point? These are some of the question I ask myself when I am visualizing how I want the image to be.

Secondly, composition, its where I want to put my subject in the image. Do I put it in the middle of the image or put it at the right of the image? For composition, I realize that I tend to use rule of third most of the time while taking random pictures.

Lastly, lighting. In my images, I tend to use lots of flat lighting; maybe it is because I took my images in the library. But in the future, I would like to try using one point lighting to show some dramatic effect.

Task 2: Process

Here are some of my process pictures. Images are still raw with no edits.

Difficulties

  1. Bedroom is small – Difficult to take an overview of the place. And difficult to find a focus for certain object. To overcome this, I had to use the different perspective view and try out different methods into taking the images.
  2. Dim lighting – As I want my concept of my room to be dim, relaxing and comfy, I didn’t allow much light to enter my room. However, most of my images look dark and dull. Hence, to overcome this, I had to allow light to enter a bit by controlling my curtain as I do not have the lighting equipment.

Task 2: References

Artist Reference

Photographer – Danny Santos

Link: http://dannyst.format.com/street-scenes#22

Under his series called Street Scenes. Some of his pictures are taken with less light, which i entended to do for task 2. When the sun is about the go down, the photographer uses the sunlight to create depth of the humans. The light also gives a direction to the focal point.

Image Reference

I like how the composition of this picture is taken. The picture is taken in a way that I can see the overall bedroom and also the opening of the door. By having a hint of the door, it gives me an idea of peeping into the room.

By taking a part of the room, it can already give me some hints about the person characteristic. From this picture about, it gives me a hint that the owner is and artist as there are many painting displayed on the walls. The owner likes bright, vivid and neons colours as most of the paling has those colours. Most likely the owner is a female as there are many female portraits. The owner might be a nature type of person as there are plants by the window.

Task 2: My world

Me and my sisters

Significant means important to be worthy of attention. A place that is significant to me would be my house. But to be specific, it will be my bedroom. My bedroom is shared with another 2 younger sisters. In that room is where we chat, laugh, quarrel and cry together. There are many memories build in that room over the pass few years. Example, crying together as one of us failed our major exam and laughing out loud about each other mistakes and many more.

Task 1: Process

Here are some of the pictures taken by my younger sister, who does not have any photography background. Images are taken at Jurong East Library. All the images are raw, not edited.

  

Difficulties 

  1. My photographer – because she does not have any photography background hence, some image are imbalance or unproportional. To overcome this, I had to do a lot of research and find more references so that she would understand how I want the image to look like. During the shoot, I also did take some shoots to show her how the images should turn out like.
  2. The different lighting in the library – There were 2 types of lighting in the library, one is yellowish and the other is white. Hence, me and my photographer had to explore the library first before finding a spot to shot.

Task 1: Image Reference

I know my level of expertise in taking an image: average and below. Hence, before I start taking pictures, I will do some research and image references to understand how a good picture should look like. With the image references, I can also adopt the style of it.

When I thought of taking picture with my book, the few places that I thought of was library, my bedroom and when I am travelling. Hence, I went on to research on the types of photograph that can be taken at those places.

Library

In this image, it shows a mid shot of the lady find books in the library. Her expression shows that she is focus on finding the books that she wants. There’s a depth in the image to focus on the lady and the foreground of the bookshelf. The colour and tonal are dull, brownish with less lighting to show that the library is old and vintage.

This image dipects a wonderland of books. The colourful cover books contrasting with each other and pages makes it look like its flipping by the wind. Another thing that gives the feeling of a wonderland is the hard cover books. Normally the hard cover books are used in movie like Harry Potter. The way the character is placed in the middle of the image looks like she is being absorbed in the world of books.

In this image, the photographer uses rule of third and place the subject on it. The light rays coming in from the window, give a direction to focus on the subject.

 

 

 

 

Library

In this image, it shows the mood of the setting – comfortable and relaxing. The way the lady position herself on the bed will reading, shows that she is into reading and is conformable in her position. There is depth in this image, as the background is dark and blurry which allow the foreground and the subject to be the focal point.

 

 

What I like about this image is how the lighting is used to focus on the object, which the the girl and her book.

 

 

 

Travelling

I like the compositing of this image, and how the lighting shines of the person reading. However, I feel like it is lacking of feeling, as the person face is off the image from. It would be better if the image were to have her face to show how she feels while reading or how she interact with the book.

This image uses rule of third to place the subject with is the person. With the use light coming from the window, it shows a silhouette of a lady reading. Just with a small gesture of her fingers, I am able to guess that she is engross in reading the book.

 

 

In conclusion, I would like my image to be taking in the library. As I want my image to look calm, peaceful and relaxing. And the way I should interact with the book is that I am engross and focus in reading the book.

Task 1: Artist Reference

Photographer – Nguan

Link: http://nguan.tv/singapore.htm

Series: Singapore

This images are taking under his series named “Singapore”. In this series, he uses cool colours to depict Singapore. As a singaporean, I find it astonishing that he did not capture the busy and hectic lifestyle in Singapore. Instead he chose to capture Singapore in a different view, which focuses on the subject that tells the story with the help of the emotions and background.

The cool colours, in his images, make it not striking to my eyes. I feel relax and calm when I look at those images. The images also allows me to think about the story that the photographer is trying to convey.

In conclusion, I would like image to look calm, peaceful and relaxing. And the way I should interact with the book is that I am engross and focus in reading it. The outcome of the image should be in cool colours, not contrasting to the audience’s eyes.

Task 1: Chosen Object

My collection of books

Book has been one of the closest object to me, apart from my phone. Over the years, I have read and collected lots and lots of book. Few of my favourite books are Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell and The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini.

After You by Jojo Moyes

But for this task, my chosen book is After you by Jojo Moyes, a sequel to Me Before You. I brought this book when I was in Krabi, waiting to fly back to Kuala Lumpur. The reasons why I brought it are

1. Me Before You is a movie that won People’s Choice Award for Favorite Dramatic Movie, so was curious about what is going to happen next,

2. the synopsis prompted me to find out more about the story.

Currently, I am still reading it and have not reach the climax yet. So I am quite excited to know what will happen it story.