Image with Motion

Update

I revisited this image and felt that the editing can do more work. In the original image, I felt that the colours are rather distracting. I tried to minimise this by adding an overall warm tone adjustment to the image.  However, the result remains less than ideal. Attention is scattered around the items in my room instead of being focused on the subject.

As such, I decided to grayscale the image and darken the surroundings. I feel that this brings more visual coherence and cleanness to the image. Also, I added a slight radial blur to the surroundings. This helps to further reduce distraction from the miscellaneous items while simultaneously creating an illusionary focal point on my selves.

The radial blur also adds an intriguing twist to the image — what’s in motion and what isn’t? It suggests that I am so absorbed in my work that I become oblivious to the passage of time. I am a monument of stillness in my room that warps with time.

This is the final image:

Original

I wanted to recreate the period of working from home during the Circuit Breaker. Then, our movements were mostly restricted to our homes.  And because I was working from home, my movements were further restricted to the small space near my desk. It’s curious that I constrict myself further when there’s less space available to move.

This was shot over 2 hours. Selected photos were overlaid to evoke a sense of motion. I masked my person out in each photo and overlaid them on a base image. I adjusted their opacities individually so that it appears that the different ‘me’s seem to occupy each position for different lengths of time.