My goal is to show those who look at my artwork who I am without having to speak a word to them. I want them to look at my photographs and visually get a sense of my personality and what my thought process is. I do not want to tell them who I am and what makes me human, I want to show them what my biggest fear is, my most prevalent emotion and fantasy world. My artwork should tell a story for the eyes to read, but there are no words on pages or words at all, instead a digital print of a photograph that displays visual human emotions that are recognizable and relatable. To me, it is important that others can relate to my work, because I believe that art is about the connection between the artist and the viewer and the message they are trying to deliver. By utilizing strong visual aesthetic, I can connect the dots between two alike minds.
When shooting, I try to keep in mind the message I want to portray through my work and how I can accomplish this. Portraiture is the easiest way for me to express the kinds of emotion I would like in my photographs, so photographing people is my forte. Before shooting, I take into consideration how to subject compliments the environment and how the setting impacts the mood of the photo. While I am setting up the composition, I can utilize the background by having the person and the background connect in a way that delivers my message. While editing, I can enhance the features in the background so they are cohesive with my subject and overall, add to the photograph. When working with media, I prefer to work with digital as opposed to film because a lot of my work is manipulated in software programs after I shoot, and often manipulated to the point where it is an entirely new image. My preference of digital over film is because I am strongly against editing film. The process of developing film in the darkroom is what makes each image so unique, and if one wanted to edit an image from a film camera, I believe they should just use a digital camera. When I choose to shoot with film, I am challenging myself to keep a close eye on what I am photographing. Recently, my work has been centered around self portraiture and how I view myself. I find myself photographing so many people and creating an artistic image of them, but I would like to create a series of images that portrays the emotions going on in my head and how my self esteem is impacted as the year goes by. Through this exploration, I have been experimenting with lighting, movement, color and space in my photographs and how each of those elements plays a crucial part in creating the final composition. I find that more of my recent work, besides my self portraits, have been shot on film. Using film helps me keep a sharp eye on what I am capturing, and I want to improve as an artist so I have been shooting more film, both color and black & white. By attempting to shoot more in film as opposed to digital, I am enhancing my skills in the darkroom and also challenging myself to improve my composition in portraiture. |