Mood Board
Refined Mood Board
Action Points
From my mood boards, I aim to create photoshoots based off Michalina Wozniak's photography to focus on the theme of a Hidden Identity, in particular hiding your true self behind the metaphor of a mask, such as within social media or even editing photographs that completely alters how someone's appearance is so there true self is unknown to an audience.
Intentions
Within my project I aim to explore the theme of a Digital Identity, in particular focusing on your digital self which includes aspects of the effects of social media and how you identify yourself versus how you are perceived online or in real life. During my project I also plan on incorporating aspects of psychology such as the psychological impacts of technology or simply how our perception of ourselves can affect us psychologically and how many of us go through a journey to find our true self in contrast to the version of ourselves that we wear as a metaphorical 'mask', whether it's the version of yourself at work or with different groups of people, or how you portray yourself online.
In addition to this, I would like to focus both on the positive and negative sides to someone's digital identity and contrast the different types of influences that we come across such as different groups of people and even people who you don't necessarily know of online, yet they can still impact people easily. Furthermore I intend to explore the idea of an Alter Ego, an alternative personality, to help include elements of psychology within my project too; linking to my theme of a Digital Self, I want to experiment with the idea of someone's alter ego also being their alternative personality presented online such as on social media.
In terms of possible experiments for my work, I plan on taking a variety of different photographs that both appear with more of a darker concept, linking the the negative and unknown side to what's metaphorically 'Behind The Mask' to then contrast with another side with a more positive approach to digital identities. I then aim to heavily manipulate my images too using programmes such as Photoshop or other editing apps on my phone; this will allow me to digitally enhance particular tones and hues within my photography as well as create experiments that could almost look like an illusion, linking to the message within this theme that we can't always believe what we think we can see in terms of someone's digital self.
In addition to this, I would like to focus both on the positive and negative sides to someone's digital identity and contrast the different types of influences that we come across such as different groups of people and even people who you don't necessarily know of online, yet they can still impact people easily. Furthermore I intend to explore the idea of an Alter Ego, an alternative personality, to help include elements of psychology within my project too; linking to my theme of a Digital Self, I want to experiment with the idea of someone's alter ego also being their alternative personality presented online such as on social media.
In terms of possible experiments for my work, I plan on taking a variety of different photographs that both appear with more of a darker concept, linking the the negative and unknown side to what's metaphorically 'Behind The Mask' to then contrast with another side with a more positive approach to digital identities. I then aim to heavily manipulate my images too using programmes such as Photoshop or other editing apps on my phone; this will allow me to digitally enhance particular tones and hues within my photography as well as create experiments that could almost look like an illusion, linking to the message within this theme that we can't always believe what we think we can see in terms of someone's digital self.
IDEA 1: Beneath The Mask
Concept: The concept for this idea is focusing on a slightly more mysterious aspect of identity that explores what is behind either someone's physical mask (such as makeup or how you're perceived on the outside) or what's behind someone's persona and how they act within different groups or situations in comparison to how their personality is on the inside.
Artist/Photographer Inspiration: Michalina Wozniak -
Techniques and Processes:For this idea I could possibly use a slower shutter speed such as 1/50 so that the image captured appears more blurred to help adapt the photograph to a more suspenseful mood that is in the style of Michalina Wozniak's photography. As well as this, I would like to adjust the exposure of these images by altering the aperture of the camera, allowing less light into the frame so that the overall photograph appears unlit and unexposed.
Possible Experiments / Photoshoots:Similarly to this photographer, I could do a photoshoot that consists of a model, mirror and a mask as shown. I could then experiment with various editing apps either on Photoshop or on my phone to add various effects, such as a vignette surrounding the photographs to appear with a more unlit and almost vintage-like appearance, just like Michalina Wozniak's photography.In addition to this, I could capture photographs of a variety of different models and ask different people to design their own masks and how they perceive themselves in terms of what other people see, using various paints for example to alter their masks.
IDEA 2: Duality Of Personalities
Concept:For this idea I aim to explore alter egos and take photographs that display how someone's perception of themselves as well as how other people perceive you and how it is always changing depending on where you are and who you're with. I would like to capture this for a variety of different personalities and age groups and possibly include areas of psychology within my photography.
Artist/Photographer Inspiration: Toby Dixon
Techniques and Processes: Similarly to Toby Dixon's photography, I would like to capture more portrait based images that captures more unsaturated tones in terms of skin tone, hair colour and eye colour to then contrast with more bolder and vibrant hues for features such as accessories, makeup and clothing to convey how much someone's appearance can alter your perception over how someone's personality is.
Possible Experiments / Photoshoots: Within my photography in the style of Toby Dixon's images, I plan on experimenting with a variety of different photoshoots that features of different models (altering age for example), and then using the same models to create more photoshoots but with completely different appearances. I could then digitally manipulate these photographs so that it's two halves of two separate images placed together as shown in this photographer's work. In addition to this, to link further with my theme of a digital identity, I aim to digitally edit my photographs so that they look more similar to heavily edited images that appear on social media and magazines and then contrast them to the original photograph.
IDEA 3: Unknown Identity
Concept: For this idea I aim to explore the theme of not knowing your true self or possibly losing your true self via changing your personality and appearance to be percieved a completely different way compared to how you really are. Similarly to Dean Perk's photography, I could focus my images around the idea of an Identity Crisis where you're still trying to figure out who you truely are among all of the different things that influence you individually such as social media, or conforming to different groups to try and 'fit in' whilst still hiding your real self.
Artist/Photographer Inspiration: Dean Perks
Techniques and Processes: I could take monotone photographs in the style of this photographer and make the background completely black whilst using an aperture of f/8 so that the frame has limited light exposure, possibly creating a vignette effect to focus the light towards the centre of the photograph and highlighting the model's face.
Possible Experiments / Photoshoots: Within my photoshoots I would like to capture a variety of different models with different age groups to show that everyone discovers their true self at different ages, and how your interpretation of your actual self is constantly changing as you grow up due to different experiences, what you're exposed to and the influences of who you're surrounded by. I aim to experiment with more digital manipulations via Photoshop and explore different effects such as double exposure (as shown in the image on the left) and I could also explore with media such as painting over these photographs to represent the physical identity that people use to cover their true selves, or even stitch into these images to add a sense of distortion to my imagery.