A: Name: Albert Name of the Project: Those of Chained
B: Concept
I got the inspiration from the recent incident happened in Feng province in which a woman was kidnapped and sold to the rural area and was forced to bear children for the villagers. She was found to be chained beside the wall in a broken house, thin clothes wrapped softly around her. What’s more horrific is that that woman is just a normal woman, this incident could have happened to any woman in my daily life. Realizing this, I create this diptych project with a concept of calling upon awareness of such incident to both men and women how horrific this incident is and yet how common it is as well. Since chain is one major element in that incident, I use the similar shape, rectangle in both images to show their connection. In photo 1’s upper middle, there is a transparent rectangle shape represented by the sunlight and the view of outside, this represents how there is this invisible chain in daily life which is referring to people’s patriarchy bias about women. While in the collage photo, in the middle of that photo there is also a rectangle, but a black and concrete one. This one intends to show how the invisible chain would one day become this physical chain that restrains and harms women if this is yet another forgettable event.
C: Process
- Beside staging that rectangle in the upper middle part of photo 1 with the reason I mentioned in the previous part, I also stage that flower in the pot in the middle of the photo, with the curtains beside it closing on her. By this I intend to show how the darkness is brewing and approaching underneath the placid surface of daily life. It took me a while pulling both sides of curtain in a relatively symmetrical shape to show that the flower is in the middle and thus the focus of the photo. Then I stage that table in a position where audience can see the four legs of it, but not so obvious. Similarly, in the right side of the photo, there are also two poles that are in the darkness as well. Since they are all rectangle-like shape and thus represent this symbol of chain, I put them in the dark place of photo 1 to clearly show their relationship with that invisible chain in the middle part and hint that those in the darkness would one day take the middle, dominant part of the picture, as what picture 2 has shown, if no action is implemented.
- As for process of creating image 2. I initially copied pasted the first layer, black and white it, went in to the mixed mode of the new layer, removed channel R, used the effect of wind and make the effect degree larger in the down part of photo 2 and less effect degree in that person-life object’s face. This gives people the feeling of horror since they can no longer see that beautiful flower since it is now shattered and blurred by these winds effect, what people can see clearly is this blank face of this person on the right which really evokes the feeling of horror and danger. Then I generally drag the effect more over the picture to create this atmosphere of dizziness and give people a feeling of mysterious and dangerous. Then, I collaged this person-like object on the right side of the image. I collaged him intentionally at a higher position to show the power dynamics and create a sense of domination it has toward the flower. The most significant step is definitely the step of removing channel R, it really gives my lots of changes to play with my picture, and gives it a feeling of danger and darkness which is exactly the feeling I am looking for when creating photo 2. As for the problem, at first I only made it as black and white because I could not find a way to add more colors into photo 2 to make it horrific. Pure colors would be less artistic and inappropriate regarding to the serious theme I intend to show. I eventually solved this by discovering the mixing tool, which is really wonderful in terms of its control toward the color use.
D: Conclusion
If I had more time, I would definitely add more stickers and collaging elements in photo 2. I think there are more elements that chain in this incident that are worth marking, so if I had more time, I would collage those elements in photo 2, add more artistic effects to those elements to make them more vivid and more abundant in terms of the composition. Furthermore, I would make them connected better with photo 1 to unfold a more comprehensive side of this incident and thus enhancing my concept.
E: Image of Diptych & Contact Sheet
“Those of Chained”
The Contact Sheet
