Differences in Perspectives– Jeeho Kim
Concept
The initial concept of my Diptych project was “Time and Atmosphere.” I planned to demonstrate how one place was viewed as a different atmosphere over time in the project. For example, the cafe on the second floor in AB is very lively and crowded with students during the day, but it turns into a quiet and dark place at dawn. For the concept, I was planning to take a photo of a middle school next to Jinyang dorm. Because I couldn’t think of any other place where the atmosphere is changing significantly over time except for the school. So I tried to use a picture of students spilled out from the school during the end of school hours. Unfortunately, however, as the danger of Covid-19 in SH increased, every school was converted into online classes, making it impossible to meet students. So I had no option but to change my concept to “differences in perspectives.” Through this concept, the message I want to convey is that most people understand things and spaces only as of the way they saw them before or want to see them. And to reinforce the effect of the message, I used a photo of the city of Shanghai where the future and past coexist. It is undeniable that representative images of Shanghai are Mega-city, Future and High-tech, and younger generations of Chinese and foreigners will only have the perception that Shanghai is the most westernized city in China. But, on the other hand, the older generations of Chinese or those who have lived in Shanghai for a long time may miss old Shanghai, which has turned into a completely different city right now. So I tried to co-exist the image of the city viewed by different generations, and I thought the plan fit with my concept of “difference in perspectives.”
Process
First of all, I went to Waitan to take a picture of the Oriental Pearl for the current image of the city of Shanghai viewed by the younger generations. Waitan and Oriental Pearl are the first representative place that comes to mind when thinking of Shanghai and is always crowded with the visitor. And I visited Yu Garden for the trace of Old Shanghai, but the garden was closed and I had to take some pictures of only parts of traditional Chinese structures from the outside of the garden.
I used brightness and contrast effects to make the overall color of a photo of Oriental Pearl deeper and stronger. And, I used a “Cyon” photo filter, blue color, to create an image of Shanghai as a coastal city. In addition, the picture of the Chinese traditional structure taken in Yu Gardem was cropped and only the part I wanted was placed on the left side of the Oriental Pearl, and the color of the traditional structure was adjusted to be relatively dark using contrast and brightness effect. A dark traditional Chinese structure was placed right next to the bright Oriental Pearl to express the image of current Shanghai. This has a message that most people are now fascinated by the present image of Shanghai and turn a blind eye to the old Shanghai. And finally, the image of me taking a picture was placed in the upper right corner to shape typically tourists.
I spent most of this project working on Photoshop. Because I was not familiar with using it and lacked an understanding of functions, I had difficulty making the outcome exactly as I wanted.
Conclusion
or future improvement, I need to find photos that fit my concept more that the ones I used, and I also need to practice Photoshop to get used to the functions.
