《Plastics》—Ting Yang
💡Concept
The topic I choose is the relationship between people and plastics. I used a clay figurine to represent all human beings and a Pom Pom to represent plastics.
In the first photograph, there is a person swimming freely and happily through the plastics which look like beautiful reef corals. I want to convey the idea that people love using plastics because their convenience and wide range of uses benefit our daily lives a lot. They make our world work easily.
In the second photograph, the person enters a micro world of plastics. The plastics are not that gorgeous any more but disgusting and dangerous. Plastics pollution exists because plastics can release harmful chemicals to the surrounding soil or water and they are hard to break down. This pollution not only affects ecosystems but also our humans. We may take in the plastics by eating animals who eat plastics and plastics can go into our blood and threaten our health. So I also make the figurine here plastic-like to arouse people’s awareness.
The two photographs are contrary. The first one is macro and good while the second one is micro and bad. The contrast can make my appeal for reduction of plastics use stronger.
⏰Process
1. Staging and Photograph Part 1
At first, I chose my cat as my model because I want to convey the idea about the relationship between pets and their owners. However, capturing a cat movement was too hard and I didn’t master using a camera, so I abandoned this idea.
（Dark and orange cat photos）
Then, I tried to take photos of many things like a light ball and a Pom Pom. And after taking photos of these single plastic objects, I found out that the colors of the Pom Pom’s shadow is like the ocean’s. So, the idea of plastic pollution in the ocean came into my mind. I started to combine different objects to see how I can convey ideas better through different compositions.
(Pom)
Eventually, I combined a clay figurine with the Pom Pom to show the relationship between people and plastics. I did encounter some problems about taking clear photos. Most of the photos I’ve taken are either blurred or dark. Only about 10 percent of the photos could be put into use. So I tried to find the problem. It turned out to be the inappropriate shutter speed. Luckily, after fixing it, I finally got the pictures I want.
However, It was hard for me to choose the best two photos, so I asked for my classmates, Ken and Claire, for help. They suggested me choose relatively dark pictures, so It can be more like pollution. And they both thought the picture I chose at last had a great composition. I really appreciate their help, which is crucial for my project.
2. Image Part 2
In the photoshop part, I struggled a lot with the details. I used the filters to make the figurine more like plastic-made and adjusted the details again and again to pursue a perfect version. Then I changed the mode of the layer for many times to find out the most “pollution-like” one and the color should be mysterious. I want it to be like a world seen through the microscope. So I added pieces of the Pom Pom to make them like viruses. Finally, I highlighted the man to make it brighter and on the contrary, the background, which is the micro plastic world, became darker.
☀️Conclusion
I like my final project a lot. Although things don’t always go as what I want, I still get an amazing project at the first sight. However, there is something I think I can improve if I have more time. First, the plastic person is not delicate enough. Second, I want to add more plastic chains on the person to show the plastics’ damage to people more directly. But, overall, I’m 80 percent satisfied with my project.
🫧Contact Sheet
🫧Final Project
