Dilemmas?

So as always things pop up when doing research or setting up for shoots or even meeting potential models, usually one has in their head a certain look they are going for, same as a director casting for a movie role, the look is important to the content and how you make you point. Then there is issues as stereotyping, racial undertones even categorizing a particular group, culture etc, so what do you do when presented with this issue, do you jump in head first bugger the consequences, do you do it knowing full well the implications and not worry about ramifications or do you leave it out so as not to offend anybody in particular. Well it is art and to many over the centuries art has offended on some level, is it because they have not enjoyed what they are viewing, perhaps it is because they don’t understand what it is before them and out of ignorance denounce it, as this is often the case with human nature- don’t like then it’s not right! So presented with this at hand I have taken the content of all my images for this brief to another level, while the images will have most of the original content I am taking out most of the human element is some cases, the roadside memorial can now cover a wider range as it would not look like it was directed at one particular group of drivers, the suicide, well I don’t have to have a full body shot in the scene, just the inference that what has happened can be just as effective, and looking through old advertising campaigns just a half profile showing the affect of domestic violence is effective as well, in fact many campaigns rely on just partial body images not only because it saves them money on modelling fees but also it highlights just exactly what it is they are trying to say, just look at a cigarette packet next time and see how effective that is.

As they say sometimes less is more.

Another issue is that out there nowadays there are so many digital artists very adept at using the software and tools available online and such, I myself have never really delved into this area I have always preferred to have the image as it’s taken, flaws and all. But as part of sitting for my degree we have to show we can make use of those tools, well do I add this to my images and present them as my finals and say they are true photos or are they then truly digitally manipulated images, I can easily manipulate the set for my images, then they are just staged photography, acceptable as the image itself is not altered in any way, I have done this many times before, even to the point of creating surreal images and multiple exposures, these i have been doing of course int he old days on film but now that I use digital as well I am still able to do this, well before Sony even bought out the in camera version of this, as I posted earlier I use a Sony, more precise the A380, the dog of the pack and yet with that camera I have created images that people have questioned that they can’t believe it’s not been photoshopped, as you can see with the skyline below, the face is the background is not added in afterwards , everything in the image is how it was the moment the shutter clicked, I did not manipulate it at all.

And that’s just a basic image nothing to spectacular and extremely simple to do.