Age of Excess
One of the earliest assessment this year was a conceptual portrait that was simply to be titled “The Age of Excess”. It was relatively brief in it’s requirements as long as there is a statement being made, using objects to enhance the portrait, and it must have a social, environmental, or political theme.
Age of Excess Initial Sketch
Initially my idea was along the lines of juxtaposing the concept of social media “influencers” and the ever growing issue of e-waste, a mobile phone being the key element tying them both together. My thought was I would create this image practically by getting a model to stand in front of some e-waste whilst taking a selfie, the idea being that the subject is so engrossed in their social media presence they are blissfully ignorant of the damage is being caused all around them. This ultimately didn’t come to fruition.
Issues surrounding schedules, COVID, locations and permissions revolving around it, limited experience with specific equipment needed for the shoot, and deadlines looming meant I needed to find an alternative approach that still held some interest with me and was practical.
Age of Excess - 2022
One of the biggest mindsets I had to overcome was this desire to keep it all practical and embrace something I thought was initially a crutch, my experience with Photoshop. One of the more… debated if not outright controversial tools to this day in photography fields is the use of Photoshop in imagery; some outright refuse to accept its use in photography and balk at calling it so, others embrace it within an inch of its life and blurs the line between photography and digital art.
Personally I’ve been trying to improve myself as a photographer without trying or needing use of Photoshop where possible and I want to be to capture as best an image as possible within the frame… that being said this was the first time I really pushed my photoshopping skills within an assessment that wasn’t specifically about pixel manipulation, and I wasn’t sure if this was the right move, especially as this was a last minute design.
The concept I wanted to convey was our ties to the technology and the ignorance of the waste it causes, especially as it so tired to the environment that it’s potentially impossible to separate it. I wanted to convey the idea of what capitalilsm has done to both our world and to ourselves, our identity being stripped to almost the bare bones as we are subtly told to consume and ignore what the outcome; a lone outsider is both unconfined to the technology but still trapped within the society that surrounds them.
I put a lot of thought into this idea before I finally shot it, admittedly I wish I had a better model than myself to this, including the use of subdues colour, the melding of the circuit board, and utilising a picture shot last year of a beautiful sunset that is fenced off.
Responses were pretty positive about the image and maybe I’ll find some use for it in the future, or perhaps I can reshoot and improve upon it’s imagery some day.
S
