Intention

My photograph collection “A peek into…” discusses the societal issue of mental health, which is delivered through the theme of music. In this collection, I want my audience to understand the diversity of music from two aspects: the creator and the listener. In real life, everyone carries their own weight and pressure as they go about their days. Music is a cure for that burden for many; it can be a way out, a form of expression, or a release of that packed negative energy. Music connects people in some ways, and it is a suitable medium to draw attention to mental health issues that exist at different ages and levels.

In this photoshoot, I am exploring the songwriter’s perspective…

Memorable songs often evoke a strong feeling. These feelings are often not spoken or expressed by the person in reality; they tend to hide their true opinion or emotion towards a certain event or person. This hidden emotion may accumulate, and eventually, they need to unleash it in some way. Music is their way to release it–an artistic form of conveying a message or a feeling, hoping to resonate with people from all corners of the world.

 

Inspiration (Lindsay Adler)

“This is my, my style. […] So very clean, bold, graphic, geometric and colorful.”

In most of Lindsay Adler’s work, she utilizes colorful and eye-catching lighting. Across all her works, there is always bright and contrasting lighting cast on the subject’s face. As she stated, it can direct the audience’s attention to an intended part of the model’s face, add visually appealing elements to capture viewers’ eyes and give a complex, mysterious mood to her work. For instance, her photographs capture the strength and power of women, and therefore, she often uses bright red lighting, which she believes is a demanding color–a natural attention grabber.

In my former studio shoot, I adopted Lindsay Adler’s way of lighting. I tried to use intense and contrasting lighting in my work in a way that established an atmosphere and conveyed mood. In the meantime, I got familiar with the equipment inside the studio, which helped me to do better and more efficiently for my final two sets of photographs.

 

Photograph collection: A Peek Into…

Stage one: creativity

As a beginner in songwriting, individuals are most likely to focus on the creativity part (this includes track and lyrics). During the beginning stage of song creation, a songwriter is revealed to a whole new world, where they have access to brand new material and tools that are free to explore and experiment with. It is a fresh experience for them–fun and exciting.

For the first stage, creativity, I decided to use yellow and pink lighting to bring out a warm feeling in the photograph. It stands for the excitement and joy one experiences as he/she explores further into the field of music. By casting the sunny yellow light on the model’s face, the image has a glow and hopefulness to it, as if the model is staring as the sun rises from the horizon. Take photo two as an example. The model is asked to glance passionately at her work, lyrics, in the same direction where the light is casting on her face. This symbolizes the fact that music is bringing joy and energy to her life. Aside from this, the yellow lighting also emphasizes her face from the pink background; it lightens up the model’s face and, therefore, intentionally draws viewers’ attention to that specific point. Due to this drawn attention, the model’s face is implied to be the focus of the image. Her expression is filled with delight, and her natural smile is contagious. Also, in her eyes, there is a reflection of light. This reflection further brings out the hopefulness and pleasure that is delivered through the photograph. Furthermore, in image three, I tried to utilize more props to make the photo appear less like a studio shoot. By positioning the chair, guitar, and pages of lyrics, this established setting gives off a relaxing and leisurely mood. It is as if the model has just written a song and is lying down after all this hard work, reviewing her work, and feeling satisfied, proud of, and pleased by her achievement. Finally, if I have more time, I will make sure to retake image two, making it sharper, and redo all three photos with more settling lighting.

Stage two: expression

Next, as individuals become more familiar with the songwriting process, they tend to shift their focus from creativity to expression. Many people often use music as a method to escape the real world, express emotion, and reflect on oneself. Because of this, most songs are overflowed with strong emotions, such as love, depression, and anxiety, and are often easy to resonate with one another.

For the second stage, expression, I employ blue and yellow lighting to differentiate from the last stage and establish the complexity of the emotion the model (or the songwriter) is experiencing and expressing. The mix of blue and yellow hints at the fact that, in the expression stage, there is more depth to the songs rather than just fun and experiments. There is a mix of emotions one can deliver through songs–joy, anger, sorrow–and various themes. Take Taylor Swift as an example. She mainly writes about the topic of love, which includes emotional aspects like happiness, sadness, and madness. Specifically, in her recent album called THE TORTURED POETS DEPARTMENT, she explores the topic of stages of grief. The same idea applies to other songwriters. This stage of the photograph captures this combination of negative and positive feelings through lighting. Aside from this, unlike the former stage, I used more close-ups this time as I captured the model through the camera. In photograph three, the model holds up her paper of lyrics; however, this time, she is shielding the bright yellow light; her face is covered in shadow, and her body emerges in the blues. Firstly, the contrast in light makes the photograph more visually appealing. Secondly, the model’s action indicates that, in this stage, music does not bring pure joy to the songwriter. Instead, it is a rush of mixed sentiments, sometimes vague and ambiguous, if not strong and detrimental. Thirdly, I choose to take it as a close-up because it lends the feeling that the viewer is close to the model, which fits with this stage: expression. Moreover, for the first two images, I picked close-ups of the model’s shoes as well as the props. This decision adds a mysterious mood to the image, along with the signal that the model has now entered a brand new stage of songwriting. There is less fun to the songs; rather, the songwriter is diving deeper into a thoughtful process: trying to give meanings to each word of the lyrics, digging underneath their own thought, and conveying a more profound message. The crumpled peppers are signals to the ‘unperfect’ of this music world. Specifically, in photo two, there is a paper crumpled into the shape of a heart, hinting at a common music theme: love.

Stage three: mania

In the end, after undergoing the first two stages, most songwriters tend to go crazy with their work. This last stage can be interpreted in different ways: in this case, it represents the madness in one’s mind. In detail, music is a method to process and digest a strong emotion. Especially people who are not so active in person or lack a voice in reality often turn their attention to different ways of expression. Music is one of them. But it is not a cure for the long run. Humans are emotional creatures; they need human contact and connection in order to live. For those who lack this social interaction, negative feelings will start to accumulate until it is too much to bear, which is the root of mental health issues.

Like a previous photograph, stage three, mania adopted the use of bright, violent red lighting. This lighting strongly contrasts with the former images. It demands attention from the viewer and naturally carries a warning and unsettling feeling with it. Because of this, red is the perfect color to be used for this stage. It perfectly portrays the madness that is going on inside the songwriter’s mind, along with the breakdown caused by severe emotional issues such as anxiety and depression. The existence of red lighting and none other forced the surroundings to be dark and gloomy. This deliberately created shadow emerged from the model’s face, making it hard to see. Because of this, there is a lack of expression and, therefore, a lack of clear emotion. Next, I asked the model to hold the paper in a messy stack. This movement appears to be done with anger, which stands for the dissatisfaction of the songwriter. Contrasting with the first stage, it seems as if they are no longer proud of their work or sensing the joy from their achievement. The songwriter crashed their own work, beginning to self-destruct. And this is the last stage: mania.