The Stages of Listening to Music

My final presentation for the identity unit was made through a combination of 3 photos which I thought best represented my topic listening to music as well as the stages of listening to music. For my final presentation I chose my red photos as they were best fit for my final presentation and all showed a variation of color and emotion.  For my final presentation format I chose a triptych as this was easy to make and it clearly shows what I am trying to achieve in my photos so I chose this as my format. The middle picture shows a lot of expression through the hand gestures used and the color used. I used a brighter color for this image to show more of an exited mood and tone. The color purple is a lot brighter and shows him as engaged in the music. The other two images on the left and right are other stages of listening to music. The one of the right is reading the lyrics so you understand what you are listening too. The tone in this photo is a lot lower and darker through the blue color presented. In this image I was trying to show a apathetic mood when you have the headphones off compared to having the headphones the mood is a lot more exiting and entertaining. I chose purple, blue, and black for these images as they best represented the moods presented in each image shown. The main focus of this presentation is to highlight each stage of listening to music, from getting ready to put the headphones on to reading the lyrics, and finally actually listening to music. Overall in my presentation I was trying to present different moods and vibes when you have the headphones on vs having the headphones on.

This darker photo of mine is one of my favorite photos out of this set as it shows one of the phases of getting your headphones on. In this phase he is not too exited and is getting ready to put the headphones on. In the image he is shown as very apathetic as you can’t really see any emotion or expression on his face. This is what I was trying to show with this image. The tone of the image is mainly in a black or dark blue color. The color is also combined with his blue and black shirt which allows him to be very visible to the human eye.  The darker lighting in this image is to show no emotion as a darker color can sometimes show a lack of empathy or emotion. In this phase of putting on headphones he is not excited because he hasn’t actually put the headphones on yet. The posing of the photo was also chosen because it shows no emotion or expression and focuses on getting ready to put the headphones on while looking down. I tried to add color variation in this image with darker black parts to the right in the background and darker blue parts to the left. As he is on the left side of the image the background will be darker because he is portraying more of a dark mood and demonstrating no signs of emotion in this photo. The left side is highlighted in a lighter blue color because he is about to get in the zone and be focused and more exited when he puts the headphones on. In this image I was trying to show what it would look like when you are about to put the headphones on. On the left side you can also partly see his shadow which is ultimently trying to show his identity and the person he wants to be on the other side near the blue parts. I was trying to portray the identity that he wants which he can achieve through listening to music. Overall, this image is in strong focus throughout which shows his emotion and feeling more clearly. To sum up, the image is a very strong image which shows exactly what I’m trying to portray and one of the phases of putting headphones on or listening to music.

For my red selection, I chose images that would work well for my final presentation and images which convey 3 different phases of listening to music. In these images, I was also looking for a color variation between the 3 images so that it is more interesting and portrays exactly what I am trying to show. I chose purple, blue and black for my colors because I wanted to show the levels of excitement and emotion through colors. With the purple color, because it was more bright I wanted to illustrate a lighter mood and more exiting mood with the brighter color.  With the other too colors, I wanted to show a lower tone and mood when you listen to music because not all of the time your exited when you listen to music. Overall, I chose these images because, I thought that they would be good for my presentation because they showed different levels of listening to music with multiple colors.

For my green selection, I focused on the images which had the most quality and portrayed something while having a variation of colors. I was looking for images which had interesting poses for listening to music and images which showed a lot of feeling and emotion. For this section I looked for the images which had these aspects, so that I can further narrow my selection down to the 3 red photos and my images which I wanted to present. All of these images work pretty well and all convey different emotions while listening to music but they were not the images which I was looking for exactly even though they showed expression. I needed images which could show 3 different phases of listening to music.  Overall, they were pretty good images but could be even better.

I chose these photos for my yellow selection because they were not exactly what I wanted to convey even though there are variety of images with different poses. For each of my images in my yellow selection I focused on different colors to portray different felling and emotions through listening to music. The poses which Jordan did in these images were not exactly what I wanted to portray but were still ok images overall so I chose these for my yellow. The images could have worked well as a collection of photos because there is a variety of photos and a lot of photos to all with different colors. Because my final product was going to portray the 3 parts when you listen to music I decided to leave these photos to the yellow selection.

This image was taken by Henry Be and is an image that highlights a man listening to music.  The purpose of this image is to show that this man is not focused on anything and is distracted by the music. The artist demonstrates this when he puts the man in focus and the background out of focus.

The artist is trying to show how listening to music can transport you to another world and the main point of the image is to highlight the headphones on the man’s head. The photo’s composition is split into two parts. The man has a dark saturation which man conveys a dark tone. His jacket, bag, and headphones are all highlighted in black which conveys a much darker tone. While the background is a lot lighter conveyed his mood has much darker. The artist’s intent for this image is to convey more of a darker setting and different environment when you listen to music. He conveys this through color and the focus in the image. In the background, to the right you see a street that looks like it mirrors the left street. The photographer used a very interesting effect to convey a confusing and out-of-this-world environment. Another interesting aspect of this image is the lighting of the image. In the background, the lighting is very light and is hardly visible.  Because this background is hardly visible it makes the overall setting very crazy and interesting which may also reflect the man’s music choice.

This photo relates to my vision because in this image the photographer is trying to depict the man listening to music and his identity based on this aspect. His main goal is to convey an interesting setting while showing this man’s identity through his clothing, headphone choice, and body language. In my images, I will take a similar approach and I will attempt to highlight a person’s personality or identity through multiple photos which show a person listening to music. I will do this by using color variations to show moods, as well as using body language and clothing to portray different personalities.

The title of this project is Capturing the Essence of Musical Identity. The societal/cultural issue I want to explore with my photographs is highlighting the emotions and expressions of a person while using color to illustrate this. The context of my choosing this idea was that I really enjoy listening to music so I want to highlight a person’s identity through this concept. The message I want the audience to take away is how music can play a role in a person’s personality and identity.  I want the audience to understand the emotion behind listening to music and how to understand different people’s choices of music you can further understand the message that I am trying to convey. I will get inspiration from many photographers who use color variations in their photos and photographers who attempt to highlight a person’s emotions and expressions from a simple concept, listening to music.

What is a portrait?

For me, a portrait is a picture or depiction of a person that captures their physical features and frequently expresses their character or personality via artistic skill and interpretation. It aims to capture the essence of a person, stopping time and allowing viewers to have a stronger connection with the subject.

Within identity photography, portraits can be used to show expressions and emotions of a person and highlight their face to demonstrate their identity through a specific concept. In the image above the creator used puzzle pieces to highlight this person’s identity and shape the person. They used a portrait which can be a very useful tool to convey many parts of identity photography. In many instances, Identity photography can be portrayed by expressing their life and conveying a specific element rather than their face. These photos do not demonstrate a portrait in my opinion because they are not depicting a person’s facial features and highlight their emotions but rather show their life through other objects and images.

The societal/cultural concept I want to focus on is highlighting emotion and expression through listening to music. Considering this concept can help me further understand people’s identity and I can further understand how a person’s taste of music relates to their identity and personality. I want to use all my photographs to show how listening to different types of music can reflect a certain personality and show different identities through emotions and expressions. Furthermore, I also want to demonstrate how the types of music relate to personality traits and can show multiple identities through the type of music that they listen to.

In my photographs, I will focus on highlighting different facial expressions and emotions to illustrate a difference in identity and show multiple identities. I will illustrate these identities through color, which can reflect on the mood of the person which ultimately leads to a change in identity. My goal is to illustrate different identities and express different emotions and feelings through the many different types of music and the way people listen to music. Overall, the way people listen to music can reflect their personality and show a difference in identity when they listen to different types of music.