🌱 Seed 🌱 Photographing Contradictions
This assignment explores how we perceive emotions through images and challenges our associations tied to certain types of images.
Through the Creative Strategy of Contradictions, you present meaning through opposites and juxtaposition.
You will take a series of photographs that communicate an emotion that is opposite (or different) from the "typical" feeling associated with such an image.
- Make a photo of something that is supposed to seem happy, like a person laughing, and make it seem sad.[1]
- Make a photo of something that is supposed to seem sad, like a person crying, and make it seem happy.
- Make a photo of something really ordinary, like a glass of water, and make it seem extraordinary
- Make a photo of something ugly, like rubbish, and make it seem beautiful.
- Make of photo of something that is supposed to seem ultra modern, and make it seem old
- Make a photo of something that is supposed to seem powerful, and make it seem fragile
Create a series of 6 photos that express contradictions.
Artist Links
Martin Parr is a British photographer known for his bright candy colors and ironic takes on culture and consumption.
"With photography, I like to create fiction out of reality. I try and do this by taking society's natural prejudice and giving this a twist"
Nancy "Nan" Goldin is an American photographer. Her work often explores LGBT bodies, sexuality, the HIV crisis, and the opioid epidemic. She addresses these controversial topics with intimacy and compassion.
Inquiry Questions
Should a photograph tell us what emotion to feel or should it be subject to the viewer?
Which photo brief was most challenging for you and why?
Do you notice more naturally occurring contradictions in the world around you after photographing?
Footnotes
1. Lucas Foglia, The Photographer's Playbook, Aperture