Project Brief + Mindmap of Ideas

The brief is about Altered States, which is where some change has occurred to something. This can be to do with scale, light, surface, movement, colour, time, emotions, etc. It can be anything really.

Throughout the following weeks, I will be set tasks to complete, with the theme of Altered States to consider and act upon with each one.

With that in mind, (get it?) I made a mind map of different photography ideas that could fit in with the theme of Altered States.

My first idea was to take portraits of people through a prism, or a pane of distorted glass.

I think that this would fit perfectly in the theme, because the thing that is being altered is the way the light hits the lens as it refracts around the prism/glass, creating a different

visual than the one you would expect. One Photographer that did something similar at one point goes by the name Kalliope Amorphous, and her 'self-portrait' series titled "Glass Houses". This is a series where she shoots a warped reflective surface that is malleable and bendy, which allows Amorphous to distort the subjects body in a bizarre, practical way.

My second idea was to shoot at night with a coloured flash. This way, the majority of the light that will be available will be the colour of the flash filter, creating a surreal lighting effect. A photographer that I like by the name of Benoit Paillé did this, in his series titled "Surreal Mexico". I think that, if I were to go through with this simple yet effective idea, then the outcome would look a lot different than Benoit's, because I don't have access to such a powerful flash as he does, nor do I own any 'flash filters' to colour the flash with (I'll improvise). I think it should look quite cool nonetheless.

The only other ideas that I would be interested in pursuing really are the ones that are to do with the emulsion paper, B/W film, and a tray of water that distorts the projection of that film. I haven't really seen anyone else do this before, so it might be interesting to try out. Then again, it might not even work.

Those are just some of the base level ideas that I have come up with in the first week of MIP. As the course goes on, there will more than likely be more ideas that pop up, and other ones that may wither away into nothing. We will see where it takes me.