Before my theme was quite generalised looking at everyone's wasted clothing however I have discovered that clothes are a representation of you, your personality, you past/ your family etc.; therefore I want to make the theme much more focussed.
I plan to wear the different items of clothing to highlight my own aspirations as well as mile stones most women are expected to meet such as go to prom, get married etc. They're things that not only they want from you but you choose to do unlike the christening dress which is something that is chosen by your family.
Although the items of clothing are personal to me to the public viewing the images it is clear enough what they are and what they would have been used for which allows them to relate their own experiences to the images.
By wearing the dresses I will be literally 'filling' their shoes', filling my families dresses, hoping to experience what they experienced in their lives; and being the youngest of my mother's side of the family I feel I am always aspiring to be like my female relatives.
By wearing the dresses I could also be creating this idea that I am the only thing holding the clothes together, keeping the memories alive, like hand-me-downs. Dresses like my mother's wedding dress represents happiness and new beginnings however my parents are divorced so the dress now represents a broken marriagebut kept as a constant reminder of a life once lived and hopefully future lives to be lived.
I thought it was important to have bodyless clothes to represent this idea of waste however I feel by having a figure in it the image it's enhancing the message of waste by showing how they have aged and started toi deteriorate around a young body.
I also really like how my nan, mum and sister have relatively equal age gaps between them just like the age gaps between the clothing, the function dress worn in the 60s, the wedding dress in the 80s and prom dress in the 00s; it shows the stages of deterioration like a timeline.
I still haven't decided whether to use large format photography as it may be quite difficult to set up while taking a self-portrait however I think it would be very effective in enhancing the detail in the dresses not only the pattern & material but also the mistreatment- the stains, tears etc.
Like I had previously planned I will still have a black background to draw the audience into the image in wonder of what's beyond; this will also represent the darkness that the clothes are stored in usually, trying to reclaim them while they are unusually exhibited.
These are my test shots (done digitally) to experiment with poses for my shoot:
I particualrly like the third, to represent this idea that I am not sure whether I can fill my relatives shoes, looking down at my future self; this also obscures my face slightly to allow the audience better relate to the them. The dresses will also be too long for me anyway so it enhances this idea of me being dwarfed by the challenges that are to come in the future.
I also like images 5 & 6 which is saying more 'look at me, I can fill their shoes', I am proud to be wearing the clothes as if I am carrying their memories on into the future rather than wasting the clothes and their memories. However again the darkness behind is a metaphorical sign that this dream is being hidden, wasted by the clothes being put away rather than reused.
I am really looking forward to experimenting with these ideas in my shoot tomorrow, I will be trying out my previous idea as a back up as I had already planned the shoot so want to play around with the ideas anyway however I will be focussing mainly on these ideas as I feel they translate my ideas and theme a lot more clearly.
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