Final piece: Broken home
My final piece is meant to showcase a broken home through a child's eyes and how it affects her as she grows up, the higher up you go in the house, the more mature she gets. I think my final piece is successful in what I was trying to convey, the first room was meant to show how isolated and lonely she felt in her house, which is why I kept the room completely bare with the image of her in the corner. The picture is slightly burnt compared to the other images, this is because I wanted to show that the memories are gradually fading. The second room has pictures of the little girl crying pasted all over the room in black and white, this is to show that little children are black and white in terms of their thoughts, they do not think before they say anything and are very blunt about their feelings therefore, they cannot hide their thoughts and feelings. The third room is when she's a teenager, although you can't see the image much due to how burnt it is, but I made sure to keep the self-harm scars on her arm unscathed as this is what I wanted the viewer to focus on and make the viewer think that her sad childhood is the cause of her cutting herself. Furthermore, I pasted the another image of the little girl on the walls of the third room, this image is the little girl covering her ears as if she's trying to block noise out and this was taken on the stairs, and so was the image of the teenager, this is to show that she is reminiscing of her childhood in the house.
The final room is completely white with ashes on the floor and the teenager walking into a white light, the ashes on the floor can be interpreted in different ways depending on the thought process of the viewers. The ashes could represent the burning images and how she has finally let go of her past and look towards the future or it could be interpreted in a more darker way, where she may have committed suicide and can finally be free, either way, the room is to represent that she has finally found peace from her past.
Not only is it successful when telling the story, but it also successful in the topic of my investigation: Apertures. Since the viewer will be looking at the images through the windows and doors of the house, it is like they are looking from the outside of the house which is could be considered voyeurism. When creating the house, I did not have many problems which I found extremely lucky as building a house can go wrong quickly.
The final room is completely white with ashes on the floor and the teenager walking into a white light, the ashes on the floor can be interpreted in different ways depending on the thought process of the viewers. The ashes could represent the burning images and how she has finally let go of her past and look towards the future or it could be interpreted in a more darker way, where she may have committed suicide and can finally be free, either way, the room is to represent that she has finally found peace from her past.
Not only is it successful when telling the story, but it also successful in the topic of my investigation: Apertures. Since the viewer will be looking at the images through the windows and doors of the house, it is like they are looking from the outside of the house which is could be considered voyeurism. When creating the house, I did not have many problems which I found extremely lucky as building a house can go wrong quickly.
Feedback:
I asked some people how they felt when looking at my final piece and they all said something on the lines of sadness and heartbreak due to how dark and raw the outcome was, this means that my final piece was extremely successful as I was able to convey what I wanted to towards the viewers with the house and photographs. The viewers felt that they are connected to the child/teen and the fact that they are looking into the house from the outside actually makes them feel helpless and it makes them realise that you don't know what happens behind closed doors.
I then asked them how I could improve the house and one of the people I asked suggested that the photograph in the forth room was not clear and it was difficult to see what was happening, so to improve, I could try to re-edit the photograph to make the image less brighter to show the model walking away. Overall, I believe that the outcome of my final piece was extremely successful, but I could improve on it to make it better such as changing the forth floor, but other than the small details, in general, I think I did a good job on the portrayal of a broken home.
I asked some people how they felt when looking at my final piece and they all said something on the lines of sadness and heartbreak due to how dark and raw the outcome was, this means that my final piece was extremely successful as I was able to convey what I wanted to towards the viewers with the house and photographs. The viewers felt that they are connected to the child/teen and the fact that they are looking into the house from the outside actually makes them feel helpless and it makes them realise that you don't know what happens behind closed doors.
I then asked them how I could improve the house and one of the people I asked suggested that the photograph in the forth room was not clear and it was difficult to see what was happening, so to improve, I could try to re-edit the photograph to make the image less brighter to show the model walking away. Overall, I believe that the outcome of my final piece was extremely successful, but I could improve on it to make it better such as changing the forth floor, but other than the small details, in general, I think I did a good job on the portrayal of a broken home.
Manipulations:
When I was building each room I took pictures of it without the front piece with the windows and door. I decided that I can use these images to display next to my final piece in my exhibition so I wanted to manipulate them to make them slightly different from my actual house. The first image that is shown above is of the third room, I was playing with the exposure on Photoshop and I was able to achieve this image, I really like the outcome of this image despite it being just an experiment, it looks like a spotlight is on the image in the middle and it focuses the viewers eyes on the cutting scars which is what I wanted with this particular picture. Furthermore, the low exposure made the picture red, which is a colour that represents anger and danger which I think suits the concept.
The second image is an image of the past, so I wanted to make it look 'old-school' so I lowered the saturation since old photos are closer to black and white than colour and then I added noise to make it even more old and this was the outcome. The third picture, I just made black and white and increased the contrast since I believe black and white images showcase isolation better than coloured images.
Overall, I really like these three manipulations as they are all really different compared to each other and is able to represent what I was trying to convey.
The second image is an image of the past, so I wanted to make it look 'old-school' so I lowered the saturation since old photos are closer to black and white than colour and then I added noise to make it even more old and this was the outcome. The third picture, I just made black and white and increased the contrast since I believe black and white images showcase isolation better than coloured images.
Overall, I really like these three manipulations as they are all really different compared to each other and is able to represent what I was trying to convey.