On the first day of summer I took my beloved Trälardz to a tunnel and took over 700 shots of them, to celebrate the freedom, oh yeah. With one of them (yes, this one) I even won a competition where the price was a free dance class. Life is great, y'all

Again, the model is my lovely friend Alejandra, Ale, Alejandra

Last summer I spent one amazing week with my three closest friends in one of their summer houses in Gisekvarn. On one of those days we decided to have a photoshoot ( because I had been nagging about it since day one haha) 

Some of my classmates and I had a "competition" during the summer to take at least one picture everyday of the summer break and one of the shots from that day went up on our blog right away, oh yes

The one and only Alejandra is my model

Yoooo

In school we've made our own masks that were supposed to represent a feeling. We were then to take a photo of our masks and enhance the feeling. So heeeeere's my photography of my mask:

I wanted to have the person in the mask standing behind the corner, a little bit like Slenderman, but I couldn't find a model and I don't have a remote to my camera (YET) so I had to take a close up. Still pretty satisfied with the outcome (y)

Can you guess what the feeling is? ;)

Update:

This is my description of the photo and of the mask that I sent in to my aesthetic communication teacher;

Mask and Photo assignment

What do you want to communicate with your mask?

The main concept is envy. Everybody has a little bit of envy and/or jealousy in them that finds its way out somehow at some point. People try to hide the fact that they are jealous or envious - when they are - so that others will not be able to see it, but you will never be able to conceal a feeling from yourself. The witch from “Sleeping beauty” was my primary source of inspiration. She is an outcast that puts a spell on the baby for the reason I believe to be that she is envious. Jealousy is a mix between love and hate, a feeling that cannot truly be described, but when such a strong emotion is felt, nothing can make you look past it and it will often times make you act on the feeling. You will feel trapped because you do not know what to do, and one usually tries to hide the emotion from others, especially jealousy since it might scare the loved one off as jealousy makes an individual seem very possessive. Jealousy or envy is often times seen as the dark side of a person. The emotion causes you to think and believe the very worst about someone else, which in its turn could cause the person to get revenge or simply act on how they think that person in turn should be treated. In conclusion, her thoughts, her knowledge and her feelings do not match, and therefore she does not know how to act and so she feels trapped.

How are you doing it?

(Shape, color, connotations, tell me what you thought when you made it, do not bother to tell me what you thought of the result, only talk about what you wanted to do)

How did you use the photo to enhance what you wanted to communicate?

The main colour used on the mask is green, which is usually used to represent envy. The colour of her skin and the background is edited to match the mask. The corners and the edges around the cheeks, the chin, the nose and the forehead are sharpened to show strength and wisdom (as she is trying hard to hold back doing something that she might regret later on) but they also make her look more devilish (because she still wants to act on those evil thoughts that she has). The gaze is showing superiority but is still somewhat innocent as the eyes are rounded instead of angular and are also not pointed upwards. If the eyes would have been pointing upwards more, she would have looked more like she knows what she wants and how to get there. Therefore, I decided not to point them upwards too much as she is more frustrated than aware and she does not know what to do. In the photo I chose to darken the eyes to enhance that she has dark thoughts. She has a rather straight expression. She is not laughing nor crying, her facial expression is more deadlike since she is trying to not show any feelings. The lips are pure red and the eyes are purple to show some femininity since the mask otherwise may be interpreted as rather masculine. The red also makes her look even more sharp and decisive, but at the same time it makes her look a little impulsive. Red could represent blood, but I will leave that one for the audience to decide. Otherwise, the colour red is commonly associated with passion, danger, beauty, power and anger. The red around her eyes is there to show frustration as blood circulates more and veins are visible around the eyes when a person is frustrated or angry, feelings that she has since they both go into envy or jealousy. Her hair is slightly messy, but not too messy, to show that she is frustrated, but she tries to control herself.

The environment she is in is a cellar. This was to represent that she feels trapped, possibly inside herself, and that she is trying to hide her thoughts and emotions. However, even though it is not too visible, she does have a key hanging around her neck to show that she does have some slight kind of awareness of how she should act to not get too dreadful consequences, and that she is the one who is in power of her actions. She is the one to decide if she is going to act on what she feels or what she knows.

She has a hard grip around one of the bars on the fence to show that she is hanging on to and relying on something or someone else and also that she does not want to feel trapped the way she does. The bars are made purple to match the horns on her head and the purple from the fence is blending with the green on the arm gripping the fence. This to represent how the jealousy it slowly eating her up.  The photo is also darkened and there is only one light seen in the very far distance which is to represent her dark thoughts.

Inspiration

My primary inspiration was the evil witch from sleeping beauty. She is an outcast who puts a spell on the princess as she is not accepted by the village people. She is envious of the others who have each other and are happy and she also has horns, who I’ve resembled with edges, and she also has the colour green and purple, just as the colours I chose. She has a black coat and a black cover over her horns to represent her dark side. I chose to add the darkness in my photography instead of in the mask, eg the eyes are dark. The environment is a basement and a grid is visible in the background.

Setting, focus, colors, composition and other choices you might have made.

The settings on the camera were to make the photo look dark but still bright enough for there to actually be a picture. Also the focus is on the the person, the rest is more blurry. The main focus is on the mask. There is on single light visible in the back, however, it is small and blurry, and because of the settings on the camera it appears as though it is not working too well. I chose to follow the golden rule to let focus easily fall straight on the mask. The hand gripping the fences is made to look as if it has a disease. Colours and their meanings are mentioned in the second paragraph.

What other choices could you have made in the mask and the photo to reach the same goal?

I could have enhanced the contrast more to make it look sharper, and more diseased. Or show sadness - which envy does include - by e.g tilting my head, or crouching my body. However, arranging my posture too much was rather hard as I was taking the photograph and was also in front of the camera. My very first idea was to place the mask bearer behind a corner and create a Slender man kind of feeling. A feeling that the mask bearer was about to get her revenge. However this was fairly hard as I could not manage to fit my whole body into the picture as I had to take the photo and at the same time be in front of the camera. Besides, seeing the mask would not be as easy if the mask was far away from the camera and not in focus.

What else could you have communicated with the same mask or similar photo technique?

The environment with the fences could represent to feel imprisoned. The gaze and the darkness in the eyes could represent pride, and together with the key hanging around her neck it could definitely resemble power. That she has the power over all since she has the key that could maybe open the bars to freedom. That she has something locked inside could represent the need to hide something. The darkness in her eyes and the red around her eyes could show despise. The way she is tilting her head gives the impression that she wants revenge and is about to do something evil. However, all of these are feelings that Envy or Jealousy does include, as these two feelings are a mixture of several other feelings.

How does the mask and the photo work together to communicate?

They have the same main colour, which is green to represent envy. The edginess of the mask and darkness in the eyes goes well together with the fences and the darkness in the environment, as they both show decisiveness and that she has evil thoughts and a dark aura.

Tell me about connotations or symbolism to your mask and the photo.

For the mask I wanted sharp edges to show that the character is strict, harsh and in control. In addition to enhance that she is control, she has a key hanging around her neck that could possibly open the bars around her. For the photo I chose my own basement as environment as the grid is visual in the background. Also the gaze is darkened and all colours have been rearranged to make the picture look more dramatic and to match the colours of the mask. With this I chose to make the skin green, the bars purple and the arm that is clinging on the bars a mix of green and purple, as if she is green of envy, and the purple from the bars is either destroying her even more or freeing her.

The purple and the black enhances the “strong woman” feeling in the picture.

What is some feedback you have been given on the photo? What did they read into your photo.

I was told that my mask looks quite a lot like a witch, as it was used during a play in class where it resembled the witch in Sleeping beauty - my source of inspiration. Sophie Woolford and Jonathan Danzer said that the Edges made the mask look devilish and demonic.

Reflect upon it.

What they said was exactly what I was going for. They did not see the resemblance between the mask and the feeling of envy before I told them, then they said that it was clear.

What alternative ways could you have made the mask and/or the photo in? Pros and cons.

I could have added more red to the mask, to show more a more feminine side, and also a sharp, strong side. I could also have made the chin into one pointy edge instead of one flat surface to make it more feminine. However, I like the fact that it looks slightly masculine, although you can clearly see that its origin is a woman. To enhance that it is a woman she has fairly shy features with remarkable darkness spreading from the eyes.

Haii

So last week was my very last week in school before the christmas break    I am unleashed, watch out.

On wednesday we had an A-level exam (i.e we were to produce an art piece :3 )

We had different themes that we could choose from and I chose "magnified images" and here's the result:

It's a ring, if that wasn't clear, with some other jewelry :3

Presenting Alejandra.

She, Nicki and I were on our way to see a dance performance by our dance teachers. This performance was for some f up reason out in nowhere, Ytterjärna, and the wind almost blew us all away. Lucky Nicki didn't bring her chihuahua.

Halloween i easily my favourite holiday 

Ah, the times when you have to act as a model and as photographer and you don't have a remote to your camera. Man, life is hard.

..But I will never wear fake lashes again, oh the tears from taking them off   /Supacry Insanit

Who am I?

This is me.

My name is Anne and I'm born in february '97. I am what the Swedes would call an estetare. I go to an arts programme and I make a lot of music, photograph and dance on my leisure time. The purpose of this blog is to post photographs that I have taken and believe could benefit a career within the art industry.

If a photograph has been a project I might write relevant information such as aperture, shutterspeed, ISO, idea behind the photo and so forth, otherwise I will let the photos speak for themselves.

Feel free to critique and comment on my work. Feedback is always appreciated.