What was the theme for your photographic series?

Childhood and adulthood

How have you chosen to represent your theme through your photos? Share about your subject matter, scene, and camera settings.

We represented our theme through the three stages of life: childhood, teenage years, and adulthood. In the first photo, childhood, the white background represents purity and innocence. When we were taking the first picture, we used slow shutter speed to allow more light and make it brighter. The subject is hugging the stuffed toy and her hair is in pigtails, showing how children are generally playful and innocent. Then we put filters on it to let it show more colour and represent the jubilant, innocent years of childhood through the yellow tint.

The second picture shows the subject letting go of the stuffed toy, showing how in the teenage years, the innocence is peeling away. It also shows how in teenage years, you abandon your childhood in search for identity and adulthood. The grey background represents the transition between childhood and adulthood. For this picture, we used slow shutter to get a bit more light (the setting was really dark), and so that’s why the stuffed toy is blurred in motion. We also put adjusted the colour level so that there’s less colour on this, but not yet black and white. This represents how the colour (innocence) is ‘leaking’ away during the teenage years.

The last picture shows the subject looking back at the stuffed toy in a nostalgic, reminiscing way. It shows how sometimes in adulthood, ignorance is a bliss and childhood seems like it would be better than adulthood. The black background represents the contrast between adulthood and childhood, and how much a person can change from being a child to an adult. For this picture, we used low shutter speed and shone a light at the subject to get the contrast. We put filters on this to make the photo have a blue hue because blue represents sadness, and black and white to show the lack of colour (innocence).

How did you use compositional rules in your final work?

Most of the pictures use the Rule of Space and Rule of Thirds. The second photo also uses vertical and horizontal lines.

Is your work “original”? Why or why not?

I think our work is “original” because we showed childhood and adulthood with not only how the subject reacts to a stuffed toy, but also with colours as well. Most childhood/adulthood themed photos are pictures of children recreated by adults, with the same posture, expression and background. Here, our childhood/adulthood themed photos is a series of reactions to an object throughout life, instead of a recreation of another photo.

Evaluate your photographic series.  How effective is your series in conveying your theme? What would you change?

I think our photographic series is relatively effective in conveying our theme because it shows the transition between a child and an adult. I think it’s also effective in conveying the theme because when one looks at the first photo, they don’t think of life or death, but they think of something related to childhood.  Also, the teddy bear is can easily be related to childhood/adulthood instead of other themes. Lastly, the colour exposure difference causes different moods for each one. The first emits a happy jibe, while the second one is more faded. The last photo would make one feel wistful, and these colour changes show the difference between childhood and adulthood. I would change the person/model in each picture to be same, showing the same person aging throughout their life, portraying childhood and adulthood.

Explain what your role was in the group work?

I was mostly the photographer and also the editor of my photos. My partner would be the model and the prop setter, and I would be the one behind the camera, changing the shutter and aperture settings.