Diptych Collage
(2020)
Sissi Zheng
Photography & Collage
2848 * 4272
"If there's no one left in the living world to remember you, you disappear from this world. “
----'Coco' , 2017
Concepts
Main Concepts:
I believe that a space like this- that has people’s remain of life and their items- is the best space to keep the memory of their life, especially in a busy city like Shanghai.
We should remember those in the past who fought hard to live. For example, in COVID-19, in war, or even in daily life. We should respect past people who lived in a hard environment.
i. Dust:
The element that shows the trace of time: dust, appeared many times in both images in the diptych. Dust is the representation of past and oldness.
I took the image in a larger aperture to capture all details of dust in the room. I avoid playing with the depth of field since it would blur the background as well as the dust in the background.
ii. Flower:
Flower Represents vividness, hope & new life.
Contrast: I aimed to show the high saturation color of flowers grow on top of the grey and old background. This contrast between the saturation of color would show how people in the past had lived in a dark environment, but still, they (represented by flowers) break the dark environment and live vividly under hope.
iii. Layers:
Layers separate the spaces into different parts to create a surreal space.
They seem to be like two different time periods- the past and present time of the room-, separated in terms of color, but connected in terms of space.
Color: I took the 'past part' of part II through the reflection of the glass door. I aimed to show how memory isn't so clear. Just like in the old movies or how temporary movies present memory, it is usually dusted and in black-and-white, as if there is a filter.
iV. Water:
Since the theme is the birth of life in a hard environment, I wanted to use water to represents a spirit that connects people from the past to the present.
I used only blue color- an abstract way of representing life- and I found this simple way tells more, and make the image neater and cleaner.
The blue color starts from the drawer on the top left, then flows to the two windows, representing that life is steaming from past to present. It doesn't stop blooming and it connects us with people who pasted away.
Processes
i. Part I
Inspiration:
Besides the prosperous WuKang Building, I accidentally found an abandoned security room that is full of dust. No people come to this room or even notice this room. I started to wonder what kind of people had stayed in this room, and what story happened to them? Where did they go? I started to explore the room- explore the items left, and newspaper, gloves, and computer, etc. I was amazed by how beautiful the dust is under the sunlight.
Video about the setting:
Contact Sheet:
The chosen part i:
In the critique of part one, I got the feedback that some people like how this picture is layered. The drawer and the table formed a contrast of lighting, making them like two separate pictures. The idea of layering inspired me to create the second part.
In photoshop, I adjusted the level of the picture, also played with the camera row filter. I increased the saturation of the warm color. I also increased the contrast to make the texture of the table (the scratch), more obvious.
i. Part II
Inspired by layers, and how the windows are shot from different angles, I found that I could use windows to form layers. I used the polygon lasso tool to cut the window parts.
I enhanced the sense of memory and old through using the particle filter.
I cut the drawer as well and put it on the bottom to create the effect of three layers. Then I added a light blue color to create an eye-catching part for the audiences' eye to stay on. Then, their view would follow the stream of blue going down to the two windows.
Conclusion
Improvements:
In the critique, many found that the blue color shapes as an abstract representation of water didn't tell too much itself. People wouldn't understand it as water. Therefore, to improve, I could add elements that indirectly tell that the blue is water. Some said that the drawers in the two images weren't so obvious that they couldn't tell it was a drawer. I found it interesting to keep it in an abstract way. I didn't want everything to be too obvious. To improve, I will find a balance to let the image be abstract while it could also explain itself.
Takeaway & Challenges:
There are some takeaways from this project. Firstly, it inspired my interest in exploring surreal space, I did lots of research in surreal photography and escapism(Please see page '10.14-In Our Own Image').
There are some challenges, for example, one of the main challenges is to connect the two pieces. To overcome this, I put consistent elements in part II such as flower, drawer, and dusts to make them coherent, and tried to connect them conceptually. Another challenge was personal but hard for me to overcome. I have some mysophobia(洁癖), therefore to enter a play that is not clean and full of black dust, it was hard for me to stay. But I just wrapped myself under a raincoat to protect myself from the dust.