The single images and montage show in the first class in January enlightened my initial engaging of the subject. I had a range of ideas and then finalised to ‘hotspot’ for series and ‘mask’ for montage. I like conflicts in my concepts to create tension within the works.
Suicide is the tragic product of the conflicts between public society and private self. The public has been seeking measurements to save suicide victims. My intention is to uncover the numerous suicides happened around us on a daily basis and at the same time to pass the message that the public does care about every private lives. I did extensive research to find popular public place where people commit suicide and how suicide is a public agenda. The biggest challenge is to shoot some well-known place such as Tower Bridge etc as I try not to re-produce the familiar tourist images. I visited these locations several times and shot different aspects in different angles but eventually I am not sure of them. One image to depict a location is never an easy job especially when I don’t want my image too literal but want some connotation signification related to the theme. I am not sure if I achieved this level as well even though I used door as a signifier in most of the images. Another challenge is to create visual coherence, as the subjects are all different in appearance. Terez Osztaf’s advice not to limit to the format I shot illuminated me to re-consider the format of the images. I then changed 6X4 to 6X6 by cropping a lot of un-necessary details, which simplified the visual elements and improved visual coherence. I always like some cold eerie ambiance in some landscape or cityscape. I think I did well in Queens Way Station and Hornsey Bridge shots. I think I used text well to conceptualise the image to express my project intention.
While the series is somehow literal, my montage is more conceptual engaging. The idea is actually generated when I read the original essay written by Jonas Brodin recommended by Terez. Liverpool Street Station offered an excellent venue for me to capture a large group of people, though it took me a month to find this. The realisation is a little perfect in my opinion. I wanted to get a dramatic and interesting image as the base for montage but I am not sure if I got it. Secondly my limited photoshop skill does not help the montage as well. The final base image quality is not good due to high ISO when shooting. Mask photo source is problematic as the light of each mask is not uniform and the lighting does not match the Liverpool Street Station ambiance light. Therefore I don’t know if I did it well albeit I think the concept is excellent.
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