Project Proposal

Darius Hedayati, VL Spring 2012

“ A Home Broken But Not Hopeless ”

A Photo Essay

 

Concept/Theme

 

For my final project I decided to create a photo essay based around my parents divorce. I want to use different shades of light and angles to portray my feelings of sadness and hope for my family to stay together.

 

Purpose/Intent

 

I decided to choose this idea because I recently have been struck with feelings of nostalgia about my family. I recently watched a movie montage that I remember seeing when I was a very young child. This movie montage brought me back to a time when I was safe, and when there was nothing to worry about. Upon seeing this montage I thought up the idea of creating a montage of my childhood. Over time this idea transformed from an idea of a childhood montage to a photo essay showing photos of me reflecting on broken relationships coming from my parents divorce. What I hope to achieve by completing this photo essay is to show people the value of family. I want them to not feel bad for me, but be grateful for what some of them have and to understand my pain.

 

Production Plan

 

To create my photo essay I believe that I cannot limit myself to one specific plan of action. I have certain photos such as pictures of my mom and I when I was a child, and pictures of my whole family that I will use, but I am not sure in which way or order I will exactly use it. I plan on having my more sad pictures to be in darker shades of light and setting, while my more hopeful photos will be in more positive color. I want to take 6-8 pictures that adequately portray my emotions about my situation. Ideally I would like to take new pictures with my parents and use them for my photo essay. Unfortunately with the time constraints this will not be possible. Before I take my photos I want to play some music that reminds me of my childhood to set the mood for myself and get emotionally in the right state of mind. The person who will be taking the photos of me is yet to be determined, but clearly needs to be someone who I am very close with and knows me on an emotional level.

 

After taking the photos I will edit them appropriately to serve the purpose of sadness and hope. I do not plan on editing them too heavily because I believe the more natural the pictures are the bigger the effect it will have. Like I said before I will mostly be manipulating the colors and shades of light. Some photos might be in black and white depending on what emotion I am trying to portray. The enhancement on these things will hopefully heighten the mood and portray it even more clearly.

 

I plan on having all elements and principles of design present to make my photos more exquisite. Pattern, repetition, and flow are all very important principles that a photo essay will need to be successful in its attempt at telling a story. To achieve these principles I plan on incorporating color, line, shape and the rest of the elements of design.

 

Inspiration

 

To be completely honest, some of the photo essays I saw in class influenced my idea. I originally wanted to make a movie montage on nostalgia, but after looking through photo essays of fellow classmates from earlier in the semester, I thought it could be just as powerful if not more. I do not plan on emulating one in particular style considering I believe that originality is the key to brilliant art. I still do not know exactly how my photos will come out so I cannot say that I am emulating a particular style.

 

My inspiration for doing this in the first place is my suppressed grief of my parents divorce. I am the oldest sibling and during this tough time had to be the strong one in the family. I take care of my younger sister, mother, and father because I feel like I have it the easiest in the situation. Sometimes this role might suppress my emotions and force me to hold them in. I think this photo essay will be a way for me to get my feelings out on the table. I have been looking for a way to vent without talking to people all the time and I think this might be an effective way. Furthermore my inspiration is to be able to make something artistic and valuable out of a sad situation.

 

Expected Outcome

 

I hope to reach all people through this work. Obviously children may not be an appropriate group to be exposed to such sadness but, if mature enough I think it would be valuable for them to see the work so they can appreciate what they have. I also hope to really reach people who have gone through the same thing as me. I want them to feel like they can relate and for them to feel the hope that I feel. Although sadness might be an uncontrollable feeling when seeing this, the overall message I want to end with is that, life goes on. If the worst thing that ever happens to you is having your parents split up, you probably will have a pretty good life. There is still hope for a family even if it is different than what it was.