Still lIfe

Activism

For the Activisim assignment, I wanted to take a more unique approach. I knew that most people were doing AIDS, so I decided to follow that same route, but with a different perspective. I feel like as a society, we are extremely judgemental when we hear that someone has AIDS, and we tend to draw unreasonable conclusions about them, and their lifestyles. In a sense, we take caution- and indirectly avoid them, or withdraw from relationships with them. This is an important issue, and because of that, I wanted to capture that sense of hesitation that accompanies most individuals when it comes to talking about AIDS. People become uncomfortable, and suddenly don't want to address the issues. AIDS is one of the most prevalent diseases in our country to date. Instead of photographing a sad child with AIDS, or a individual suffering with the disease, I wanted to portray the way society views it. Society almost outcasts the issue completely, and tries to pretend that it doesn't exist. But it does, and as a community, we need to grow up, and try to beat this epidemic.

"Color My Life With the Chaos of Trouble "

Amber and I decided to have some fun one day in the studio. We found these bright pink boas and thought that they would be the perfect prop . I used only the hot lights which gave me a crisp photo in the end. Then, I got the idea to drop feathers from the top to create a cascading effect. This was difficult, and I had to readjust my shutter speed to ensure that I could capture them falling in time. I chose this background, because I thought it offered an interesting contrast with the intensity of the other colors within the shot. It was harder than I anticipated to get the feathers to fall sporadically. The would often fall in clumps, which was not appealing in the shot. Or, as exhibited in the second picture, I would only be able to capture a few falling at a time, which looked awkward. Overall, this shoot was one of the most fun, because I didn't have a particular theme, or purpose for shooting.