Tuesday, May 7, 2013

Reworked Proposal and Evaluation for Project 2.


REWORKED PROPOSAL:

  I come from a nation that seems to be obsessed with consumerism. We buy things, and eventually throw them away. We waste resources and we waste money. This consumeristic behaviour governs the way we view our food as well. We buy in excess, and not all of it is eaten. Sometimes this is simply due to time: food rots before we can use it.

  The food pyramid has been around for decades. It tells us how we should and should not eat, ideally, and therefore what we should and should not buy. Those foods that should be avoided are at the top, and those that should be consumed the most are at the bottom. This seems to go against the natural taxonomy, that what is important is seen as above, and what is unimportant is lowly. Also, it seems as though the food groups at the bottom of the pyramid decay faster than those at the top. This provides an interesting juxtaposition: the foods we are supposed to avoid are able to be kept and eaten for longer periods of time, and are symbolically held in esteem at the top of the pyramid, and vice versa.

  With this Time project, I seek to investigate several things. First, I want to see the way that certain foods rot and change and decay over time and how this relates to the food pyramid. Second, I want to affirm the consumeristic tendency to over-buy and throw away in bulk. Third, I want to challenge the model of the food pyramid that seems to be contradictory. I want to do this through the presentation of a series of images of food over time.

  I will photograph 6 different foods – I from each of the 6 food groups. I have a month to let my food rot, and I will document it’s changes within that month. With close up images of food, I will have to focus on angles, lighting, and the background. I aim to use bright lights, almost as if in an advertisement, with bold colors and a white background. The angle will be from above to show greater surface area of the food.

  I’ve chosen this idea because I am so fascinated by the consumer nation I live in. I’ve never understood those people who buy food and don’t eat it, so I wanted to look at the time scale for each of the 6 foods to decay. My work is interesting, because it shows how each food changes over time, which is different in each case. It brings to light the reason why junk food is ‘easier’ than fruits and veggies – it is often cheaper, and does not go bad as quickly. I think that my work will help to demonstrate some issues with the food pyramid, and hopefully highlight the futility of buying massive quantities of food, as is common in a consumeristic nation.

  The result of this project will be a series of photographs. Each photo will be in the shape of a pyramid, representative of the food pyramid. The pyramid will be split up into 6 categories, just like how the food pyramid looks, and will have a photo of each food in the 6 categories. There will be 5 pyramids in total, for the 5 different photo shoots I had. In total, there are 30 final photographs that will comprise the 5 pyramids.


EVALUATION:

   Overall, I’m pleased with the outcome of the project. There are some things I like more than others, and some things I would have definitely changed. If I had more time or access to better resources, I feel I could have changed my project for the better.


   I really like my final images. I think they’re very strong, and portray what I intended. I don’t like that they are not all exactly the same, though they are close.

   The hardest part about my project was photographing the food from the same angle each time. I had markings where I set my tripod up for each shoot, but it was hard to get things exactly the same. Photoshopping each image separately also led to some differences. However, I’m pleased with the outcome, and I learnt a lot about photoshop with this project.

   With this project, I learnt that it is simultaneously easy and hard to photograph the same thing multiple times. It is easy in that you can compare to earlier photos to produce the same results. However, it’s tricky in the same respect: if the images are too dissimilar, it looks sloppy.

   If I could do anything differently with this project, I would set up a makeshift studio, rather than just storing the food in my flat and moving it each time I took photos. I would put more effort into taking the photos as well. I think when I began the project, I had the idea in my mind that I could photoshop all the imperfections away. In reality, I should have taken more time composing my shots, whitening the background, etc. before taking the photo rather than after.

   All in all, I think this project went much better than the first. My images are stronger, my technique is improving, and my skills with photoshop are getting much better.


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