Instruments of the Past: A Junior Design Student Conceptual Project by Max Baler (2017)

I am exploring the feeling of annoyance through the experience of taking a risk.

To represent my concept statement, I took a frayed rope that was hanging a torn sleeping mask over black water. The rope was frayed in a way that showed a single strand that was holding it together. The rope was keeping the mask from falling in the water, but the rope is close to breaking and the mask is in danger of falling in the black water. I used a black background with led flashlights because the light is white and it gave the objects a sort of spotlight look that I was trying to achieve.

Putting your trust in someone else is a risk. That is what the sleeping mask and rope represent. Trust is blind and when you put your trust in someone, it can be very easily broken. The rope is very close to breaking and dropping the sleeping mask into the black water. The black water is meant to represent the lies, heartbreak, sadness, betrayal and other feeling that you feel when trust is broken. The sleeping mask is ripped on one of the eyes to show annoyance. It is still somewhat usable but it lets a small amount of light in.

For this project, I did most of the editing in camera raw. The picture was dark so I tried to raise the exposure and lights and lowering shadows. I couldn’t really get the balance right until it was suggested that I try using the auto setting. It made the picture much brighter but also added a lot of noise. Although annoying at first, I ended up keeping it that way because I liked what it did to the photo. It wasn’t what I expected but it turned out to be okay. I also changed the color of the mask to a more bright blue. I thought that the original color of the sleeping mask, dark blue, was too close to the background black and didn’t stand out like I intended for it to. To me a brighter color represented a more innocent, naive representation of trust that was soon to be spoiled in the black liquid.