Resentment Through Music: A Junior Design Student Conceptual Project by Mia Polcyn (2017)

I am exploring the feeling of resentment through the experience of making music. For my conceptual photo, I decided to photograph a mask illuminated by red light in front of a highway of passing cars at night. I shot at night with an external flash and red bike light. I shot at a slow shutter speed to capture the movement of cars. The mask is meant to represent resentment, and how it encompasses anger and greed by attempting to embody something it is not. I chose to flash a red light on the mask in order to exemplify anger, as the color red is often associated with anger and jealousy. The specs of dirt show how far one is willing to go to achieve what they desire. I chose to use passing cars in the background because of the movement of light represents music; dancing and movement is commonly linked to music. The chain fence behind the mask acts as a divider between resentment and making music, and how a resentful person usually separates themselves from being successful when they try to put on a mask rather than being original.

To assist the production of this photo, I used photoshop to make my image seem more comfortable and safe, by filling empty space and using more appealing color scheme to make an image more visually interesting to the viewer. I used the clone tool to fill the empty space with a more dense patch of lights. In addition, I used a gradient map of orange and blue to make the lights more neon, which gave the photo a more retro look. From this project I learned that photoshop can help to complete a composition to feel more safe and pleasing in color.