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Aiko273 — Power Corrupts - TEST SHOOT
Published: 2008-03-30 15:01:45 +0000 UTC; Views: 2998; Favourites: 55; Downloads: 38
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****IF YOU ARE GOING TO COMMENT, PLEASE READ ALL THIS****To explain briefly and as simply as I can my project is based on Animal Farm by George Orwell. If you have read it you should be able to understand what themes I am trying to convey (or will be conveying in the final photo). For the rest of you... Animal Farm is almost written like a child's book or a fable, but as you go through the story you realise what is happening. The first time I read it (I was 10 or something) I didn't understand what was really happening but I knew it was wrong.
It is based on soviet totalitarianism; i.e. the events and characters in the book are a parallel of the early history of the Soviet Union and Stalinism.
There are animals on a farm that are mistreated by their often-drunk owner and are spurred on to overthrow the humans and take the farm as their own. They do this sucessfully and set up an "all animals are equal" society with it's own set of commandments. Soon though, some species seem to think themselves better than others (the pigs) and begun to become greedy for power, destroying anyone that opposes them. The leader of the pigs (and soon the rest of the animals) is called Napoleon and represents Stalin.
There is a lot more to it but I'm really going to be focusing on the pigs. My main idea is to have 2 pigs; perhaps one in a military uniform and the other representing the working class. The body language will show the military pig to have complete power over the working class. As for how the photo would look, I've been looking at various Russian photographers (particularly Alexander Rodchenko [link] and Eleazar Langman [link] ) and noticed a "trend" of very harshly lit, black and white, digagonally composed photographs.
Today I did the first test shoot mainly to test out the pig head, lighting, a possible pose and colours.
BLACK AND WHITE VERSION: [link]
I did the colour edit first, and even though it's more like my usual stuff I think perhaps I will have to use black and white purely because of the photographers I've been influenced by. However I need to find out if I can edit the colours. If not, then I'll just have to make use of a coloured gel.
If I ignore the background (through this I've decided I definitely do need another test shoot in the studio) I like the lighing. I think either a black background or a red one (linking to the Soviet flag) would work better, with perhaps longer shadows (standing further away from the background). I've decided the military pig will be my boyfriend (purely because he's bigger than me) and I'll be the working class pig. I need to look into body language a lot more to decide exactly what I want.
If you want to help me and you have read through all this please tell me what you think about the lighting, the colours, how I can improve, if theres anything I haven't thought of? It will be so helpful D: D:
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Comments: 32
this is amazing! i haven't read the book, just seen the film but wow you've captured the feeling really well!
& i think it looks better in colour (Y) more interesting
nice one
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Nice.
I've recently read the Animal Farm allegory of the russian revolution, so I understand what your trying to portray. Although It may just be me but i think the photograph looks more realistic in black and white when it comes to the pigs head.
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Nice, I thought of Animal Farm before I even read the description. I look forward to seeing more = D
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Oh, I love it. I also remember reading that when I was young and I didn't understand. I really like how you portrayed the ideas of the book. ^^
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Knowledge is power;all power corrupts. Study hard be evil.
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Woah! That perfectly illustrates Animal Farm! As soon as I saw it I reckognized it. But the lifted hand does look a bit awkward...
Great photo.
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i knew it was about animal the moment i saw the picture, very well portrayed.
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I've read that novel a few times. It's a very inspirational book, and you did a very nice job conveying it. Awesome shot.
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I've recently read the book, and I liked it so much ^^
and this shot is beautiful <33
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I think you did a good job with portraying what you set out to portray. :]
Animal farm is a great book.
Duckie <3
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creepy , but thats the good part about this pic (y)
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I'd love to see some kind of photograph involving 'the dogs' bearing their teeth at the viewer of the photograph, with a half-shadowed pig face in the background grinning maliciously.
Anyways, I think if you're going to make the working class animal into anything it should be a sheep, simply because of the bleating that they did inspired by the pigs. "Two legs bad, four legs good". Also, if you're going to add a working class character into the photo I'd recommend having them on all fours. It wasn't the "lower class" animals that eventually broke all the rules, it was the pigs. I think there should be an ignorant innocence to the working class, much like real life was during that time. It's been mentioned on many occasions that the people did not work with their brains, they worked with their backs. Knowledge really was power at that point in time.
I don't really have an opinion that I think would help dramatically with composition, since I am no photographer. However, the idea of the corrupt man-pig standing in the foreground rubbing his hands together, with a working class animal in the background would be very cool - especially if you could adjust the lighting so there were bars falling across it's face. (Much like the Rodchenko photo) Almost extreme angles, and harsh blacks and whites would be very cool to see.
I hope this helps, I've never written this much in a comment before. :D
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This is so helpful, thank you so much
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If you are using animal farm I do believe another animal should represent the working class, simply because even though there was a pig leader, the rest of the pigs still followed along and automatically believed they had a higher standing similar to their leader.
I think color would also add to the strength of the photo.
Also when thinking about the photo with both people, I think the angle would really change the feel. (course you probably thought of that, but if its at a lower angle it seems the fewer is also being looked down upon, so on so forth)
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Someone else mentioned this and I do realise that.. I'm not sure why I didn't take that into account, I think I didn't want it too complicated. I might use the two pigs as military, and just make it like a propaganda poster, I might not, I'll see how things go.
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I can understand not wanting to have to many elements. Two pigs would definatly make the military side look stronger.
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The first thing I did think when I saw this was Animan Farm. XD I like how with the pig's head there is a human body perhaps to represent how 'human-like' the pigs became later in the story. I'm not sure whether that was your goal or whether it simply ended up that way. Well, this also had interesting timing as I've been reading 1984 for the past two days.
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Ahhh brilliant. Yes that was my plan!
1984 is amazing as well... but more popular than Animal Farm it seems.
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the pigs considered themselves higher class, so would it not be a good idea to have another animal representing the working class? for example boxer the horse? [link] )
i love the picture though, the lighting is brilliant!
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I thought of that, because Boxer does represent the working class, but I think I decided that I didn't want to complicate it too much... but now I'm reconsidering. I'll decide once I've done more test shoots.
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fair enough, hope it goes well!
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Personally, I feel that the black-and-white might 'detract' from the overall effect this particular picture has-- I rather like how the pig head stands out because of the subtle color (and I think it could be an effective tool to 'color' the worker and military pigs different colors. Isn't red often associated with the 'worker' and the 'common man' etc.? I dunno, just throwing ideas out there.).
I love the lighting's effect on the clothing [stark but not distracting] and background, but I don't like at all how the hand looks obscured. In this photo, at least, considering how...mm, what to call it, 'loud' the pose is, it just feels kind of like, "...well, where's the hand?"
Overall, though, this sounds like a fantastic project.
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I see I see. With the red I have a vision of it being quite overpowering and vast in the background, so it would cover both the military pig and the worker.
I agree with you, I think that the only bit that bothers me here. It is due to the light and the white sleeve. I didn't darken the hand anymore than anything else.
thank you!!
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