To explore what identity means to me I decided to focus on my cultural heritage. My idea is to take portraits of myself and edit them to reflect my identity and to make them more interesting to look at. I enjoy the work of photographers like Carolle Benitah, and Dryden Goodwin, and wish to incorporate their editing styles into my final pieces.
Photo shoots-
Saris-
My plan is to sew the patterns from the saris my family owns onto portraits. Saris (sometimes spelled ‘sarees’) are a traditional South Asian garment and my family own quite a lot because that is where my mum’s side of the family is originally from. They are significant to me because I would never normally get to wear one, despite it being a part of my cultural heritage. I did the photoshoot during the Christmas holidays in preparation for the project.
I did a second shoot in the studio so I could get better images, I will be using the images from that. In the studio I put them onto a white background so they can be the main focus, and just used the basic lights already on in the room.
To edit them I mostly increased the brightness, contrast and saturation.
I most liked the patterns of the white one and the pink one, and also like how the pink one looks photographed. Pink Saris are often associated with femininity while white is often associated with purity and new beginnings, but also has connections with mourning and death. The patterns on the fabric themselves often do not have much meaning, at least, the one’s owned by my family.
Portraits-
The second shoot I am planning is some portraits which could be used to draw on or embroider into. I will take this portraits in the studio so I can use the best lighting setup I can get. These images need to be high quality as they will be used as a base for my final products.
I edited them using a variety of styles, keeping some in colour and others in black and white. I was thinking of doing another photo shoot so I had more pictures to choose from but could not find the time.
