Mood board
About
Jan Roald is a Norwegian photographer who lives in Elvemyrkroken in Norway. He offers his photography services for hire, allowing people to contact him for photo assignments.
His typical style is contrasted black and white images, though he photographs a range of styles such as landscape, portrait, still life etc. He does, however, take some images in colour if the client requests it.
Roald’s work relates to the themes of observe, seek and challenge due to his photographs always observing something or someone through the lens. He also links to seek as he aims to find interesting layouts and compositions for his images. also linking to challenge as he challenges himself to take the best photo he can.
Why I chose the artist
I chose to use Roald as an artist reference due to his album ‘is the life also a chess play’ which he created in June 2019. His album includes photographs of chess pieces in an almost castle like setting where he uses his surroundings to create interesting looking still life images.
I would like to create this using different game pieces. I plan to do this by visiting one of the castles in Jersey and taking the board game pieces with me. From there, I would use the different aspects of the castle, such as the cobble floor or castle walls, to create interesting still life images.
I would also like to create interesting images by creating different effects with the pieces, using different elements in order to imply different meanings behind the images.
I chose this image in particular due to the potential meanings behind the images as well as the effective composition of the photo.
To begin with, we are able to see a snake on the board which helps to highlight the size of the chess pieces. The snake could be a symbolism since throughout history snakes have been used to represent themes such as death, wisdom and health. However, now days when referencing snakes we picture stealth and deceitful, so when applying this to games it could be used to symbolize cheating. The connection between the snake and the game becomes stronger when you take into account the colours, the opposing side being black which is the same as the snake.
If we turn our attention to the photo as a whole, there is a lot to it that can catch our eyes. For example, the shadows of the pieces and the black pieces in the background all help to set the scene of the image making it more enjoyable for the viewer to look at.
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