I am exploring the feeling of being trapped through the experience of abuse. My photograph features a bruised peach inside of a black cage, the peach represents abuse and the cage demonstrates the feeling of being trapped. The placement of these objects is meant to be relatively self explanatory. While shooting this I could not ignore the statistic that 90% of perpetrators of sexual violence against women are men, (2010 National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey), because of this statisic I chose to make the background of this photo pale blue. The dim lighting of this photo is to further empathize the dark nature of the subject and add emotional depth.
By using a cage I wanted to show the feeling that a lot of sexual assault survivors experience. The cage represents victim shamers, self-doubt, guilt, ptsd, rape culture, abusive relationships, ruined lives, and everything that makes a survivor feel suffocated. The bruised peach represents the emotional and/or physical effects of abuse that are often shielded and hidden by the victim.
This image was edited in Adobe Photoshop by using techniques we had learned in Design class. To edit the hue of the peach I used the Hue/Saturation tool and chose the “Reds” option to change with the vibrancy of the peach. I did a similar editing process with the blue background using the same tool under the “Blues” option. To create the darker atmosphere that I previously mentioned, I adjusted the Brightness/Contrast to darken the image.
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