Future Slipping By
Taking the idea from our graphic novel that we created months prior, we were asked to adapt the story into a diptych that was capable of explaining the central conflict being presented.
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Based on the story of my animation, the photos capture a grieving man unable to let go of the loss of his wife, proving to be a centerpiece of my story and his journey with coping. A recurring symbol is time, portrayed through his deceased wife’s watch. The diptych reflects the conflict and what caused him to have such inner dysphoria. In the first photo (left), although the scene does not take place in the story’s duration, it was the beginning and reason for the story. The heartbreaking moment of the husband’s wife dying was the driving force of the plot. In the second photo (right), the scene shows the conflict in action and its toll on the husband, transforming him into a reclusive man using his obsession with clocks and watches as a method of coping with his loss.
Getting the proper models to represent my characters was the toughest challenge, due to the fact of not having many elderlies as contacts. As a way to get past this, I opted for my diptych to become an adaptation of my actual story, where the husband and wife would be young adults. The setting in both pictures was a bedroom as a sense of home and what would normally be a comfort, turn into discomfort for the grieving husband. For the lighting, I wanted to emphasize the darkness of the husband as a way to visualize his mourning. The position of the husband was important to me, because I wanted to emphasize the feel that something in his life was missing. I wanted it to be evident that in his wife’s place in the first photo, was replaced with her watch in the second and later leads to later complications for his story.
Through photos, especially when the intent is to tell a story, it's critical to depict the atmosphere and mood through the lighting. This was something I realized when I shot the photos and afterwards when I had to edit them on Photoshop. If the photo looks too warm, it makes everything seem almost too joyous. I had to utilize cooling filters for this, as well as edit the brightness and contrast because the source light for my particular diptych is behind the male figure.
