A majority of Shirin Neshat’s photography serves not only as art, but as a political statement addressing the lack of personal freedoms existing back at her home in Iran. After revisiting the Middle East following her being exiled, she became aware of the many forms of oppression being forced by Islamic law, especially upon women. In her photos, her choice in subject complies with the law that only the hands, feet, and face, be shown, though her statement is made through her poetic overlays. The works of poets Forough Farrokhzad and Tahereh Saffarzadeh cover the subjects of the shots, advocating for the aspirations of those being oppressed.
For this photo recreation, I chose the piece, “Speechless,” in which the subject is displayed using strong subject and a text overlay. The only area on the subject that is free of the text is the eye, which draws attention to it. Similarly to the other photos in my set, I customized my text overlay. Rather than writing in the same script used by Neshat, I made it more personalized to the lives of me and my subject. The statement, “look beneath the surface,” fits the theme of the judgment that many teens face, and the necessity for people to search deeper than appearance to fully understand who a person is.
I found the overall experience of recreating these photos to be overwhelmingly positive. I was forced to use my own, personal life experiences to respond to her images, and while I would typically consider myself to be a rather uncreative person, I am pleased with the way this series turned out. I feel like the personal touch that I added is relatable to a lot of teens at my age, and promotes a positive message that can be aspired towards.
For this shot, I noticed a rainbow being cast from my mirror and took it as my opportunity to get my “artful selfie.” With the help of the reflection of the camera screen in my mirror, I was able to capture this strong subject shot.
One misperception that people often have is that school comes easily to me, and while this is typically the case when it comes to academics, the overall social environment of high school certainly takes a toll on my stress and anxiety levels. Biting my nails has always been one of my coping mechanisms in times of pressure, which I attempted to convey through this photo. By using a wide-open aperture and shallow depth of field, I captured this photo that I feel expresses some of the unseen difficulties that exist beyond my performance as a student.
In order to capture pictures that convey unconventional beauty, I stuck to everyday, mundane subjects that are often overlooked or even viewed as being ugly. For my first shot, I saw a chain hanging from a machine, and decided that I could add interest to it by shooting it from a worm’s eye angle. Then, I shot a photo of a camera lens, which I found interesting because the lens would typically have the exact opposite role that it took in this circumstance. My next two shots were of plants, and what I think makes this special is the fact that they were dead, yet still beautifully preserved. It is common to see photos of nature while it is in full bloom, but much less common to see it being captured in this state. My fifth and final photo is of a hand print that I found on one of the school windows. While this was actually a pretty disgusting finding, I feel like there is some beauty in it if you don’t think too hard about what you’re looking at.
Over the course of this semester, I feel that I have gained a much deeper understanding of a variety of different photography and editing skills thanks to the projects assigned to me throughout. In the beginning, the more technical aspects of photography were the class’ focal point, such as composition and lighting. As it progressed, however, the assignments became increasingly dependent on using my own creativity to come up with interesting photo concepts. I have never really thought of myself as being a particularly creative person, but by the end of the course I feel that I was forced to step outside of my comfort zone. Now, I am left with works that I am proud of, and previously never would have had the correct mindset to create. Ultimately, I am really glad that I made the decision to take this course, and will definitely be recommending it to anyone in need of an elective.