Photo Diptych

--CD of the Water💿🌊

By Yuyao He

Concept

What is a CD? Maybe you would say: CDs are carrier and recorder of sound and scenes. When listening to a CD, maybe you will immerse in a elegant music, maybe you will recall a precious memory. CD is the recorder of the magic of sound and the treasure of life.

Then, what about the ripples in the water? Imagine a scene: you walk by the river on a rainy day, and the fine rain drops onto the water's surface, creating ripples that spread out in circles. Ripples are the recorder of wind and raindrops. It is the visualization of nature.

In my photo diptych, I was trying to build the similarity of these two distinct things. One belongs to the digital world, one belongs to nature. From the CD in the first photo, I'm guiding you to the second photo to discover their similarity.

The connection between these two images mainly lies in two aspects. The first is the visually apparent harmony in color tones. I adjusted the white balance and saturation of both images to achieve a corresponding color scheme.

The second aspect is the unity in shape. I emphasized the 'circular' nature of the CD and the ripples, as well as their ring-like structures. This makes it easier to notice their similarities.

The most important thing is: how to interpret the diptych?

As you can see, I put a piece of sky in the upper corner, a few clouds in the middle, and water in the bottom. Within the entire photo, you can see different existence of water. Just like in the first image, the view of the sea is reflected on the CD, capturing the water through reflection. The ripples also record the fluctuations of the water in the diptych. The ripples are like the CD in the water, serving as a recorder of nature.

Process

To be honest, the concept of my diptych has changed thousands of time. I have thought about comparing ancient and modern architecture, or contrasting Eastern and Western garden art, or showcasing sunset scenery, or even presenting an inverted world...... As you can see, my idea is totally different from what I've posted before. But this happens to almost all of my project, so...whatever.

For the first image, I placed a CD on my laptop keyboard and displayed a photo of the sea that I had taken earlier on the screen, turning the brightness up to the maximum to reflect the image of the water onto the CD. It sounds like a very simple process. However, during the shooting, finding the right angle and adjusting the focus caused me a lot of frustration. I considered whether to use lighting to make the image brighter, but ultimately, the effect in the darkness was better.

For the diptych, I got this idea from an artist's work I saw online.

⬅ ⬅ ⬅ ⬅ ⬅ ⬅ Like this

I can't tell how I feel when I saw this for the first time. The eerie black hole and the sun, the passionate red, the strong contrast of colors, different landscapes colliding together. When I saw it, I thought, this is what I want to create. In fact, I don't even know why I want to display a photo of the sky while working on this image; perhaps I see the CD as the moon, and the sky is its place of existence.

Improve

One thing I'm not satisfied with this project is the printing. No matter how many times I tried, the color differences in the printed version were always hard for me to accept. I think this has to do with the lighting in the first image I took; the image was too dark, making it difficult to print out the original colors. If I were to improve it, I think I would retake the photo.

Another issue is that I didn’t do a good job presenting the project. I’m always like this, not very good at explaining my designs. I didn’t have a very clear concept in mind, which is one of my weaknesses. If I had more time, I would explore a clearer concept and give my work a soul.

Now, let's see my photo diptych--CD of the Water!💿🌊

dip.pdf

Contact Sheet: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1gVKKjXVAp70J3C7pIfESDjQeeRjC3cYd/view?usp=drive_link

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