Things I’d like to put at the beginning
I always have a strong interest for sky, no matter in the morning or at dusk. I feel like there’s something more than just colors or emotions. It’s something deeper, echoing with a voice in the bottom of my heart.
Sky is an image, an image that has played, and will continue to play as a role of the richest imagination one could ever have. It shall be passionate, or be calming. It can be adolescent, or mature. It is the highest mountain, and the deepest ocean. It is you, and it is also me.
About the Project
Earlier last year, I started to do some portrait photography; and it was not because I lost my interest in landscape photograhy. In fact, I did even more landscape photography compared to the period when I hadn’t started to do portraits. The reason I started to do portraits was because I found one thing I had long overlooked in the past:
Places of interest are about civilizations, and civilizations are about humans.
It is almost impossible to do landscape photography, especially cityscape photography and ruin photography, excluding the human factors. Even if it is pure natural scenaries, it is the human emotion that gives those scenes meanings. After all, all the photos are more or less incarnations of humanity to some extent.
So here I go. I shifted focus to the humanity part, by starting to combine environment and portraits.
Inspirations
The color of the sky is contantly changing during a day. The color shifts so dramatically: from orange red to dark cyan; from purple to pure black; the emotions of the colors vary so drastically, just like the internal world of different people. I believe that everyone can find a unique color of the sky, representing his or her personality so well.
When doing portraits, unless done in an adequate studio, it is impossible to avoid the problem of blending natural light into the photo. It is a pain point to photographers because the natural color is so uncontrollable - the sun rise at east, and therefore comes the light. You cannot command the sun to rise at west in the morning. It is simply impossible. However, the uncontrollable nature of natural light also brings a lot of possibilities: it might just surprise you at some random afternoon, by blending your bedroom with some cozy feeling light.
I was always confused about using natural light, until I saw those images:
These images shocked me. They have done merely nothing but to extend the sky and leave empty spaces at the top of the images. However, that is the point: leaving room for viewers to imagine. Maybe that is the method I should try, this thought came to my mind. It is a unique mind mapping for people, portraiting people using the color of the sky. That is exacly what I am looking for: a perfect blend of environment and human subjects.
What to Do
Based on the inspirations, I think it is good for me to do some color theory practices by deliberately using natural light. This will also be a challenge for me to empathize with people - if I cannot do this well, the result will be catastrophic because the color I choose isn’t depicting the human subject accurately. But I believe, if I can have this done, the result will be pleasing.
Every single try will take a “Sky Color Portrait” as the cover image, being the summary of a person, followed by several directing shots, to do a very brief introduction of him or her. Probably these photos will not be the prettiest photos of him or her, but I hope that these photos will be something very personal - that one day when you see those photos, you know that it is you, not someone else.
Links to Works
Whenever I do a new try, the link will be posted here, as an index.