Lindsay Powell's Midterm Proposal

Project Idea:

For my midterm I plan to recreate street/caution signs with people. I am going to place people in outfits/situations that will recreate some form of commonly known sign. For example: Animal Crossing, for which I have a hat that is a face of a moose in antlers that I plan to put on a friend and photography them crossing a road-hopefully a more green suburban road and not the city. Another example is Caution floor slippery when wet, in which I will make the subject wear bright yellow like the sign and photograph them slipping or mid slip if I can get enough light to do a fast shutter speed.

I plan to use well enough known signs that people can easily recognize and even have fun guessing which one is which. I am trying to stick to only American signs but I have to admit I wish I could do the London Underground’s(train) “Mind the Gap.” I am a little worried about making the message clear as possible, but also having some fun with it. Another idea I want to pursue is dead end with the use of caution tape around a fake crime scene. Not sure if I want to have a person for a dead body though or do a chalk outline.

Compositional Strategies:

I think for this project I am going to do a mix of compositional strategies. Using both horizontal and vertical shots depend on what will look best for the shot. For example the animal crossing and dead end photos will most like be horizontal, while for the caution I might keep it vertical to make it more like the sign I am mimicking. I will most like shoot the photos head on but some might require including more of a background to explain the sign.

Quality of Light:

I think the light will slightly change photo-to-photo depending on what will look better. But I think most will have direct bright light to make the photos look brighter. I am going to try to plan for sunny days, but who can ever really plan the weather in Chicago. I want to use natural light for a majority of the photos as that’s what most of the signs relate to being outside, but some like the caution sign I will shoot indoors.

Color Theory:

I plan to use bright colors for my photos to make the pop out to the viewer just like the signs are supposed to do. I want to draw attention to the subject with using the colors that are main color of the signs, which will involve mostly bright yellows, oranges, and reds. Although some photos like the animal crossing, I will focus more on the action of the animal crossing and using a natural animal brown for the clothes instead of the color of the sign.