Title: Indecisiveness
I wanted to experiment with hues and exposure to create a piece that was visually appealing. This image, by showing the same person facing two opposite sides shows indecisiveness, a quality that most of us struggle with. Additionally, the range of grey shades symbolizes that nothing is ever black and white, therefore not all decisions are as simple as the binomial distribution where there are only two possible outcomes
Title: Suicidal
Flowers generally represent life, which for a suicidal person is directly correlated with hope. In this case however, with the use of fake flowers I tried to represent the illusion of life where there is no hope for any. The use of a font that is barely visible over the light background to spell out the word 'hope' is a technique I exploited to show that when somebody is in such a distraught state of mind that they see no reason to live, hope is something they fail to see.
Title: Personality
One person, multiple emotions. My inspiration for this piece came from long hours spent thinking about people and how they react in different situations. When someone's reactions vary too much in opposite situations, we tend to label them as having a split personality disorder. But if one thinks about it, all of us have multiple different moods and mini-personalities within our overall personality. Keeping color theories in mind, I created this piece, using the same model but switching hues to convey different emotions; ranging from dark orange for distrust to dark pink for love.
(1/2)
Title: Bijli Gayi
The theme I went for has deep-rooted local context. A common occurrence in every Pakistani household is load shedding. The power goes out for a few hours everyday and the only source of light that majority of the population can afford are candles.
The first piece aims to convey the experience of having no electricity, via the image of pitch darkness in which only the lantern and the hand carrying the lantern can be seen. The title 'Bijli Gayi' is an Urdu phrase, which when translated into English means 'the electricity is gone.'
The first piece aims to convey the experience of having no electricity, via the image of pitch darkness in which only the lantern and the hand carrying the lantern can be seen. The title 'Bijli Gayi' is an Urdu phrase, which when translated into English means 'the electricity is gone.'
(2/2)
Title: 54 Rupees
The second piece is more complex. The concept of circles is an attempt at representing coins, essentially money, to introduce pathos into the piece. Titled '54 Rupees,' this response is aimed at getting across the message that everyday billions of Pakistanis spend money on candles. Although this expenditure may be insignificant to the upper strata of society, for the low income bracket which is more than 80% of the population, this amount is the entirety of their day's earnings.
Title: Staples
This picture, taken in a slum area, shows a local store and highlights small-scale, low-budget advertising of staple goods.
Title: Chauvinism
With its bridal theme, this piece shows how majority of girls feel suffocated in our society, especially after getting married. Chauvinism, or the absence of feminism is the root cause of this general feeling of oppression.
Title: Darbar
Title: Positivity
In this piece, the colorful toys represent joy and optimism, which is complemented by the bright lights. The vibrant colors symbolize a certain level of childishness, which I believe is necessary to have pure, unadulterated fun.
