Powder...Wait, I meant power.

My final project definitely turned out differently than I planned, but I still like the overall result. I wasn't expecting this to be so difficulty. Trying to get the flour and powder mid-air was actually pretty tricky. The people I had helping me had to experiment with different ways to throw the powder on me to see what looked best. Being able to have a long self timer with continuous shooting on my camera really made getting myself in the picture easy. I had planned to really exaggerate the colors in photoshop from the beginning, so the way the colors and contrast in each picture turned out is something I really liked. I would probably do this type of project again and just try it out different ways. Maybe I could do someone else or even an object instead of trying self-portraiture. Overall I really like the way this turned out, but I definitely think I could improve it. 

Planning for Money and Consumerism

Research:

Basic Color Theory

• The Color Wheel
• primary- red, yellow and blue
• secondary-green, orange and purple
• tertiary- yellow-orange, red-orange, red-purple, blue-purple, blue-green and yellow-green
• Color Harmony
• something that is pleasing the eye (not too bland or chaotic)
• analogous- 3 colors side by side on the wheel 
• complementary- 2 colors directly across from each other
• nature- colors found together in nature will always be harminous
• Color Context
• contrast of different colors (red on black compared to red on white)
• 3 colors can be perceived as 4

The Meanings of Colors

• Red
• the color of extremes
• powerful
• love, seduction, violence, danger, anger, and adventure
• magical and religious
• Yellow
• captures our attention
• happiness, optimism, enlightenment and creativity
• also cowardice, betrayal, egoism, and madness
• Blue
• dark- trust, dignity, intelligence and authority
• bright- cleanliness, strength, dependability and coolness
• light- peace, serenity, ethereal, spiritual, infinity
• Green
• growth, rebirth and fertility
• luck, nature, environment
• Purple
• nobility and luxury
• rare and supernatural
• magic, mystery, spirituality, creativity, dignity, royalty
• Orange
• energy, vitality, cheer, excitement, adventure, warmth and health
• Pink
• very controversial- especially in terms of boys and girls

Artists

• Kyle Thompson
• work is mostly self-portraiture
• his use of flour inspired my project
• images create a loop
• started with abandoned houses
• born in Chicago
• Keshia Anderson

• fashion photographer who really utilizes color
• a lot of portraiture 
• lives in California

My plan for this project is kind of an abstract interpretation of what I desire/consume. Most people would not think of color when asked what they desire, but my life would be extremely boring without colors. I wanted to use a type of powder so I chose flour and the color run powder. I thought doing a transition from almost no color to a lot of different colors would be a cool thing to try. I originally wanted to show more emotion, but it was really difficult to even open my eyes, let alone smile while having a whole bunch of powder thrown at my face.

Power: Money and Consumerism

My idea for this project is to showcase my desire and need for color in my life. When people look at it they aren't going to understand how it relates to consumerism or even money and that's what I want. I want it to be more about the desire than the money. I plan on using flour to showcase a lack of color with a self portrait and then use powder paint and regular face paint to show a progression from almost absence of color to full blown color. I want the final piece to be almost chaotic but not so overwhelming that people don't want to look at it. It's a rather unconventional idea but I believe it will showcase what I really want to say in terms of this project.