Page 1…………..M.I.K.E. Page 2…………..Photo Recreation Intro. Page 3…………..Child With A Hand Grenade. Page 4…………..Original. Page 5…………..Recreation. Page 6…………..Photo Story Intro. Why Do I feel Like Dying. Page 7…………..Photo Story. Page 8…………..Why? Page 9…………..Thanks.
Child with a toy hand grenade in central park Diane Arbuses “Child With A toy Hand Grenade in central park” (1962) incorporated all the elements I wanted to place into my recreation. Creating an overall sense of drama, Arbus really captures the emotion of the young child as he stands alone holding his toy hand grenade. Clearly playing a role as a devilish little scamp, we as viewers in the 21st century might see or perceive this in a different way. Shot on black White film, the photo really captures the essence of a playful child’s life with the use of composition and natural lighting.
Making everything from the expression on his face to the shoes on his feet very clear, the photo itself gives off a certain mood that can really on be transferred through a photo like this. The Toy hand grenade really creates this key feature of chaos that really breaks away from the social norms as a standard park portrait. A brief history of the photograph dates back to 1962 where the boy (Colin Wood) son of Sidney Wood a world famous tennis player was featured in one of Arbuses famous Central Park photo sets. At the time, Woods was going through a parental divorce where a feeling of loneliness and utter exasperation came over him.” She saw that and it's like . . . commiseration. She captured the loneliness of everyone.”- Colin Woods.
When recreating the photo, I really wanted to create the same sense of drama and maniacal elements but refrain from completely copying. I wanted to keep the same clothing, composition and overall techniques featured in the original but ad my own darkened and moody 21st century twists. I chose a twenty-year girl to best reference my ideas for the recreation. Though of course the model would be maintaining the same pose, I was still undecided on which object I wanted her to hold, I still wasn’t sure about copying the grenade idea. In the end I chose a neutral object, something that wouldn’t stand out but still have a huge impact on all of us. In the end I went with a cellphone.
My idea was to really focus on how we as 21st century students operate. Were complete stress balls so worried about our future that we don’t ever think about the now..or maybe that’s just me. In the end, I decided to keep it simple, transfer the emotions of the original photo and add it to mine but like I said, with a twist. I decided to shoot this photo using my Olympus Stylus Infinity with Ilford 400. I wanted to use film because I thought it would really place me back into my element and help me recreate the grain effect properly. Although I believe the composition was composed correctly, the lighting is in fact much darker. I really tried to make this photo my own; I wanted to incorporate my ideas along with my obvious dark elements that I seem to love so much. The end product turned out pretty well, even though its not an exact replication I think it plays a decent homage to Arbuses “Child With A Toy Hand Grenade In Central Park.”
Ever since I was a kid really I’ve dealt with this nagging feeling that my life had never been worth much. I grew up in a relatively decent house, a heart-warming family and all the amenities a kid could ever really desire. Don’t get me wrong, I love my family and I’m not exactly depressed either. Just giving a bit of backstory to why I decided to add this part to my project. Writing poems and lyrics has always been a hobby of mine, so I decided to incorporate one of my favorite lines to make this section of the project way more personal. “ Be the Petal that guides this broken rose home. Why do I feel like dying, when I start with everything?” Fitting these lyrics into ten frames was no easy task. I obviously had to break down the Lyrics a bit and figure out some symbolism. I chose the rose because it best connected to the “petal” portion of my lyric. I decided what I would do is instead of creating a story, Id let my broken down rose do the talking. I want to create this certain mood of drama as each frame those rose would slowly break down. Starting off in a crumpled ball, the rose slowly wound back to how it originally started, Crushed. Like I said before I really wanted to create this enormous sense of symbolism, whether those words or rose represented my life, family, friend or my fears for the future in general. The project itself took place over just one week, I decided what I would do is keep my drawing pad with me and whenever I decided to go out to a spot that I loved I would finish part of the rose. Day by day, id visit places like my favorite Park, street, coffee shop, house, studio and store and slowly put together my rose. When the time had come to place the photo together I decided reversing the effect of the rose would best suit my interests. As the days go by, my rose finally begins to break down in the places I love to symbolize how much id miss those days and how scared I am for the future. In the end, I very much believe even though I’ve created this project with my own emotions, context, and themes and over self. I do believe anyone struggling with the same fears and worries can relate. I tried my best to incorporate all of my every day tools to build up this project. Some of the photos were taken with a phone, a digital camera or even a film camera. I’m really happy with the way this project turned out, some of the difficulties I dealt with at the beginning however was either having a fantastic idea I could or couldn’t create with only 10 images. Also my story writing could on take me so far and my creativity is rather limited in that category. In the end I feel as though this project holds a little part of me, I’ve placed a lot of my influences, tools and self into everything whether it is the photo recreation or even my name in photos.