EJohnson_MythMetaphor

My idea for this project is to incorporate the myth of Hercules and his super strength. Hercules is a greek myth; said to be the son of Greek God Zeus and a mortal women. Zeus' wife was jealous of Hercules, and sent 2 serpents into his crib to kill him as a baby. He was then found laying with a strangled serpent in each hand. From that point on, Hercules proceeded to demonstrate his strength through multiple occasions such as becoming a champion wrestler and killing the Nemean Lion. Hercules used his strength to get through life and work through his problems, just like us humans do. As teenagers, we all have to be strong to face both internal and external battles between ourselves and others that we face daily. Sometimes we even have to be strong just to put a smile on our faces. So, I'm going to use that as my visual metaphor to reinterpret Hercules' strength. In order to do this I'm going to take pictures of possible problems someone may be having such as school or fights with their friends, and put them in the background with an almost transparent opacity. I'm then going to have a picture of someone standing with their back to the camera on one side of the picture, and then a picture of that person smiling on the other half. The half that has the person with their back to the camera is for sure going to be made either black and white or just dark, but I'm not sure if I want to make the smiling half dark also or make it bright. I probably won't make that decision until I begin editing in Photoshop. I think this is going to be a cool project if I can get the pictures to turn out the way I'm visualizing them because it's something everyone in this class will be able to relate to. It's a unique way to modernize the idea of Hercules and how strong he is and I'm surprised I came up with such a distinct idea. I'm excited for this project because it's cool that I'm going to be able to create something that can have an individual meaning to every person sitting in the room. We are all similar in the way that we all have our struggles, so this picture is going to be very meaningful. The only concern I have is that it's going to be hard to tell I'm basing my idea off of Hercules until I explain it during critique. We all know him for his abnormal amount of strength and courageousness, but I need to think of a way to hint that that's the main message and theme of my work. My idea will keep developing as I begin to take pictures and edit, but for now this is the basis of what I plan to do and accomplish.