Studenec_mythmetaphor



CONCEPT: What is your idea for mythology and/or metaphor, how will you interpret the idea of a visual metaphor and a myth? I opened the list of metaphors and animals and I was inspired by the metaphor her eyes were fireflies. And I decided to take it very literally and I imagined a girl who has regular features, perfect features all except her eyes, which are fireflies because she is perfect, yet she doesn't see herself the same way everyone else does. Self-destruction was a key concept in the portrait assignment, and once again I have decided to use it as a theme in this piece.

SUBJECT: What sorts of images will you need to shoot to create your idea? What will it involve? places, people, costumes, sets, nature, lighting? I am thinking that I will take a picture with lighting that is dramatic and dark, but in photoshop I will edit it to be a blue hue so that it is a softer more fairy-like appearance. The background will be airy and colored so that it has a kind of cyanotype appearance but the girl will have a thin black outline as though someone outlined it with a pencil or sharpie and she will be black and white further proving that she doesn't fit into the picture. Since I am basing my project off of Aphrodite maybe I can include some of the key things that dealt with her. For example, some of her attributes include doves, apples, a scalllop shell and a mirror. Maybe by including these things she can be portrayed in a more obvious way.

REASONING: Why do you wish to do this idea? What will you learn from it? How is it interesting to you? I think that it is something that can be interpreted in many different ways, maybe the viewer is happy and they see a girl who is relaxed and loves nature, or maybe they are sad and see a girl who is misunderstood and doesn't know what is going on in her life. It can be interpreted differently depending on what the viewer is feeling. She is the epitome of beauty, perfect clear skin, long flowing hair, thin perfect body, she is gorgeous except for her eyes, the fireflies will throw off the image so that she isn't this perfect picture-esque being that you expect.

FACTS: What is the myth/metaphor that you are basing your idea on? Explain it's history and any other pertinent facts regarding the myth/metaphor that will help us understand your idea. Aphrodite is quite popular in Greek mythology; she is the goddess of love, pleasure, procreation and above all beauty. While researching I discovered that her Roman goddess name is Venus and that there are may contradicting stories on how she is born. One way is that she rose from sea foam, and the other story is that she was born of Zeus and Dione. How she was chosen as the goddess of beauty is that when the Trojan prince of Paris was asked to choose which of the three were beautiful, he chose Aphrodite over Hera and Athena because she told him she would give love of the most beautiful woman in the world. The other two used power and victory as a bribe for him.

These are the sites that attributed to my research: http://www.greekmythology.com/Olympians/Aphrodite/aphrodite.html http://www.mythweb.com/gods/aphrodite.html http://www.theoi.com/Olympios/Aphrodite.html