Mood and color are commonly used together in photography to further convey an idea or theme. Upon first thought of this prompt, I explored the idea of using color as a depiction of mood. I researched science regarding what colors give off what feelings and why, determining that red would be the easiest to use as it is the most commonly associated color with a feeling. My original idea for this work was to have the subject doing an activity that clearly made them mad and to edit their eyes to be red. When I shot that, it did not turn out right and I felt as if there was a better day to depict what I had felt about this prompt. Instead, the main idea of my work is that one may seem to feel one way due to their outward appearance, but that may not be accurate.

 

My work features a subject wearing red clothes, red makeup, and in front of a mainly red background, but with strikingly blue eyes. Red is normally associated with anger, which is why an abundance of red is featured in this work. The subject is surrounded by anger, and looks angry, but her eyes were left as a soft blue color to showcase that she is not actually hard and angry, instead she is sad and lost. Her facial expression is stern to accentuate the idea that red correlates with anger.

 

From creating this artwork, I have learned how to adjust lighting and saturation of a photograph when it is shot with mostly one color. This work is representative of emotions and how they are displayed.