When the project was given to me, to make and photograph a diorama, I was incredibly nervous and apprehensive. I had no clue what diorama was to begin with, and to think that I had to make one was so daunting. When my group mates were announced, it didn’t help that I wasn’t familiar with any of them as I was with everyone else in the class. Having said that though, we were able to come up with a concept that I was quite comfortable with. Our chosen Hindu deity was Ganesha and the issue that we were tackling was Amazon’s mistreatment of its low-wage workers. The idea that Ganesha was coming in to save the workers or a worker triggered a pop culture reference that all 4 of us felt strongly connected to – King Kong being on the top of the empire state building saving Jane while the military rains hell on him. The parallels between that scene and our concept is pretty straightforward.
When it came to the actual construction of the diorama, which is the bulk of the project really, the issues began to trickle in. I saw the diorama drifting away from the initial concept, this usually never irks me as that I how tend to work anyhow. But in this scenario, it wasn’t exactly improving and I didn’t voice my concerns due to me not wanting to mess up the group dynamic. Looking back, it’s something I seriously regret and I really have got no one to blame apart for myself for that. For example, in the sketch, there was a tree that we were going to make out of Amazon boxes, this ‘tree’ was going to be made of folded paper and into boxes of various scales. However, when I saw that the boxes used were all really of the same size, I didn’t draw any attention to it and kept quiet. Should I have said something, so many things could have gone differently, in a positive manner.
During the critique, I walked up not being comfortable with the project that we had, and I would say that I was right in feeling that as the critiques given by Charlotte and my peers were incredibly valid. The best thing I took away from that critique was the importance of lighting; I had no idea that using a dimmer, softer, harsher etc light would have such a massive impact on how the photograph would have gone.
