Self-Portraits: “Artist Development”
Project Development in Photography
University of California Santa Cruz
Professor: Kathleen Perry
Artist’s Statement
I titled this work “Artist Development” because through these photographs and compositions I began to explore ways I could be visually represented in the industry as a musical artist. This term is used in the music industry to describe artists on the rise that are figuring out their musical sound and look. The genre I write in is Pop, infused with other styles such as RnB, country, and Bollywood. Some of my musical inspirations include Whitney Houston, Patti Labelle, Music Soulchild, Arijit Singh, Charlie Puth, and Taylor Swift. Most of these images have a solid white background, which allows the figure to stand out and brings out defining features of a person that make the images more striking. I wanted these to look like promotional images as well as shots that could be on the cover of an album, or inside an album booklet. I experimented with different costumes, props, poses, and make-up looks inspired by what types of looks that current musical artists have done in their photoshoots. There is also a visual motif of the color yellow in many of these images- it represents happiness, positivity, optimism, intellect, and loyalty which are all principles I value.
My set-up was two large white bed-sheets that were ironed out, then tacked to a wall in my living room. I also used LED lights with gel filters. I utilized Photoshop to get pastel filters over some images and to get a bright white background. I would love for other musical artists to see these images and be inspired to create their own representations of themselves. It is great to have the ability and agency to do the edits and choose the final images myself. In the future, it would be fun to take these images and put them inside an album booklet alongside song lyrics that I have written.