The Pilots
digital photography project
The Pilots project explores my emotional state as it manifests in my life and art, infusing drama and theatrics with stereotypical depictions of mundane feelings using digital photography and makeup. It contains three series that each battle with a different theme or emotion. The title of the work signifies their role of pilots in my life, with myself being their passenger. The goal of this work is to overwhelm the viewers so that without denial they can sense the emotion seeping from the image. The sentiments pictured are what I believe control my life, steering me in every direction and guiding my every move. I want to portray them as they are for me: overwhelming, overpowering, and constantly in control. I have found that my attempt to wrangle these emotions for an artistic purpose comes from a place of wanting to finally control them.
click to explore each pilot
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Makeup has always been a practice of expression for me, and I use its power to transform and exaggerate to my advantage when creating each series. The creation of the makeup looks were carefully preplanned and researched before their executions, acting as the mask for each emotion. Prior to each session I worked to assign each series its own color theme as well as some additional component to add movement or texture to amplify the emotions. Lighting was also important to me when crafting this project, as the careful and deliberate use of it creates intensity in each series. I have also decided to include a video of each Pilot to illustrate the realness of the characters.
Each of The Pilots bleed into one another. They are a team that works together inside my mind to form my opinions and feelings about myself and the world around me, influenced not only by my choices but also by the actions of those surrounding me.