Exercise #3 - Art Direction: Photography

For this last Exercise I was instructed to do a Photo Story/Essay, a story told by a series of images, in this case, 6. 

The theme surrounding my story was IDENTITY. Having that in mind, I began thinking of a story to tell. I wanted it to be linear, but capable of creating some sort of loop (So if you read the last panel you could go back to the first). I drafted a series of 6 bullet points that would describe what could be seen in each photo:

1. Dog is abandoned (car leaves dog on road)

2. Owner parties (show something considered "illegal" or dangerous)

3. Police chase/fleeing

4. Man changes his identity (hooded person trading documents/forgery)

5. Man walking on the street

6. Dog recognizes his owner

The aim of my story was to showcase a person not making good choices in life and, later on, having the chance to start anew. The decision of whether the person changed for the better or repeated the cycle is for the reader to make.

Once I was satisfied with my idea, I began the storyboard. The following images are an example of simple sketches, which were not clean at all, but gave me an idea of what I wanted the images to look like:

Since my storyboard was ready, I began searching for adequate photos on Adobe Stock. The following are the images I chose as the "base" of the 6 final photos:

I also downloaded a couple more pictures to add as a "collage" to two of the panels.

I knew my story and had the resources, it was now time to begin shaping the photographs to fit what I had in mind. I decided to make them all square-shaped, so they had the same size, and to add certain color hues to give each panel a distinct feeling. For example, in the first one, I added a rain effect. All the edits were done in both Adobe Lightroom and Procreate.

Although I was allowed to add text to the images, I decided against it. I wanted my story to be understandable even with the absence of text. However, I did give it a title: 

"SECOND CHANCE?"

After editing and adding other images on top of the "base" ones, I got the final product.

(Link to InDesign, also embedded at the end)

"SECOND CHANCE?" by Alexandra Teixidó