Prompt #24

For my final project, I want to base it off of some African photography that I've seen. In my African art history class, we viewed photographs from Seydou Keita and Malick Sidibe. Both of these photographers took portraits of people in Africa with objects and/or clothing that portrayed them as something they were not, or did not have. For instance, someone who could not afford or did not own a car posed next to someone else's car.  I really like the idea of making something that's fake look real, without using Photoshop or another editing program.  My goal in this assignment is to ask people what they can't do/have that they want to do/have and find a way to explain this in the images. I saw an exhibit in Paris where a person had Polaroids of people who were holding up signs that said what they wanted in life. Most of the signs were written in different languages, so the photographer wrote what they said on the bottom white part of the Polaroid. I may try to use text like this somehow in my photographs to give a better sense of what the viewer is looking at. My other idea would be to make a book online of the different images and explain in the beginning what my idea is, then for each "caption", write what it is that they wanted. I just want to show that everyone in the world has something in mind that for whatever reason they don't have or do, that they desire to have or do, and that these include a huge variety of things. Sometimes you look at a person and instantly judge them.  For instance, if you saw a football player, you might make certain judgements about what type of person they are, and what is important in their life.  But maybe that football player wants to learn how to tap dance more than anything, even if they never end up doing it. I want to show the desires that aren't always seen, as well as desires that are seen.