The Four Elements

The performance task for grade 11 photography was to take photos that demonstrate the sides of your personality that you portray to society vs the sides you keep to yourself. For my project I decided to show the four main sides of my personality using the four elements; Fire, Earth, Water and Air. And though I have many more aspects that I could delve into I also don't want to keep you here all day.

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Element; Earth, I sat in my garden and made sure the photo has a nice green undertone to fit the theme of Earth. The Earth part of my personality is literally “Down to Earth”. This is my responsible and motherly side, who is not easily offended or scared off. This probably the side I show most often to people. Whether is mothering my friends into making good decisions or my “dirty” sense of humor.

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Element; Air, for this photo I tried to create a lot of open space by taking the photo from lower. This absence of anything in the photo is to show air and the yellow is because that's the colour usually associated with air. The part of my personality that is shown by air is my most hidden side. This side is quiet and contemplative but who also is a huge pushover. I try to hide this side around my friends because I think it is boring, however once I get home I tend to spend a lot of thinking about life. The pushover side of this element is the side that comes hand in hand with my compulsive need for people to like me. I will always overlook or ignore things in “toxic” people and keep them in my life, because I cannot stand the idea of cutting someone out of my life.

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Element; Water: this photo was very hard to take and also very gross, however I am very happy about how it turned out. Like all the other photos it has an undertone of the colour most associated with the element, in this case it is blue. Water is one of the most universal symbols for purity and innocence. So as you can guess this photo is to show my religious and innocent side. My religious side is not really exposed at school since being overly religious is not as accepted as it used to be. However at home, church and camp this side takes charge. One major part of christianity is that god is in control of your life and you should trust in His plan for you. This reminds me of water flowing through life, it has many purposes and helps a lot of people, however its destination is predetermined, and though sometimes it gets stopped or contaminated it eventually gets there.

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Element; Fire: this long exposure take with a sparkler is used to show the element of fire. This side of my personality is the confident, happy and strong side. This side is shown a lot and I wish I could show all the time but like fire it is easily smothered, however unlike fire, its smothered by people and things in the outside world as well as in my head.