Old Man and Women

The idea behind gathering a selection of my own photography images came from finding these two pictures of an old man and women, as the wrinkles within their faces really caught my eye and I thought that the whole idea of getting older and wrinkles starting to show linked in really well with the idea of decay:

To link in with these pieces above, I have chosen to change the contrast on the prominent picture of my grandad that I have used throughout my pieces, for my tonal study and what I plan to use for final piece:

By changing the contrast to extremely high, it contrasts with the great intensity of the light and depicts the impurities much better that just changing the image to black and white. Also, by changing the contrast it links in with Mark Twains quote, "Wrinkles merely indicate where smiles have been", thus linking in with the deeper meaning of my project, as the contrast change links in nicely with the Levi Strauss' opposition between young and old, and it highlights how young can be extremely colourful, yet when your body starts to get old and starts to show signs of decay, it begins to slow down and the world does become less colourful, due to the pain that might be occurring, thus linking in nicely with the contrast change.

I plan on doing an oil painting of the old man image, as I found a piece of work that has been done of an old man in oil paints and I think it really captures his wrinkles well:

The type of material and after effect that oil paint leaves really works well and links into my theme of decay.