This is a series of photographs taken for the Advanced Digital Photography Module at university. It displays a narrative of a relationship, with a gradually increasing amount of alcohol consumed.

For this project, I wanted to represent the uses of alcohol in everyday life, and the comfort, reliance, and toxicity both that and relationships cause. Therefore, I have depicted a character going from being alone, to a date, to a moment of lust, to an argument, to a breakdown, all while their alcohol consumption increases.

As this character can represent anyone, they are positioned blurred in the background. It also implies a state of intoxication as vision is impaired and movements become less defined. The glasses, cans and bottles are in the foreground, implying that alcohol is in a dominant control of the character’s life. This composition is the main consistency throughout the images. The main glass is always positioned on the left third line, with the edge of the table being halfway.

To achieve the effect, I implemented a long distance between both subjects, a high focal length of 55mm, a low aperture of f/5.6, and a manual focus. The ISO is also kept relatively low to maintain quality. The shutter speed is used to compensate for the exposure, as due to the glasses being a static subject, and the background containing people being out of focus anyway, it was not as necessary.

The lighting is kept relatively consistent across all images. An LED panel with a yellow gel and black card to leave only a small 2cm hole, is pointed at the glass to create a golden tint, implying a special and magical quality. A second LED panel with a white gel is positioned towards the characters, which gradually gets darker as the story processes.

The amount of alcohol next to the glasses is also gradually increasing, suggesting it takes more of this drug to achieve each stage. It also act as a guide to which number in the sequence the photo is.
The colours of the alcohol also mirror the characters costumes. Before this, the colours are the same, but now there is a split between red and black, symbolising the angry divide between the two characters.

Finally, each shot has a different camera angle, starting at a low angle to suggest power and confidence of our character, and then incrementally rising to the high angle now, showing that our character is now a pitiful mess. This is also why this is the only shot to show a character drinking, and a mix of all previous alcoholic beverages, as they now have nothing left and are reminiscing over their lost love.