The Seven Modern Deadly Sins

Coming up with an individual idea for a project is hard, especially when I have to add meaning to my images as well. So it took me a while to think of photographing the seven deadly sins in Lego. The meaning to my images may be hard to get without the writing underneath but I would rather the viewer made up their own meaning, instead of taking my ideas of seven deadly modern sins. I have used the palate knife filter on all of my images to give them an old-fashioned painting look which will fit in nicely with my picture frames.

Envy

My image for envy is stealing from someone because you don’t have what they have. Being envious of what the person has worked hard for. This may not be a sin by the definition of the word, but to me I feel people should work for what they have and never hurt someone else to get it.

Greed

My image for greed is a Lego figure surrounded by material things, this could be money or objects which the Lego bricks represent. I lit this image using candles to achieve the eerie, evil atmosphere. I decided to add the flash of fire in, as I was inspired by the Christmas Carol films, how the three ghosts visited Scrooge. So this fire can symbolise a ghost or anything the viewer choses.

Sloth

My image for sloth is a Lego man asleep in bed. This is symbolising the generation of people on benefits that don’t go looking for work. Or believe they will get more money by being on benefits than working. It is a sin to be spending benefit money on drugs alcohol or anything that isn’t to keep a person alive. This is the Jeremy Kyle generation. I’m not saying all people on benefits are sinning, just a select few.

Pride

My image for pride is a man admiring himself in a mirror. This is symbolising the people who focus more on looks than personality. It is the people who get plastic surgery to enhance their looks. The people who call others ugly to make themselves feel better. This is the sin, making others feel bad to make yourself feel better. There is not a blue print of beauty, everyone is beautiful.

Gluttony

My image for gluttony is a Lego man surrounded by junk food. I don’t think eating junk food is a sin, but in excess it can turn someone obese and ruin their life. I really enjoyed taking this image, I found it fun to arrange the sweets around the Lego man and to make it look like he was eating the muffin. It took me a while to get a good image in my opinion, but I kept changing the lighting until I got an image I was happy with.

Lust

My image for lust is a Lego man surrounded by stockings and a choker. This hints at strong lust and a longing for contact. I couldn’t make my image too graphic using just Lego but I think this image portrays the message well. I like how the shiny hearts reflected the light from the candles and gave the scene a slight pink hue.

Wrath

My image for wrath is of a Lego man murdering another Lego man with a knife. I chose to use a large human sized knife to keep the theme throughout the images going. Murdering someone is a sin, in my mind if you inflict that much pain on someones family the same should happen to you. To say bring back the death penalty would be wrong of me, but there needs to be a better system for punishing these people….but then thinking about it isn’t this idea the sin of wrath, so there’s nothing we can do just teach them to be better people.

 

Envy (Testing lighting)

I think envy was the only sin that I had a clear idea of how I was going to photograph it before I started researching. I hate thinking about somebody stealing from someone else who has actually worked for the things they have. This makes me hate the human race more the way people dont seem to realise we are all the same, they still hurt others and that is like hurting yourself. Stealing from somebody should be a sin especially when the victim has worked for what they have.

For my final image I chose one that had the candle light hitting the necklace. I wanted it to shine out of the photograph and for the Mona Lisa to be recognisable on it. I also wanted the background to be dark to keep the eerie feel of my pictures.

Wrath (Testing Lighting)

Wrath was one of the hardest sins to come up with an idea for. This was because it is not just to do with anger but more revenge towards somebody. I found it hard to think of anything, but once I had an idea I stuck with it and photographed it. I really like the outcome for this sin. I used red wax for the blood so it would look almost real but go with the toy feel the Lego gave. I wanted the ‘killer’ to be in the background, almost hidden from view so that the image felt more eerie and mysterious.

Pride (Testing Light)

I changed my original idea for pride because I wanted to add a human element to all my images to have a theme going through them. I did want to show humans pride over animals but decided to change my idea to pride in yourself. Too much pride, as in loving yourself.

Old Pride Image

I chose one of the darker images for my pride image, because I wanted to only see the reflection of the Lego man and the mirror. I didn’t want anything else in the background.

 

Lust (Testing Lighting)

It took me a while to think of anything to do for lust using Lego. But once I had researched and seen other photographers work I came up with an idea. My image doesn’t scream lust, but it hints at the dark side of lust, prositution, exotic dancers and sex houses. I tried a few different lighting set ups for my image because I wanted the choker to shine in the background.

For my final image I chose one of the pictures that had a red shine from the candles and red hearts. I really like this image and I am glad I had the idea for it.

Greed (Testing Lighting)

Greed was one of the more difficult images to shoot, because I was using candles and a lit match to create the image. The candles were fine, the flame on the match kept deciding to crawl towards my finger faster than I could shoot the image. But I got an image I was happy with eventually.

My final image for greed is one of my favourites fromt the set of sins. I think this is because it was the first image I thought about using candles instead of normal standing lights to light my scene. I used a slow shutter speed with low lighting to capture the movement of the flame across the image.

Sloth (Testing Lighting)

I changed my image for sloth from an image of a speeding car because we had a group critque and they said I needed an ongoing theme, throughout the images. So I decided to have something human in the images, something a viewer could relate to.

My old sloth image…

A selection of my the images I took while creating the new image for sloth. I kept changing the angle of the lighting until I got an image I was happy with.

 

For my sloth image I wanted the Lego man to look like he was surrounded by a massive bed. This was to show excessive love of sleep or lazyness, so I needed just enough light to keep the eerie atmosphere but show all the folds and creases in the bed. Here is my final image…

Gluttony (Testing Light)

Heres a selection of the images I took for gluttony until I captured one I liked best.

I wanted a dark eerie feel to my image for gluttony, but I also wanted the bright colours of the skittles and other sweets to jump our at the viewer. I eventully chose my image for gluttony because I liked the composition, and how I had done the lighting to focus your eyes on the Lego man eating the muffin.

My Final Image

The colours that I think symbolise the Seven Deadly Sins

pride – violet

envy – green

anger – red

sloth – light blue

greed – yellow

gluttony – orange

lust – pink

Se7en Film Review

While I was researching the Seven deadly sins I came across a movie from 1995 directed byDavid Fincher that had the seven deadly sins as a theme throughout it. So I decided to buy the film to watch myself, to go with my research.

The film is about two homicide detectives’ (Brad Pitt and Morgan Freeman) hunt for a serial killer who is murdering people based on the seven deadly sins. The film has a dark and mysterious atmosphere that goes well with the seven deadly sins. Gluttony comes first followed by greed where we learn of the killers intent to kill for the sins, as he wrote greed in the victims blood.

John Doe (the Killer) argues that his victims were sinners and that he was carrying out gods work disposing of them. The film told me that everybody is a sinner in some way, but we shouldn’t look on this as a fault, it just means values have changed since the sins were written. The film was dark and horrific so I will take inspiration from this and make my images dark to show sinners.

This fim is worth watching for the story, but it is a film I could only watch once as the plot is ruined after the suspense has gone. It may be labled an 18 but that is from 1995, and I think it would probably be a 15 today as I didn’t find it that bad. Overall it was a brilliant film to watch for my research.