I decided to carry out this first shoot at night so it would be relatively dark in the room with the lights off and used a ring light for lighting. I used this sort of lighting because I wanted there to be quite a lot of dark shadows in the image. I removed the cases from 3 phones and a tablet and placed them on and around a plate along with a smart watch; Also setting a knife and fork on each side of the plate.
I decided to make the setting look slightly more interesting by making it look like there was the same static image on all the screens of the devices (instead of them just being off) and I used charging cables to make the phones look to be tangled up with one another. The reason I used charging cables was to attempt to make what was on the plate, resemble a food, such as spaghetti or something similar.
I had someone kneel down and put their hands on either side of the plate so that when someone was viewing the image, it would look like the pictures were taken through the eyes of someone sat at the table, looking down at what was in front of them. I achieved this angle by taking pictures from over their shoulder with the lens pointing downwards from where their head would be.
I wanted these photos to represent how society relies on technology so much that it is almost as though people need it like food; Hence why most of the devices in the photos are placed on a plate to make it look like they are going to be eaten. In my opinion, this adds a sense of irony to the image as in the future, this would lead to societies demise because it is impossible for people to survive off of only technology and I wanted to portray that in these photos.
While I was reflecting on the work I did during this shoot, I noticed that the fact that there is nothing but static on all the screens of the devices could be interpreted as showing how in the end, technology is meaningless and that people shouldn’t provide it with so much value, as there are more important things in life.