Image. Constructed Image.

This was the first round. I ended up laying his outfit on the floor and I quickly realized that taking the photos were going to be really hard. The background was an uneven white so I had to end up blowing out white and black to make the background even and in doing so I lost all detail in the clothing. Also, the shoes were hugely distracting. In retaking these photos I addressed these concerns and created this shot.

I ended up pinning up his outfit on the wall(the hat was interesting to get to stay).

The image is slightly creepy, yes. But in doing this I was trying to haze the line between Charlie Chaplin(The Tramp) and Hitler. All of Charlie Chaplin's movies were first and foremost there to make people laugh in a time of great distress. However, most of his work was also politically driven. An alarming amount of people didn't know that about his work so my project I focused my work on trying to bring across that aspect of his work. One of the most political movies he made was called "The Great Dictator" where he essentially played Hitler. He created his own "swastika" for the movie, which is what exists on his arm. The mustache is supposed to be hazy as to whether it is supposed to symbolize The Tramp or Hitler. However, when you read the quote(made to look like it is coming out of his mouth) it is supposed to contradict what his armband is trying to symbolize.

I went about this radically different from everyone else. When I thought about Charlie Chaplin and what he is most famous for, the first thing that I could ever think about was his outfit when he was The Tramp. So the most successful route for me to go, I felt, was recreating his outfit. I worry this is too literal. I ended up stick his quote where his mouth would be, put his mustache in, and his name where his eyes would be. I made it black and white to emphasize the armband, but i wish I had boosted the red more, it's not overly noticeable on the picture. I also left it grayer than what I was planning to also go with the feel of his movies. They are much much older and the quality of the footage is rather gray so I felt keeping the color muted and gray would actually work better for me.