For my initial exploration I was initially interested in exploring the macro photography of everyday fruit. I found these intimate closeups of the pomegranate to be both intoxicating and unsettling.

When attempting to simplify the shapes and texture into black ink I found that I was losing this essence, the translucency and interaction of light and dark hues was something that couldn’t be replicated in black and white ink. What else is red and has the aphrodisiacal nature of the pomegranate? I discovered the intricate detail that makes up every pair of lips could provide an interesting study of texture at the macro level.

I discovered that turning the lips at a ninety degree angle started to make their familiar shape and form more alien to the viewer. The ridges, cracks, and depressions of the lips almost form a fingerprint at this level. Now at a new angle these lips begin to form an entirely new object, an object we are somehow intimately familiar with, yet entirely foreign. 

For cropping the image I wanted to dance a fine line. Close enough that a new object is created and new details discovered. Yet far enough away that the subconscious starts to identify the object for what it really is. I believed it would be too easy to just zoom closer and closer until the object was indistinguishable from its former self. I wanted there to be a possibility of connecting it to its previous state, but only after scrutiny. 

For the color scheme I wanted a red hue to be present, but found by coloring the lips red it aided the mind's ability to identify the object as a pair of lips. I inverted to colors so that the red was still present and invoked the feeling of lips, but having the lips be a teal blue color so that the mind had to think about the objects form.