My final project is going to show the inequality of how young people of color get treated when it comes to weed. I want to show how black men get jailed when white people get millions of dollars. I think I will shoot on a dark background or neutral grey background to show that it is a serious topic. I was thinking to show two men in with their fists put together and the black man is in handcuffs and the white man has money in their fists. The type will say how they were both caught with weed. One was sent to jail for years and the other one is sent to the bank.
COMD 3530 Advanced Photography Studio
A City Tech OpenLab Course Site
Do you have specific article that you are working with? It will help sharpen your project. How about this one?
https://www.alternet.org/drugs/michelle-alexander-white-men-get-rich-legal-pot-black-men-stay-prison
I think you could do something with hands though it might feel very literal. Handcuffs are metal so you will probably get the best result from lighting from the back through diffusion.
I hope you will also consider as we discussed doing some portraits of black men with shadows of bars across their faces. This could be very powerful. You could juxtapose them with portraits of white men though you would probably need some older men for the full effect. Here is the article on faking natural light. If you scroll through, you will see the gobos used to create the shadow effects
https://blog.tookapic.com/how-to-fake-daylight-in-your-photos