Identity

Artist Statement:

This image is of my dad standing in front of a fire engine in his fire gear in the bays of the fire station we work at. I used a 3 1/2 filter when I exposed this photo. After I developed it, I used an oil paint pen to color in the wording on the door of the engine. This photo has the elements and principles of line, because there are lines on the door and my dad's gear; shape, because there are shapes on the door and my dad's gear as well; color, because I decided to used selective color on the lettering; value, because there's close to a full range of value; texture, because the letters look textured; and emphasis, because I feel like since the words are the only thing colored that there is an emphasis on them.

This photo has the composition rules/techniques of rule of thirds, because some of the letters fall in the required spots; selective focus, because I think the selective color aspect gives the focus on the words; and leading lines, because there are lines leading around the whole photo. Originally, I was going to do a silhouette of my dad standing on top of one of the trucks, but the lighting wasn't correct to do so, so I stuck with this. I was originally going to color the letters in with the water color paints, but changed it to this because I liked that you could see the letter's patterns underneath.

This photo means something to me because I love firefighting, and I look up to my dad a lot. It relates to my life because I do this with my dad and it's kind of the only thing me and him share together. If this image could be made any stronger, I would make the paint pen edges more crisp, and not have them go into the grey area. I also would do a better job layering my two transparences, because they weren't 100% even so it turned out a little blurry. I do kind of like it though.