Positive and Negative Photograms

Artist Statement:

This image is an abstract photogram of a photo I took of the ocean, a shadow of circles I took, a photo of my fish, a photo of my hand and a photo of a pineapple. I used photoshop to combine, resize and reshape all seven images. After compiling them, I made it black and white and then inverted that. I took both and printed them onto transparency paper. I then took them into the darkroom and made prints with them. I chose to create this photo because I liked the way the shadow photo made the water in the landscape look more ripply when the opacity was lower. I used the elements and principles of movement, because the ripples make it seem like it's moving; and pattern, because the transparent shadows make a pattern on the water.

In this photo, the composition rules/techniques I used were rule of thirds, because the hand, one of the rocks, and the two larger fish are in the required spots; leading lines, because the hand is pointing (leading) to the pineapple; grouping, because the circle shadows are grouped up, and so are the rocks and fish; and high horizon line, because the horizon is very high up in the photo. Originally, I was going to add more small fish in this photo, but then decided on just three larger ones instead.

This photo is meaningful to me because the fish is mine, and so is the hand. Also, the landscape photo is at a beach I really like and it means a lot to me (Winslow Park). If I could change something about these prints, I would change the finger prints that got on them and made them have weird black spots.