Positive & Negative Space

"3 monkeys"

ARTIST STATEMENT

In this image you see 3 monkeys in a line, shadows casting on the wall behind them. I have a lot of white walls in my house that I knew would be good for negative space, I just needed to find what to use for positive space. Looking around the house my eyes fell on these monkeys that were sitting on a mantel. I picked them up and moved them to the shelf I was going to use and did a lot of adjusting with light to get a very defined shadow along with keeping the light dull enough so it didn't make everything white. I think the grouping is very strong in the image and the way the monkeys are set up. I tried to set all of the wooden monkeys to the right, but the whole picture looked slanted with the monkeys and the shadows. I put them in the center of the image and thought the formal balance worked a lot better with the shadows. The image didn't look as tilted with one of the parts straight. I could have clone stamped the minor imperfections along the wall behind or I could have found a wall without a crack, but in a way I like them where they are. Maybe it's just me, but just like in my complementary colors image, I like small imperfections and not everything being so perfect. It adds a more natural look to the photograph. When I look at these image I see representation of human behavior. At first glance they just appear to be wooden pieces set up to cast shadows, but If you look closely at their expressions and positions, you'll notice the one to the far right appears to be apart from the others. From one angle like the shadows, they look like friends of the same species standing together all happy. But when looked at directly, that same "group of friends" is separated and one is being singled out and pushed away. Offset because he is disliked. This image shows the true colors of the monkeys when looked at from a different angle. Just like how humans can be.

"I think everybody should like everybody."

-Andy Warhol