Love

The subject of this image is obviously a woman holding a sign that says "love trumps hate". Last night, I was driving through downtown Portland when I saw a large crowd. I quickly realized they were protesting against Trumps presidency. I decided to join. I turned around to see this woman, standing quietly in the crowd holding this sign. I utualized her and her sign in order to create this image. The majority of the image is of the sign, which makes it informal balance and is an example of how I used space. I used elements such as shape, color, texture, and space. I used texture because I decided to increase the grain on the image while editing it. I decided to make this change because the issue that we are dealing with in this time and age, is one that we used to deal with many many years ago. When people see grainy photos, they commonly associate them with the olden day photos because they weren't of highest quality. I used the principles of balance, contrast, emphasis and unity.

I used the composition rules and techniques of informal balance, soft focus (the grain), and low key lighting because it was night time and because it is in black and white. In order to change and revise this photo in order to make it better, I increased the grain and changed it to black and white in order to fully relate it to my concentration of societal issues.

For this project, we were asked to take a photo that answered the question: what is love? Love is undefinable. When people usually hear the word love, they associate it with two people that care a great amount about each other. However, I don't agree with this. Self love is so much more important, and it should come before anything else. There are so many kinds of love, including the one showcased in this image. The sign literally says "love before hate", implying that we should all love each other and live in harmony. This project relates to my life because I am a strong believer in the fact that we all need to love each other and love ourselves. This image also relates to my life because I am a witness to the social injustice that is prominent in our society today. If I could make this image stronger, I would include more of the crowd in the image and try to better capture the blank expression on her face. She looks so hopeless in society, which I believe really provides the image with so much more emotion.