Leading Lines

Artist Statement

The subject of this image is myself, sitting at the end of the table with a large window in the background. I positioned my camera near the end of the table, angled slightly off of the edge of it so that the line of the end of the table is moving across the image rather than fading into the background in the center of the image. I set a timer to capture the image so I had time to position myself sitting in the chair with my hands covering my face. I chose the position to reflect what the photo is supposed to convey—I tried a few different poses before I settled on this one. I wanted to be sure the image obviously conveyed some sort of sadness. I struggled with positioning the camera so that the image included both me and the leading lines that connect to the subject, but I resolved this issue by pulling another table closer to where I wanted the camera to be. I fixed some of the extra space that was therefore included with cropping.

I wanted the emphasis in composition for this image to be leading lines, specifically the edge of the table shown. I also tried to play around with informal balance, for example, where I positioned the subject (as well as the unintentional background addition of the large window). I tried to eliminate most things I could from the background in order to more effectively show the leading lines. I used the spot healing tool in photoshop quite a bit for eliminating these objects in the background. A large portion of the now-empty wall on the left of the image was covered by a picture frame originally, but I tried using the spot healing tool to cover it up. I also used to it eliminate the glare on the windows in the background. I made various other edits that made the background darker—I increased the contrast, used the burn tool, and increased shadows. However, I tried to be careful not to do so much that the subject was lost in the process. To help with this a little, I used the dodge tool to emphasize the light shining on the subject, particularly on the hair and the sweatshirt. Perhaps most obviously, I adjusted the color of the image quite a bit. First, I layered a dark blue over the photograph. Second, I made the subject have greater saturation than the background, which is slightly closer to black and white than the subject, which I left untouched. I attempted not to make this difference too obvious, deciding against simply doing a select color image. I thought making the whole image blue would relate to my purpose in creating the image more.

The photo is meant to represent symbolism, more specifically in this case, the use of certain colors to convey certain concepts and emotions. I tried to portray sadness with this image, which is commonly associated with the color blue. This is why I chose the pose I did when I took the image, why the image is different shades of blue, and why I wanted to emphasize the shadows in the image. It also explains why the subject is the deepest blue, because they are meant to be the source of this strong emotion. Symbolism using color is often used as a literary device as well as visually, so I thought that would translate well from a concept into a photograph.