Neighborhood

Artist Statement

For this assignment we had the task to take a photo that represented out neighborhood. For my photo I chose to take a picture of a tree. Now yes, it is just a tree but there is more meaning behind the tree. I took this image because I thought it represented what I grew up in. I also thought that it just looked like a good photo. To edit this I just turned down the exposure, and brightness and turned up the shadows in lightroom. I really tried to focus on using as much space as possible and that is why its so close up so I could also focus on texture.

The techniques i used for this photo were, Selective focus informal balance. I used selective focus to focus more on the tree than the background and I used informal balance to show the viewer how I took the photo and where it might have been taken. My original idea for this image was to take a portrait of someone sitting on the road I live on but I have no one to take photos of and I thought it was a little bit boring so I took a picture of a tree the had sap on it.

The story behind this image is that where I took this image, was where I spent most of my childhood. I across the street from my house is a big patch of woods that looks over the road and has some cool rocks up there as well. I went up there to show my audience that there isn't always a physical thing to represent something. I understand that for this project I could've taken a photo of my street sign or a wide angle photo of my actual road, or something near my house but that's boring. I wanted to make sure that it was meaningful and unique at the same time and to use where i used to grow up and teach myself some sketchy things, is pretty funny and meaningful to me. I really woudln't change anything about this image and I really like the way it came out.

-Matthew Kempf