Assignment #2

"We photographers deal in things which are continually vanishing, and when they have vanished there is no contrivance on earth can make them come back again. We cannot develop and print a memory." - Henri Cartier-Bresson

The interplay of foreground vs. background elements leads your eyes directly toward the woman and her child . The first thing that caught my attention was the mother's loving embrace and the child's innocent facial expression. The positioning of their bodies seemingly work together as one single element. There is so much emotion being conveyed in this portion of the shot. Another aspect that caught my attention was the fact that all three people in the background are looking different directions and none of them are looking directly at this mother/daughter duo. They look out of touch and disconnected (another interesting point, there are no other children in this photo). Going back to body positioning...the background people are very rigid and proper as compared to the relaxed mother. What I wanted to highlight here was the loving relationship between a mother and her child in this photograph. It was a very cold day and the mother was shielding her daughter from the cold, sacrificing her own blanket in order to keep her daughter warm.

This photo was a semi- accident (ironically those always turn out the best). My intention was to photograph the tips cup, but the fact that I caught a sliver of the barkeep in the frame makes a dramatic difference to the overall image. This photograph also plays around with a variety of different textures, such as the bumpy counter surface and the smooth, sleek metal coffee machine in the background; causing the photo to be very aesthetically pleasing to look at. The man in the photograph was very passionate about his work (as a chef); even though there are so many distinct elements of his work incorporated into this one shot, the frame plays a big role in unifying them and establishing his relationship with them.

As you can tell by now, I am not a fan of posed shots. I washed out the background of this photo in order to put more emphasis on my subject and his activity. It reminds me of Richard Avedon's collection of work in which he gets very up close and personal with his subjects. The way that half of my subject's face is cut off by the frame significantly alters the image than if I had chosen to focus directly on him. The same principle goes for the level at which I placed the camera. What also appealed to me about this shot was the illusion of depth produced by the lack of focus in the elements closest to the viewer contrasted with the crispness of the scabble board as distance across the board increases.