Blog Assignment Week 5

5A.                                                           Sally Mann Original

Edited

     I was drawn to this original photograph by Sally Mann because of the abstractions found within the picture, the contrast of light and dark as depth cues, and the use of both actual and virtual lines to create movement within the frame.  In the original picture, the lines of the road give the image three-dimensional space and focus the eye directly on the girl with the cigarette in the center of the frame.  The bright white of the girl, her dress, and her hair all contrasts with the dark background to focus our attention on her immediately.  The white of the girl also creates affinity with the white of the figure on stilts in the background and the white of the sky above the tree line.  The girl on the right is facing the opposite direction, establishing a virtual line following her perceived eye-line to the figure on the stilts.
     I chose to re-frame the image in this specific way because I felt that it created a new and interesting space with the limited background and changed to focus of movement in the image.  By eliminating the white sky above the trees and the grass to the right of the girl smoking, the image becomes much more abstract in that we only see a road leading into blackness without knowing the setting or location.  I believe she chose to include the white skyline and grass not only to create affinity with the other colors of the gray scale, but also to establish the blackness as trees and the area as being outside in nature.  By cropping the image in this way I also changed the focus of the movement.  I found that by eliminating the other girl in the picture the direction of the movement becomes indicated by the figure in the background’s virtual eye-line to the girl and the girl’s virtual eye-line off-screen.  This overall movement from the background to the off-screen space in front of the girl feels distinctly different to me than the movement in the original image which is defined by the eye-line of the girl to the right.  I believe Sally Mann included this portion of the image to not only great a more connected sense of movement between the three primary objects, but also to establish a thicker narrative involving the differences between the two girls and their attitudes toward their surroundings.


5B.