Work Diary - Contrast

This session was very interesting. I was excited to start shooting and see what I could find around college campus. As contrast was found pretty much everywhere, I found this session fairly easy. I wanted to experiment with this element and see how I could manipulate my pictures to make them a bit more exciting. I tried finding ways to separate my main focuses to make the element of contrast even more exaggerated. I found this the best way to show contrast as it's clear to the viewer what I'm trying to separate. This was successful as shown below.

These pictures both have something separating the two different objects/people that I wanted to show contrast between. This makes it clear to the viewer what I'm trying to achieve and puts emphasis on the element of contrast. The theme of opposites is also made clear in these pictures as there is a line in between the objects/subjects showing a clear distinction between them. With my subjects, contrast has been shown through their clothing and facial expression as well as their gender. This is a simple but interesting way of showing contrast and by separating them by the wall in the background, the viewer has no voice but to focus on the differences between the two subjects. The same concept is used with the windows. Not only is contrast shown by one window being closed and one window being open, but the fact that the open window shows light and the closed window is quite dark, this further emphasises on my use of contrast.

On the other hand, this picture didn't turn out as good. I was trying to show contrast between the sizes of the two square-shaped items but this is not clear enough. I think all the buttons, lights, writing and logos on the bigger box stole the attention from what I was trying to show the viewer. If the box had been plain, contrast would have been shown perfectly. I could have used a different angle, for example, a side view of the boxes; this would have avoided all the buttons and writing from distracting the viewer. It would also have been clearer as it would have shown two rectangles in different sizes rather than squares. 

If I could do this session again, I would go further and look at buildings. Contrast can be found everywhere on or in buildings and I would like to experiment with this, to see what I can find and how I can photograph it.

I can show contrast through the use of colour on buildings.