Old is New Again
For the first project, I wanted to reflect on the way old things are literally becoming new again. Whether it is fashion style, food, or music, things from the past are making a comeback in today's generation. I decided to reflect on music and how accessible it is with technology. In the past, one would need a vinyl player for specific records, but now we have the luxury of having any album we want practically on demand. In my photograph, I am posed on the couch listening to one of my favorite Stevie Wonder albums," Innervisions." My laptop is next to me on the couch while I listen to the album on my vintage bluetooth speaker that is seen in the far right of the photograph. My Library of Congress image is a landscape with a bridge that I layered on top of the image for texture.
Destiny James’ Old is New Again piece is a picture of Destiny leisurely posed on a couch, upside down, while listening to music from the vintage speaker in the bottom right corner. The couch itself stretches the entire width of the image and there is an open laptop on the left side of it. The wall behind the couch is bare, no detailing or decorations, and there is a rug layered out underneath the couch. The image is heavily distressed with markings and scratchings, mostly on the boarders but there are some horizontal black lines that run through it.
ReplyDeleteThis work visually is a mashing of old and new, the contrast of the laptop and the speaker that looks like a very old radio is mostly what drives this. What I got from is that is that no matter what time period, music is something that carries through. A long time ago, there were young adults who laid on a couch in a similar way, experiencing music in which ever way they could. That music persists through out time, and will continue to do so.
This piece is very interesting, composition wise. There is an established balance between the left and right sides that is incredibly well done. The laptop and the speaker balance each other as well as Destiny’s legs and hair balancing each other, while the couch itself is a meeting ground for it all. While the base image doesn’t have much complexity in terms of amount of subjects or heavily use of patterns in surrounding areas (other than the rug), the editing done to introduce texture to the piece really pulls it together. The use of the image from the Library of Congress to introduce more texture into the image is a cool idea, it really helps tying the distress with the rest of the image. Lastly, I like the change of the colors, it gives the older feel and is also a softer kind of palate that really softens the image as a whole.
I would have loved to see a more heavy lean into playing with depth of field, everything is seemingly in focus and the wet plates have very short depth of field. Also, in terms of lighting, I would have loved to have seen more contrast in the image. The laptop itself is emitting light so I would think it would be a bit more blown out.
Overall, this image is a wonderful piece. The thought out use of distress, color changing, and composition is evident in it visually. It is also clearly evident that there is meaning behind it, time and thought went into this piece. The softer tones and relaxed posture of the subject in the image also brings a feeling of calm when viewing. It is a well crafted image and nothing feels out of place when viewing it.