The photo I selected after visiting the Calvin College Art
Gallery is not actually a photo, but is instead a small painting that is only
slightly larger than a normal Polaroid picture. The colors used within the
painting are varying blues and greens that blend into a sea-like green. The
painting is of, what looks like, a woman’s face with simple hair that reaches
her shoulders and a very concerned or possibly frightened look on her face.
Typically, the eyes tell all to how someone is feeling, but because the emotion
in the eyes are unclear due to how they are painted, the whole face must be
focused on to understand in any way what emotion she could be feeling. The
painting is only a portrait that stops at the base of her neck. The brush
strokes seem to be mostly vertical, with some within the face appearing to be
smudged or more circular strokes.
I enjoy
this painting for the unclarity within the woman’s expression, and the fact
that it may not even be a woman. The colors also draw me in as well. I enjoy
cooler colors rather than warm and the wall this painting was pinned on was
covered with many small paintings that varied in the use of cool colors. The
reason I was drawn to this specific one out of the many was because it was the
only one with the form of a face. I’m typically a person that photographs
landscapes and nature, but I must always have a focal point within the photo
rather than a mere landscape. Even though it is hard to tell the emotion on the
woman’s face, she almost became something like a focal point among the many
paintings of landscapes and mixes of greens and blues.
The
interpretation I have from this piece is something like a “sea goddess” that
appears to not be content. Her eyes are painted wide, but her mouth is set in a
downward shape. There is no clear explanation for the photo, but to me it
appears as if the painter wants to keep the woman anonymous in a sense.
Emotions give people away, and since we see her face, he keeps her emotional
identity a secret in how her face is set. This could be a woman the painter
encountered and he wanted to keep her initial looks but may have been hurt by
her emotionally at one point and did not want to capture her smile or emotions
so he does not have to remember the pain he set in his heart. I may also be
completely overanalyzing and it is merely a woman the painter met on a journey
that he asked to paint to capture that moment.
After much
thought, I believe I enjoy this piece for the mystery it holds. There is no
explanation next to this specific piece in why the painter decided to paint
this woman, but he did for a specific reason and I wish I knew what that exact
reason was. It brings up many questions in my head such as, Is this woman a
stranger he decided to paint? Is she a lover? A relative? A viewer such as
myself may never truly know, and I love that.
Shutter Speed: 1/60
Aperture: 5
ISO: 400
For the photo I took, I wanted to capture that mystery of how the woman may be feeling. In my photo, no one truly knows what her emotions may be or how she may be feeling in the moment. I also wanted to capture even a little bit of the blue similar to the original painting. How my photo is different from the original painting is through the absence of the woman’s eyes altogether. In photography, the eyes give away much of what the subject is feeling. In the painting, it is extremely difficult to tell the woman’s emotion through her eyes. It is both similar in the idea of the eyes showing no emotion, but also different in how that idea is portrayed.
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