Thriving 2015 by Matt MacKay-Ring CC BY-NC 4.0
Thriving? 2026 by Lisa MacKay-Ring CC BY-NC 4.0
The photo that I selected for this assignment is one of a construction site taken 10 years ago in Minneapolis. The original photo tells a very different story, one of tearing down an old building to make way for something new that is more fitting to its surrounding structures. What was here is out of place with the implied trajectory of a city on its way up. I cropped it the way that I did to rid the photo of the prospect of interpreting it as one telling the story of promise and improvement. By eliminating the skyline of buildings that represent success, the viewer is only left with the juxtaposition of blight with the logo of a financial investment firm based on responsible planning for the future. Clearly this is one risk that didn’t work out according to plan. It calls into question the sense that this is a firm to be trusted with one’s future.
Cropping Concepts used for this assignment: crops to tell a different story, crops to change and emphasize a focal point, and leaves out unnecessary details. Photo was cropped and color was adjusted using Gimp.
Hello Lisa,
Your photos are perfect examples of your vision of before and after. The position and imagery alone provide insight into the purpose behind the cropping of the image in the way that you chose. The dynamic relationship between the foreground of the mostly demolished building and “Thrivent Financial” behind it, makes me feel as though that company photobombed the scene, in your cropped version. Sometimes perspective of an image can change when the focal point of that image is reflected in a way to have intentional bias. Therefore, you perfectly changed the meaning from the original.
I suppose the one thing I can suggest you could have possibly done was to crop out the demolition and focus solely on the high-rise buildings. This would show that you only want to show “success” and ignore the destruction that happens behind the scenes.
-Kelly
Hi Lisa
This is a great photo for this project. The crop you chose added new meaning to the photo. The original photo of the construction with the city in the background tells the story of progress: a city making changes to move forward. As you captioned, it looks like progress. The crop changes the meaning to look less like construction and more like demolition. I enjoyed the irony of the “Thrivent Financial” building in the background.
Other options for the crop could be having the car in the frame or cropping out the construction and focusing on the city skyline.
Hey, Lisa! I’m liking the narrative that you pulled together here, I think the sharp zoom on the 2026 image provides both the tension needed to really separate the two images and the clarity of the second image, given the punniness of the title and the financial firm behind the build site. I think the zoom-in actually gives it a feel of “upon closer inspection.. maybe this wasn’t the best idea”, which adds to the juxtaposition you’re trying to build here.
I think the only suggestion I’d make here would be to have cropped a bit off the top and the right side of the image, to make it a little closer to the rule of thirds with your final crop, but that’s just picky! All in all, great work!