This photo was taken during the riots that took place in France in December of 2022, where dozens of officers were wounded. What initially drew me into the original photo was the high contrast and focus surrounding the police officers. I didn’t see that there was anything technically “wrong” with the original, but I felt as though the emphasis surrounding the emotion of the police officers was lost in the photo as a whole. There are people standing off on either side of the road and motorcycles cluttering up the left side of the photo, so in my derivative, I wanted to bring more attention to the emotion shown on the officers faces. Using the rule of thirds, I kept the crop at eye level and created an intersection between the front two officers heads. This created a sense of movement up the street, keeping the intersection at eye level and bringing the photo over more to the left, and brought more focus to the expressions on the officers faces. In the derivative, the fear on the left officer’s face and the concentration on the right officer’s face are enhanced and the emotions are clearer. I then cropped out the group of people to the right of the road and the man standing to left behind the bikes bringing focus solely to the officers marching forward toward the chaos that they were about to face.
Hi Maryann, I absolutely loved reading your post. As you explained, once the distractions on either side of the original picture are removed and the soldiers become the center of the focus and we could read the emotions in their faces clearly. I am fascinated to see how a simple modification in a picture can change the whole perspective of how we view the picture. I didn’t know about the riots but your post kindles my curiosity to know more about it and I am sure I will picture these two soldiers in any article I read about that riots. Great job done and best wishes to more such amazing work in the rest of the semester.
Hey, Maryann, thanks for sharing! In the original, while you’re right that there’s not really anything “wrong” with it, the emphasis is not clear, as you mention. The uncropped image feels more casual, but the way you cropped it reasserts the seriousness of the historical context of the image. I appreciate that you utilized the rule of thirds to bring the officers into focus without directly centering them. This off-center cropping does help create that sense of movement that you were looking to add. Well done!