I cropped this photo to focus on the emotion of the birthday girl. Surrounded by her friends, the scene has a happy silly tone, with the balloons, cake, and friends all with distinct personalities. When I zoomed in on her face I saw a different story. Mesmerized by the candles, she seems lost in thought and maybe a little sad. Gone is the energy from the small party around her. I wonder what she is thinking about.
It’s interesting seeing the cropped image first and then the original – it has an almost jarring effect and really highlights the emotional differences between the two images. The close-up of the birthday girl’s face definitely makes her thoughts the focus of the cropped image. I also think it would be interesting to see how other compositions might affect the emotions of the piece. For example, if we re-cropped it with our birthday girl in the bottom right third and kept the two children on the left would we be making a commentary on being disengaged? Because then two of our three subjects are looking at the phone and not the birthday happening in front of them which may be why the birthday girl isn’t as joyous as we might expect. Or what if the cake was our main character?? So many stories to be told in just one picture!
I agree how jarring it seems to see the cropped image and then expand to the original. It’s almost like how on TV when people are lost in thought in public and then all of a sudden they snap back to reality and their surroundings aren’t blurred anymore. This is the imagery that this photo is giving me which is an awesome effect. The cropped image is also captures the complexity of human emotion. Like what is that girl really thinking? Is she reflecting about her birthday? Or is it something greater? Her eyes really capture it all. And when you go to the original photo, it seems like her friends are unaware of what is happening to her. Granted, they are children and that probably doesn’t occur to them right away, this may be symbolic for our society today! (if we want to get that deep haha)
Hi Hannah! I really like how bright and light-filled your derivative photo is of the Birthday Girl! Cropping the picture to get a close-up of the girl’s face really changes the story to focus only on her; we’re not at all distracted by her friends (or maybe her little sister behind her). I’m wondering, though, if you cropped it too much. If we didn’t have the original photo or your title, we wouldn’t know if she was all alone or if this was a party. Also, the flames from the candles look really close to her face in the crop without the perspective that we get seeing the cake on the table in front of her. You did a nice job of following the rule of thirds with her eyes in the top left third of your derivative photo, but she’s looking downward and does seem a little lost in thought. We can’t really tell what she’s looking at to give her that expression; maybe she’s overwhelmed by all of the excitement of her birthday or feeling all of the stress coming from her parent(s) trying to make this day special for her. I think you chose a great title for your post. I wonder what she’s reflecting about as her face reflects the light.