When we think back on the past few years spent in the pandemic we think about the time spent away from people, our smiles hidden behind mask, looking for ways to stay connected to people. The way I have cropped this photo1 you would think you are seeing a girl in 2020 getting some air (through her mask) trying to stay connected to her friends while social distancing. What if I told you she was not alone though?
In the original photo you can see that the girl featured was actually surrounded by her friends in a socially distanced hangout. Just because she had her mask on and was on her phone didn’t mean she was alone. When you don’t know the other people are there you assume she was alone2. When looking at a photo you never know what the camera didn’t capture.
I Chose to make these edits not only to tell a different story but to also enhance the apeal of the image. In the original there was no main focus and the rule of thirds was not considered. there are also many distractng objects in the original, the cup, hand sanatizer and football along with the partial capture of a fourth person all pull focus from the others.
Hello Alexa!
I love your interpretation of these photos. I also noticed the giant container of hand sanitizer sitting beside your legs. COVID really was a crazy time in our lives. It almost feels like a foggy dream that we all woke up from a year ago. Perhaps the isolation made us all change a bit.
I noticed that you included your citations at the bottom of the page. If you wanted to add these as subtitles but still keep the text next to your image, you could put in two columns rather than text with image. I was a bit confused about the layout before clicking around and coming to that understanding.
Thanks for sharing!
Alexa, the way you arranged your post does flow very well with your photos. The links at the end were a little off-putting, but it’s not that odd, having done footnote-style formatting before. Personally speaking, I probably would have put the citations as image captions, so that everything is together and a little neater, but this way almost has the same claustrophobic feeling of being close to someone after social distancing for so long, like when you purposefully stylize a poem in odd ways. If this was intentional, I like it! If not, then as the late, great Bob Ross would say, it’s a happy accident!
In your before image, I would have assumed that the girl sitting dead center in the image was the intended main subject of your photo. Even with that, my eyes also kept being drawn to the giant bottle of hand sanitizer; I’m too used to seeing that and immediately reaching for it in order apply some. You have your subject’s eyes in on the upper left third of the image, but if I’m not mistaken, her phone is now almost dead-center. And isn’t that just a perfect metaphor for modern life?
Hey Alexa, nice to meet you! This edited image is the kind of picture that will be used in textbooks referring to those days. It really does convey, as you said, someone who is outside during the pandemic and trying to connect with friends. The eyes and phone fit well within the rule of thirds grid points, while leaving room for the direction that she is facing. This is a good composition in comparison to the original, where there are too many distractions and people have been cut out of the frame. The focus was still on the girl with the phone, but I didn’t even notice the large bottle of sanitizer at first with everything going on in this original image. Nice work!