The Reminisce of a Penny: A Junior Narrative Diptych by Adam Poltorak (2013)

My narrative diptych portrays a talented, determined individual who wants to present his musical talent to the people of his city. The man faces hardships and difficulties in understanding his purpose in society. Lacking wealth and a laid-back lifestyle, he creates a goal to achieve fortune through fame. This way he will not have to work hard to earn an income, live dependently on his parents, and abandon his sedentary being. In the first picture, it shows the man looking in a mirror. The mirror reflects two images, a fully shown face with a determined, optimistic expression, the other a unmotivated, concerning face. As he dresses up to perform in the town, he accompanies a sad essence of himself. The mirror shows how the character views himself with unsatisfactory. In the second picture there is a hat held by the man over dried grass. He walks away from a sense of reward, his hat's velvet edges surrounding the interior where a single penny lies shining. The penny is the earnings of his performance and it fills the character with disappointment and his incentive to continue with his next step comes to an end. A hole lays in the ground in front of him and gives him a sense of his failures. His mind now aware of the hole, a reminder to walk over it. The character realizes the bravery and confidence to be in front of a crowd and perform. He finds a new source of satisfaction, to interact with people is just worth a cent but more valuable than a full hat of dollar bills. This idea was inspired by my perspective of how human interaction is more important than money. The piece has a strong presence in my life and it has allowed me to portray my views through a story depicted in two photos. Creating this piece was a great experience for me. Using the DSLR cameras provided by Freestyle, I took sixty pictures of different depictions of my diptych. I faced challenges trying to keep the story telling literal with both the photos. Finding an desired actor was a difficulty as well. I took a risk when taking the picture of the mirror the character looks into. I had to take multiple angles to capture his upper torso while keeping the camera and I out of the photo. I used the photo where my actor was split in two by the angled edge on my mirror reflecting two ways. It turned out portraying my idea of the piece very well. I was very precise in how I wanted to show my actor and the success in doing so was rewarding .