Overexposed: A Junior Narrative Diptych by Dora Parnanen (2011)

She checked behind the shower curtain. She covered her front door's peep hole with duct tape. She went around her house, closing all the blinds and double checking that the doors were locked. This had become a daily routine of hers, closing off her house from the outside world. Ever since her childhood apartment had been robbed and all of her family's belongings stolen, she made sure it would never happen again. Over the years this secluded lifestyle had become more and more of a problem, until she had become so paranoid she couldn't go to sleep before her neighbors did, afraid that they would be spying on her and break into her house as she was dreaming. One day as she was checking the lights in her house for wires, paranoid someone had been listening in on her life, she noticed something was different about one of the lightbulbs. As she reached toward it, she realized her biggest fear had come true. An intruder. A stranger. Studying her every move, watching her write her deepest thoughts in her journal. Her life had been exposed. A camera had been filming her without her even knowing. I captured the mood of this story using lighting, placement, and color. In both photos she is placed on the right side of the picture. However, on the left side her body is facing away from the camera, she's wearing a dark green shirt, and both her and the inside of her room are in darkness while it is sunny outside. On the right side, she is facing the camera, wearing a light green shirt, and she is in the light while the background is dark.

The left side of the photo shows her internal conflict of being paranoid of being watched. It is dark inside and she's wearing a dark shirt to show her seclusion from the bright and saturated outside. She is closing the blinds to hide the amount of light that illuminates her, and her closed off body language reflects her defensive personality. The right side of the picture is the moment when she realizes she has been exposed, and in the picture she is reaching toward the camera that has been watching her life. The lighting is opposite from the left side, because the background is dark while she is illuminated, showing how she is now in the spotlight and can no longer blend into the darkness. The brighter lighting, her diary laying open on her bed in the background, and the change of her shirt color to a brighter green all show how she has been exposed and how she can no longer hide in the darkness and comfort of her isolation.