Nostalgia: A Junior Narrative Diptych by Maxine Tsang (2011)

For our narrative diptych we were assigned to show an inner conflict and to have the subject react to it. The boy captured in the shot on the left represents the inner conflict, which is the nostalgia he feels for the past relationship he once had and still longs to have. The “point of no return” is expressed in the next picture on the right when the photos are going up in flames.

I displayed the internal conflict by having my brother, Miles, hold up a picture of a couple and looking down on it, wishing he was in the past because he is not content with the present. His facial expression shows his emotions of what he's lost and nostalgia, which are his inner conflicts. In the shot you see both his face and the picture he's holding up clearly, drawing the viewer's eye from the dark background. He realizes that sometimes you have to let go of what you once had and move on, which is shown in the “point of no return” shot of the pictures burning. Once those photographs diminish into ashes he cannot ever look back on them, so physically he's blocked from sinking back into fighting his inner feelings. This has a shallow depth of field with the camera focused on the flame and the burning pictures to emphasize their importance, while blurring the rest of the fireplace.