The Cookie Jar: A Narrative Character Portrait by Maxwell Weber (2015)

The character I created is a stubborn little girl. In the graphic novel that I produced in my English class at Freestyle, this little girl struggles with her headstrong personality. In the graphic novel, the little girl is presented with a very bland sandwich and decides to pursue the unreachable cookie jar. My graphic novel shows all of her attempts to gain access to this cookie jar and she then succumbs to her hunger and finally eats the sandwich earlier presented to her. She then realizes how amazing this ugly looking sandwich is and learns that she shouldn't judge things before she gets to know them. In my photograph, I captured the girls attitude towards the beginning of the story. The moment where she despised the sandwich.

During my photoshoot, I told my model to sit down facing away from the sandwich placed behind her. She was then told to cross her arms and in the opposing direction from the sandwich to show the character's emotions towards the sandwich. My camera was elevated and angled downwards so I was able to see a bit of the top of the sandwich so the viewer could tell what the object actually was. The only props I used during the photo shoot were a plate, a sandwich, and a bow for the hair of the model which resembles that of the main character. My photo may be simple, but I think it gets the point across for the simple story. There was no makeup application during the photoshoot. The only problem I faced was lighting which I overcame through several initial experimental shots using a range of light settings to find the perfect tone. It took a while but the final effect was worth the time.