Narrative Character Portrait: A Narrative Character Portrait by Mica Carroll-Muñoz (2015)

My character is a six year old girl living in New York city. She has a slight obsession with superheroes, she spends all day pretending to be one, and always carries her favorite action figure with her. When in school and in public she is told not to play pretend, as it is deemed the wrong time to do so and she should ''know better''. In this photograph I have captured her imagining herself as one of the superheroes that she looks up to. She is posed with her arms on her hips and with her body in a powerful stance so that she looks like a typical superhero. She is looking upwards to show power like many super heroes but also the imagination in the young girl.

I captured the shot using a straight on but lower camera angle to make the subject appear more powerful while getting her entire upper body in the shot. I dressed the model in all black so that the shimmery red cape would contrast well to emphasize the superhero aspect of the photo. The model has dark makeup around her eyes so that they are emphasized and the viewer focuses on them and where they are looking. One problem that I encountered was with the lights in the studio, they kept malfunctioning during my shoot. Another problem I encountered was my model. Originally I had chosen a child the age of my character to model, but I soon realized that it would be far too difficult for her to follow specific modeling instructions, so I chose an older model to represent my character. To create my final photo, I used Photoshop to touch up imperfections in the photo, darken the background, boost the color in the cape, and add a vignette.