The Beauty of Grain

A diptych is a juxtaposition of two or more images that relate in some way to depict a greater meaning. In Design class, we made diptychs to symbolize our personal statements. Using DSLR cameras, we took 60 pictures and chose two that best symbolizes our statement. Using Adobe Photoshop, we proceeded to place the two chosen images next to each other to create a juxtaposition. My statement was "The Beauty of Film is in the Grain", and I showed this with a picture of a road with passing cars (left) next to an upclose shot of tin foil (right).

My Artist Statement

These two images have been juxtaposed to create a greater union between their underlying meanings. While I chose two very different objects to represent my theme, they both represent, in one way or another, the beauty I find in the grain of film photography. On the left side of the diptych I used an image of passing cars. I use this to express the metaphor “a boulevard of plastic”, which represents the physical element of film. On the right side of the diptych, I used an image of foil, crumpled up, and put in a cloud of smoke. The smoke represents the acid, while the foil is used to represent the stars, because each crease comes to a point. This metaphor represents the grain of film.

For the image on the left, to get the effect of the light streaks, I used a long shutter speed. This allowed the sensor in my camera to be exposed to more light, so as the cars passed by, the light of their head and tail lights were recorded. I also took the shot at night, so that the lights of the passing cars would be visible and allowing me to get a longer shot without it being too bright. For the right side of my diptych, I used dry ice to get the illusion of “smoke” by placing it in warm water. This allowed the dry ice to sublimate and diffuse, creating a low hanging cloud of carbon dioxide. I also used light coming in from the side to provide contrast in the foil and to make the smoke more visible.