In Design, we were taught how to operate cameras using ISO, aperture, and shutter speed. For our first major assignment of the year, we had to take a diptych (two photos put together) describing a motto of ours.

 

Here is my artist statement:

 

It is important to be able to support yourself. I take this theme from my life when I first entered high school only really knowing one person. To show my life before this transition, I took a picture of leaves on a branch in the sunlight. A plant combines energy from each leaf to benefit itself as a whole, so I felt it was appropriate to use one to represent people supporting each other. There is a lot of light in the picture to give a happy and optimistic mood, and the only focus in the picture is the branch. The photo represents my life before high school, when I was always surrounded by friends who kept me sane.

 

My second picture represents what happened when I left for a school that none of my friends were going to. I photographed a single leaf on the ground under the branch, with the branch in the foreground. To emphasize the lone leaf, or “me,” the picture has a shallow depth of field going past the branch and focusing on the leaf. There is much less light in this picture to convey the loneliness I experienced in my Freshman year. The theme I am demonstrating in my self portrait is that you must be able to support yourself, which I am learning to do.