Responding

Photographer: Ralph Eugene Meatyard

There are many great photos taken by a great photographer named Ralph Eugene Meatyard, and his photos include many negative emotions. To be more specific, most of his photos express despair emotions by adjusting the pose of the subject and the tone of the entire picture. Also, one of the techniques he uses in his photographs is a blur, he uses blur in the subject’s face, forming creepy and negative emotions. Additionally, he uses focus in his photographs, to be specific, he usually has a person as a subject and the background usually becomes blurred in order to make the direct focus and unfocus.

Therefore, the reason why I chose this photographer is that he has the concept that I want to do in my project. Since the main issue that I want to talk about in my project is sexism, the photography should first include negative emotions. This is because sexism has been one of the biggest issues in the world and it is happening everywhere, so the photography should have negative emotions, such as sadness, despair, and depression. Also, this photographer is very talented at forming negative emotions in his photos, so I chose him because his work will inspire me a lot to form negative emotions. Moreover, the technique I want to use in this project is blur and focus, and I believe he is also good at utilizing focus and blur in his works, which will also help me when I take my photos. Lastly, I chose this photographer because he is a very talented photographer who can use blur and focus in his work and form negative emotions, which is exactly the same as my plan for this project.

The upper four photographs are from Ralph Eugene Meatyard. The main similarity is that all the photos are in low and negative moods, especially in the third and fourth photos, the face of the people/person in the photo looks very depressed and despairing, forming negative emotions in these photos. Furthermore, the common techniques that Ralph Eugene Meatyard uses are focus and tone. First of all, Ralph Eugene Meatyard well-utilizes focus-related skills such as zoom-in and blur to express a low mood. Also, as you can tell from the photos, Ralph Eugene Meatyard well-utilizes tone to reveal depression in the photo.

Critique:

Out of those four photos, I think the photo well-represent my goal for this set. The subject of this photo is those two boys who are looking depressed. Also, we can notice that there look depressed because of their pose and facial expression, the photographer’s well-chosen pose and facial expression express depression. Also, since I cannot use the studio, I will mostly take photos at home, but I will still try to make the tone of the home dark so that the place can express depression, just like the place in this photo. Also, one of the characteristics of this place is that it looks very old, so I would also try to make my place look old. Also, the main theme exposed in this photo is depression which fits the issue that I want to talk about, which is sexism. The author’s point of view in this photo is a sad emotion. Also, the eyes are in the middle of the photos which fits one of the rules of a portrait. The most-utilized element in this photo is color and focus. The colors in this photo are white and black so that the photo can express negative emotions. Also, since the pose of the children are in focus, so we can feel that the pose of the children standout. I also like the style of the photo which is forming negative emotion. Using all the things above, the photographer wanted the audience to feel bad after looking at this photo. Therefore, I will try to follow what he did for his work in my work so that I can reveal negative emotion using the abstraction.