Forgotten Smiles

Obscure Light

Confined Shadow

Blooming Darkness

 

All these photos convey the emotion of vulnerability. When you first look at the photos, you’re drawn to her eyes. The eyes show stories. Stories of struggle, of hurt, of betrayal. Of vulnerability. My intention for these photographs was to capture the viewer’s eyes and feelings through the raw vulnerability in these photos. To enhance the creases on her face, I took the photos close up instead of showing more background space. This forces the viewer to look at the model and her emotions and facial features rather than the background.

Presentation: From left to right: Obscure Light, Forgotten Smiles, Confined Shadow, Blooming Darkness. I chose this order because it shows the acceptance of being in the darkness and vulnerability. The expressions go from little hope of safety and happiness (Obscure Light) to the realization of being trapped in their own mind and exposing what they feel to people who shouldn’t know (Blooming Darkness). In between (Forgotten Smiles and Confined Shadow), she goes through the happy memories that are now forgotten and in the past. The feeling she was once so familiar with was now lost in the darkness and blur of the shadows that now covered it all up. She is stuck within herself. Within her mind. She now lives within the shadows of her mind and body, no longer in herself and her heart.

These photos link to my inspiration because they show the stories through the eyes. You can see the emotion swirling throughout the iris even though it isn’t colored. The black and white show the lack of emotion and the lost positivity. In Kadar’s photographs, his stories and memories are shown through his facial expressions and eyes. In this set of photographs, I decided to focus more on the emotion in the eyes.