I took a painting by Hopper called “Sunday Morning” and using cropped pieces of it I want to tell the story of what is happening on that street on a particular Sunday morning. I will show the entire picture as well as cropped pieces of the street with silence and birds chirping to show how calm the street is in the morning. Then I’ll show the windows and play audio of what is happening in each window with the people in there. I’ll always revert back to showing the stillness of the street to show how although the street is so peaceful, there are families above living their different lives.

Perspective is the relationship of objects in a photograph, and how they relate to eachother in varied distances to appear realistic. In this photo the two lines of the aisle are diagonals tilted towards eachother, but the eye knows that they are actually straight parallel lines. Scale constancy works to make sense of the depth. Objects in this photo are given a standard of scale due to the diminishing perspective.

Balance in a photograph is opposing forces that create equilibrium, a resolution of tension. When looking for balance you look for the center of gravity, the fulcrum on which the balance is based. Depending on the placement of objects in the frame, the center of gravity can be in the middle of the frame and have symmetrical balance, or off to the side and have dynamic balance. This photo is not balanced because the woman standing to the left weighs down the left side of the photo, and there isn’t an equal force opposite her to even the photo out. An imbalanced photo can cause the eye to shift to one side and create tension.

Dynamic tension uses the energy in a frame to keep the eye active and to move it outward from the center of the frame. It takes advantage of lines in a photo that steer the eye in a direction around the photo. In this photo the blue bucket and mop draw a vector that takes the eye from the bottom and over to the left side of the frame. The woman looking to the upper right draws a vector from the middle to the upper right. There is dynamic tension because of the two different directions your eye gets pulled away from the center.

Rhythm directs how the eye scans a picture. Repetition can contribute to this as the eye scans the repetition and is encouraged to continue looking as it sees each repeated cycle. In my picture the soda fountains have repetition as you scan from left to right. One way to make rhythm more interesting is to stop it at a point to the right. By placing the cup to the right of the frame, the eye sees the rhythm as it naturally scans the picture starting on the left, but the cup stops the rhythm and creates a break. This stop in the rhythm makes the picture more dynamic.

A point is the most basic design element, but the placement of a point greatly changes a photograph. A point placed in the center of the frame might seem like a logical idea, but it can be very static and dull to look at, likewise a point too far towards an edge can be a bit extreme and need some sort of justification for its placement. I placed the shoes slightly off-center because this is aesthetically pleasing to look at, and is moderately dynamic.

Last summer I worked at Bike Zone, Hyannis, a bike store on Cape Cod that fixes, sells, and rents bikes. Located at a tourist destination, the bike store is very busy in the summer months as people love to ride their bikes by the beach. I wanted to incorporate the beach into the business card to appeal to tourists, to help them connect the beach with biking. All of the pictures were taken by me of beaches on the cape. When you go into a bike store to get a new tire you have to know the size your bike needs. People often forget and have to go home to find out and come back in. To eliminate this problem I put a spot on the back of the card to write your bike’s tire size.