One Frame: The Fall and Melancholia

The one frame series is a new work in progress, which seeks to illustrate how the viewers perspective of a single image can be skewed depending on the photographers processing method. Processing is a crucial step in the story telling process and affects not only visual perspectives but also influences the visceral response of the audience. The first image is shown with true to life color which reflected the warm tonality of the fall foliage. The second image is converted to black and white and no longer resembles the fall scene. Instead it invites the viewer to look deeper into the darkness and search for hidden meanings within the seemingly meaningless image. These revelations are intended to be unique to your perspective and life experiences. What you see and feel about this image today may very well be quite different a year from now, which is what makes this type of abstract expressionist photography so interesting to explore. When I initially shot this series, I was exploring feelings of melancholy and the conversion to black and white illustrates the feeling of sadness, as if the world is uncontrollably spinning, as I sink further into myself and my melancholic feelings. The third image takes this concept further by helping the viewer connect the symbolic meaning of melancholy by providing a visual reference for it. This was created by layering in another image and selectively masking that image, so that it blends seamlessly within the original. The darkness and chaos of the third image is constructed to purposefully contrast the way viewers are typically presented with images of children.