Project 4-The Trace: Inspiration and Ideas
When we were first assigned this project, “the trace,” the first things that came to mind were shadows and reflections. It was a pretty basic idea of the trace. Just some sort of sign that something was left behind. I took lots of pictures of trees casting their shadows against different surfaces or reflecting off of some sort of watery surface. What was I getting at with these pictures?? Beyond the fact that they were pretty reflections and shadows there wasn’t much else to them. I wanted to keep my original idea of the trace, but I wanted to do something to make my pictures less simple. When I was looking through my photos I noticed one of a tree casting its shadow against the grass in front of it. The framing of the camera and the angle at which the picture was taken made the shadows sort of morph into something almost unrecognizable. This gave me an idea, I could incorporate some sort of illusion or sense of distortion of reality into my photos to make them more interesting. I looked at multiple photographers for inspiration. I noticed that some of the most important aspects of capturing this sense of illusion or distortion was framing and camera angle. If the camera was tilted or flipped and the frame was maybe more tightly cropped then it seemed to work better.
