Period 5 -- Critical Analysis #9

11/16/2017

Today you will be writing about this photograph made by artist Heather Evans Smith.

Your analysis must be 5 paragraphs, 5 sentences minimum per paragraph. Remember to post your analysis as a comment to the blog post that corresponds to your class. If you post your analysis to the wrong class's post, it will not be graded.

If you do not complete your analysis in class, you must finish it for homework before your next class on FRIDAY, 11/17/17.

Refer to your "How to See" handout for analyzing a photograph--

Describe specifics.
Describe form.
Describe the content.
Evaluate the image

Your analyses will be graded on:

meeting minimum length requirements
depth of organization
evaluation of the content
grammar/punctuation

Jessica Mims

11/16/2017 11:29:33 am

This is an image by Heather Evans Smith, it is a self-portrait. We can see her standing, dressed in black, with her back to the camera. There is a model of a house on her back, and it looks to be attached to her with string. The lighting is dark and tinted. The colors are kind of eerie and unnatural, but I think that is the point of the image.

Heather Evans Smith is standing in the center of the image, using the rule of thirds. The depth of field is very shallow because the only thing that is in focus is herself. The image appears to be blurred. This image was taken in the third person point of view. The photo is almost symmetrical. The subject only fills a small portion of the frame, the open field takes up most of the image. The frame is cutting off the open area of grass, sky, and trees.

Since this image is a self-portrait, it was probably challenging for her to make. When you are making self-portraits, you have to be patient while adjusting all of the photo settings. She most likely used a tripod to hold her camera while she posed. She probably also would have needed either a timer on the camera or a wireless remote to take the image. It would have taken many times to create the image how she wanted it to be.

There is probably an intentional theme behind this image. I think that one of the themes could either be that she is running away from home. Her home might have hurt her in some way and that is why we see her back turned away from it. Another possible theme could be that she will never be able to get rid of the memories of her home. The memories could have been bad, given the dark tones of the image. This image also kind of reminds me of a dream because of the blur.

I like this image, but it is not my favorite. I like how we can see a lot of small details, like the smoke of the house and the flip of her hair. It is a unique image and probably has an important meaning to Heather Evans Smith, but I do not really connect with it. I still think that this is a successful photo. The settings that were made when creating this image give it a meaning that we would not have understood if the photo was sharp and the lighting was bright.

Pato Wray link

11/16/2017 11:29:56 am

This image is about a girl who is running away with a fake house on her back. The woman who took this photo is Heather Evans Smith and she is doing a self-portrait of her running. It looks like it is about the "golden" hour and it is on a cloudy day because the sky is very yellowish green and it's pretty dark. The lighting is on the woman, but more specifically the house. When you look at the house, you mostly see it in focus and everything else isn't.

The photo is a very good photo. Maybe took a lot of time and had to time it very good in order for the photo to look like it does. The rule of thirds is not being used here. The picture was taken while she was running out from the photo. It's like she ran through the 4th wall. There is a shallow depth of field being used here. The lines in the backround from the horizon leads you to the Heather. It doesn't look like they cropped out the photo anywhere.

The theme of this photo I think is a not-so-good one. I think it is supposed to represent that she is running away from all of her fears and things she is self-conscious about in her passed. The image tells us that she might have been bullied or had a rough kind of child hood and it is supposed to tell kids to "run away" from there passed because it you don't, you will have a struggles going through with them. The image is very much note worthy and people should be acknowledging how she has made the photo.

I do like the image chosen because it has such a good back story that we can all learn from. Everyone should understand the backround that Heather might have been through and many others. It is very crucial that everyone with the same issues come together and try to solve them. They all have some friends and you can talk it out with them. the photo was very successful.

The way Heather got all of the viewers attention was very significant to me. She had something attached to her back. The house behind (my opinion) is saying you can't run away from your memories. They're there to stay and you have to fight them head on. I wonder what she had been through so I could really understand what this image has to say. To me, the image is in your face saying "Here's a visual representation of what fear looks like". I think that this is a very good photo, one of the best I've seen and she must be proud.

Kate Madison

11/16/2017 11:31:18 am

This image is of Heather Evans Smith holding a doll house behind her back at night (it looks like it’s at night). This image is using dark colors maybe to make it seem more dream like. This lighting is mostly dark shadows because she probably took this at night and then edited it to cast a dark hue around it. In this image Heather is holding a Doll House which may be a childhood toy she’s had for a while. In this image, Heather Evans seems to have tied a doll house around her torso and is standing in a field.

This is pleasing to look at because it looks sort of dreamy. The rule of thirds is not being used in this image because she’s in the center of the image rather than to the left or right more. This image was taken in the third point of view because the camera is capturing everyday occurrences. This picture is using a very shallow depth of field. The focal point is Heather and the doll house.

The lines are the horizon line and they direct your eyes to Heather but then the rope around her and the doll house directs your eyes more to the doll house than to her. This image is not balanced because more seems to be happening on the left side than on the right (her hair flowing to the side). Heather and the doll house do not fill the space, therefore there is lots of extra space. The frame of the image most likely only cuts off more tree and plains. The positive space is Heather and the doll house and the negative space is around her.

A theme or idea in this image might’ve been to capture a childhood memory or dream. A story being told in this image is that when Heather Evans moved out of her parent’s house, she took some of her old things with her. This image kinds of reminds me of a horror movie when everything gets dark around a figure standing in the middle of nowhere. Some people may not like this image because they could read it differently and think it has a dark message in it. This image is interesting because you might think about why she tied a doll house around herself.

I like the background in this image because it look dark and inviting kind of like when you’re about to sleep a lot of things look like this. I really wonder why she might’ve taken this image because it doesn’t seem like something everyone would do. It looks like a scene in a slender-man game. It kind of looks like she’s floating because you can’t see her legs and the ground well so it might represent the passing of a young child. This image seems successful because it had a long exposure that makes it look more fascinating.

Larissa Esparza

11/16/2017 11:37:05 am

This image captures a woman carrying a dollhouse on her back. The dollhouse has smoke coming out of it and it wrapped around her with rope. The woman is wearing a long black dress but it doesn’t seem to be formal. The background is filled with hazy dark orange and yellow sky. Peaking out into the sky are tall trees. The woman is running across a large field of grass.

This image is using darker colors throughout the images including the sky, her dress and the trees probably because she is targeting a cooler dark image. The lighting in this image is dark and her dress leaves a shadow on the ground. I don’t find this image pleasing to look at because of how photoshopped this image appears. The sky and backgrounds colors don't look natural. The rule of thirds is being used because the women is directly in the middle of the image.

The point of view that this image was taken in is 3rd person because the photographer is taking a self portrait of herself. This image is using shallow depth of field because it focuses on the woman and not the background and woman evenly. The lines in this image are the line where the grass field meets the woods and the sky. Other lines in the image include The rope and windows on the house. The subject fills the space in this image and cuts off the ongoing grass field, sky and woods.

The edge of this image is the grass field,woods and sky. The image doesn’t cut off anything important because the photographer is the subject. The story being told in this image is that she’s always on the move she’s carrying her home on her back. Maybe she travels constantly and is doesn’t have a him besides the items she has on her back. This image remind me of a TV series I used to watch on Nickelodeon. The series was about this doll house that would give them clues to find things around their boarding school campus. One time the doll house started having smoke come out of the chimney and that what this image remind me of.

I do not like this image because of the lighting and colors being used. I don’t like it because of how photoshopped it appears as. The background just doesn’t seem appealing to me. I do however like the idea of the women having the house wrapped around her. The dollhouse on her back can tell multiple stories like if she always on the run or traveling constantly with no permanent home. Even though I didn’t find the image appealing the photographer could have still seen the image as successful.

Marynez Cantu Cardenas

11/16/2017 11:39:22 am

This photograph taken by Heather Evans Smith is very unique, interesting, and it tells a story. This is a very good photograph, it is an image of a young adult, Heather Evans herself, running away into a field carrying a dollhouse. There doesn't seem to be anything near from where the photograph was taken, so it must be in a pretty isolated place.

Heather Evans is wearing a simple black dress on, her hair is down and her arms are crossed behind her back carrying the dollhouse. I think that she is here trying to tell a story, from my perspective, she is telling the viewer how she is grownup now how she is let out into the real world, but maybe she is just not ready for that, and I believe that that is what she is symbolizing here due to her position, what she is wearing, and their simple picture itself.

This picture was clearly taken with a low shutter speed, due to the fact that this picture is by Heather Evans and she is actually pictured in it so she clearly needed time to position herself to get just the right picture that she needed. One thing that I admire about this picture is that she is actually in the picture which takes up a lot of time and effort, also not everyone could pull it off the way that she did.

There is a very low amount of lighting in this picture so this picture was more than likely taken past sunset. Heather must have had to do a lot of planning to get this picture at just the right time so that there would still be enough light so that the subject could be seen. Another thing that I noticed was that Heather found just the right place to be centered with the picture and she obviously didn't get that at first and I took her several pictures to take to actually get it.

In conclusion, this is a very unique, organized, and storytelling picture taken by Heather. Everything in this picture had to be very planned out just to get the result that she wanted, I like how her clothing fits with the story that she is telling. Another thing that I also liked was that the photograph was taken in the middle of nowhere and that was also a symbol of what she wanted to tell. Overall Heather did a really good job in getting the picture the way that she wanted to get it.

Maria Tirado

11/16/2017 11:40:02 am

This image is a photograph shot by Heather Evans Smith. It is of herself moving through an empty field with a wooden house that has smoke coming out of its chimney. This miniature house is tied around her waist and is facing the camera. The main object in this photograph is the house, but the woman is also as important as the house, because she gives this still image life. This photograph seems like it may have been shot later in the afternoon while the sun was setting. Smith is using some very dark colors but she uses a variation of warm and cool colors.
This image is very pleasing to the eye, because the viewer’s main focus goes to the house and woman, because everything else is blurred out. While she was editing this picture she purposely made the main focus on the house. The point of view this image is using is the third person point of view, since she set up a tripod to capture this image. This image could also be considered symmetrical, because there is the same amount of negative space on both sides of the image. This photograph compositionally is very pleasing to look at, because even though the subject does not fill up the frame, the house on her back is still the main focus.
This image was also shot with a long exposure and uses a shallow depth of field. This means that if you move your head to one side, the camera captures your movement. Smith also had to have set a very slow shutter speed for her hair and smoke to be looking like they are in the image. Another thing I really like about this image is the color selection she used. She is wearing a long black dress and her hair is very dark so it adds contrast the light colored house and the light colored sky.
There are probably many different stories that could be understood from this image. One of the ones I believe Mrs. Smith was trying to convey is how even if you try to get away you will always have one home. Home is wherever you want it to be as long as you are there so therefore she tied a house around herself. Her hair and the open field give it the perspective of her pretending to run away. You can bring the sensation of home along with you anywhere as long as you are capable to, because it is not a house what makes it feel like your home, it is you.
I really like this image and the potential messages that could be expressed in this photograph. I like the colors and focal point on the house. I enjoy the use of yellows and greens that are being contrasted with blacks and whites. My favorite part about this image is the slow shutter speed and long exposure to make the hair look in motion. This photograph is very successful as well as the rest of her images that are online.

Troy Rollwitz

11/16/2017 11:41:23 am

In the self portrait by Heather Smith she is standing in a field, most likely a farm as there appears to be crops. The photo was taken from her backside. She has a dollhouse on her back. Her hair is being pushed to the left. That may be from wind or she is swinging it. The lighting is very dark. The main colors we see are dark green, a dark orange in the sky, and black. She is the only one in the frame. She is wearing a dark black dress and the only skin we see is a part of her face.

Heather is in the center, lower part of the frame. The frame is probably cutting off her feet but it is hard to tell because the image has a vignette which makes is dark at the edges. She is using a shallow depth of field as she and the dollhouse are the only part of the image that is in focus. She is using a long exposure because there is a little bit of motion blur at her hair. The end of the field is a line that directs our eyes towards the dollhouse.

When I first saw this image I thought she was trying to portray childhood. She has a dollhouse on her back, and is walking alone in a field as if she is off to play. She looks like she misses childhood. In the photo there is an amount of detail and realism in the dollhouse and her attitude that makes me think she is acknowledging she will never be a child again. Another factor that sends this message is the dark color theme being used.

I like this image. I like how she made a dark, underexposed image work so well. I love the colors being used, as they are some of the ones pleasing to my eyes. I also love how she focused the photo on the dollhouse instead of herself, because to me it is not as interesting to look at a random person. But she is using herself as an object to help add to the dollhouse and give it meaning and a story.

I think much of this photo was done in post. There is a small part of the dollhouse that is blurred and the rest is in focus and I know that the camera didn’t do that. The vignette in the picture was likely added in post because I don’t think she is using a film camera and they are easy to add. There is smoke coming from the chimney of the dollhouse, and that was likely added in post because it would be very difficult to have that smoke actually there.

Marissa Elizondo

11/16/2017 11:42:36 am

This is an image of a lady carrying a house on her back. This lady is wearing a long black dress and has dark brown hair. This image seems like it was a long exposure where the lady was turning her head because he hiar seems to be moving. The house is tied with a rope around the lady’s waist and smoke is coming out of the little chimney. In the background you can see a field and some trees. The lighting in this image is kind of dark and foggy.

This is image is a self portrait. I think Heather Evans Smith, the photographer, put her camera on a tripod and used a timer or a remote to take the picture. I think she took the picture with the remote because in this image her face is turning and her hair is moving, so it would have been easier to take this long exposure. The lighting seems to be natural lighting since this image was taken outside. The house on her back is probably a toy house and the smoke coming out of the chimney might be a from candle inside the toy house.

The subject of the image would be the women carrying the house. The focal point in this image is mainly the lady’s face and the house on her back. The picture was taken in a shallow depth a field, since the background is more blurred out. Even though this is a self portrait this image is in the third person point of view. The positive space would be the lady and the house on her back, while the negative space would be the everything else in the background. There is one line that directs your eye to the subject and that is the horizontal line made by the field right when it touches the trees.

I think this is an interesting image. One possible theme to this image is that you take part of your home wherever you go. The house tied up on the lady represents how your home is always with no matter where you go. In this image the lady could be going on a journey and she isn’t literally taking her home with her, but she is taking it figuratively. This image reminds me of the saying many people use, “home is where your heart is” because no matter where you go or no matter where your heart leads you, you have home with you.

I didn’t really like this picture. I personally don’t like the lighting in this image. I also don’t like the color scheme. I think the colors she used are all very dull and make the picture look more boring to the eye. In my opinion, I do think the image is successful, but not in image quality. I feel that if the image was sharper the mood and story the image tells would not be the same. I do, however, like the many potential stories and interesting themes this picture could have to many different people.

mikaela mumme

11/16/2017 11:47:24 am

This image is a self-portrait of a lady with a house on her back. There is movement in this image and it's not a hundred percent focused on the lady. The clearest and most focused spot in the image looks like the house around the windows. This picture looks very abstract with all of its different components. The image is darker using a darker color palate, which gives it a mystical feel.

This photo looks like it would take a lot of work to photograph especially knowing the difficulties of self-portraiture. I think his image was taken with a tripod, because how it looks flat-footed. This image also looks staged and very planned out. I don’t think the movement, however, was planned in this picture though. It looks like she might have been using a self-timer and could not stand how she wanted fast enough.

This image has a very shallow depth of field and focuses more on the house rather than the lady. The negative space in the image contributes greatly by giving more context that adds to the narrative. The positive space of this photo is dark and gloomy like the negative space as well, giving this image a feeling that isn’t very positive. This image pays great detail to the edges of the frame not letting anything distracting in the background. The image looks balanced even with the lady in the cent and the negative space divided evenly, but the focus of the image the lady and house are moving giving it a twisted and unsymmetrical look.

This image reminds me of a weird dream and Alice In Wonderland, because of how the image looks like it is falling and shrinking. This image is definitely narrative and tells a story of lostness and uneasiness. I think you can interpret this picture from a perspective of a dream in how odd this image is. It makes you feel like that moment when you wake up from a nightmare, which I think is cool that this image can express those emotions. It is also brave for the photographers part to share that experience and emotion with us the viewer.

I enjoy this image because I think this image is weird, cool, and relatable. This image might not be the clearest and shapest, but it adds to the story in a unique way that is neat. This image is successful because it tells a narrative and the composition is nice in the sense of the role it plays. I personally really like this image and would hang it in my room if I owned it. Overall, the photo is successful and the qualities are contributing are great.

Zach Burgos

11/17/2017 04:32:45 am

The image is of a woman standing in a field that has a toy house strapped to her back. The colors the image is using are mostly green, black, and grey. The lighting is natural light from the sun. The objects in this image are a toy house, a woman in a black dress, and some trees. A woman is carrying a toy house that has smoke coming out of its chimney.

The composition is kind of pleasing to look at because it is a really strange picture. The rule of thirds is not being used. The point of view is third person and Heather took this image at the same level as the woman. The depth of field used in the image is narrow. The focal point of the image is the house and it is framed by the woman carrying it on her back.

The lines in the image is the horizon line going towards the house. The image is balanced, but it is asymmetrical because the each side of the image is not the same. The subject does not fill the image and there is a lot of extra space around the woman. The edge of the image is the field and it cuts off the the rest of the trees and field. The positive space is the woman and the house while the negative space is the sky and field.

I think the theme of the image is a dream because it doesn’t feel real. The only story I see is a woman is carrying a toy house. Heather made this image to say something about the woman, but i do not know what her idea was. The image doesn’t challenge any beliefs. I think the image is noteworthy because of the dream like imagery.

I do like the image because of its dream-like theme. I also like that the depth of field makes it so that the toy house is the subject instead of the woman. I like that Heather used the Horizon line to go towards the house. I think the photograph was successful because it shows one of its themes about it being in a dream-like state. It was also successful because of its depth of field that makes the house the subject instead of the woman.

Josh Salehi

11/17/2017 09:00:23 am

This photograph by heather evans smith shows her in an empty field. She is cradling a house in her arms. Heather look in the opposite direction of the camera. This makes it so that we can only see a part of her face. The house looks like a very old doll house. In this particular image heather is wearing an all black dress.This was a good choice because it makes the house pop more. I think this image turned out successful.

In this image the color scheme is on the darker side. There is not many distracting things in the background which is pretty good. The only things in the background is a long row of dark green trees. The trees aren't all evenly aligned but that does not stop the power of this image. The sky is mixed with red in the bottom and then the colors merge together to create a bright yellowish color for the top of the sky.

The house is a particular type of house. The house is either an dollhouse or it is an model of an house. Some people may like the choice of an house because of how it could possibly remind her of her childhood. Some viewers can get scared or freaked out because some people are scared of weird thing like clowns and doll houses. I like this photo because the true meaning is a mystery.

This picture is shot in a deep depth of view it also looks like it masked a little in the back of her back.Since he was outside it is most likely that she shot this picture with a low iso so therefore the image is kind of dark and has no blacks and some shading.This photo like many other photos has been taking in landscape form which makes the photo harder to edit and you can see more background.

I think this image was successful because off all the different aspects that have been put in it. The good light, The image is also very simple which i like because instead of random things in the background distracting you ,you can focus on the actual subject and wonder to yourself if it is supposed to tell a story or it is not.

ryan kyle

11/17/2017 10:20:46 am

This image is of a woman wearing a black robe who has a house tied to her back with a rope. The image is almost entirely green because the grass is green and the sky has a green tint. The lighting is very dark and there are shadows in places like the bottom corners of the image. The objects in the image are the woman and the house. The woman is looking around like she is afraid of something that is coming. The reason why I believe that she has the house on her back is because it might be a metaphor for how she is constantly moving maybe because she is being chased by something or someone.

The image is pleasing to look at because of the darkness and because it is all mostly one color. The rule of thirds is being used because the woman is in the middle of the image. The point of view is third person because we are looking at the woman. The image has a very shallow depth of field even to the point where the woman’s legs are blurry and only the upper half of her body is clear. The focal point in the image is the small house on the woman’s back.

There aren’t really lines in the image besides the line of the horizon. The image is almost symmetrical except for the woman and house. The subject does not fill the space of the photo and there is extra space for other things. The edge of the image is just the trees, grass, and sky. The positive space in the image is the woman and the negative space is the grass, trees, and sky.

The themes in the image may be something like persecution. The woman may be wearing the black robe to hide herself from the others. She also might be carrying the house because she is always on the run. This image remind me of a movie called It Follows. The movie is about a creature that looks like a human and constantly walks toward the person and if it touches you, you die. It reminds me of the movie because it is like they are constantly on the run. The image is interesting because it reminds me of the movie.

I like the image because of the shadows it uses. I also like that the colors remain relatively constant throughout the image. The photograph is successful because it conveys its message about constant movement. I also think it is successful because it uses the same colors throughout the image. I like this image overall because it has an interesting story.

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Period 5 -- Critical Analysis #9

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