You have to love assignments where you are basically told, "Find any image and talk about it." A class where I can just use what we talk about and apply it to whatever moves... me? Not just some random crap we're told to talk about?
Awesome.
First thing I did was get on Flickr and browse around. They have this nifty feature which displays the top photos from a year ago, and I ran across this image:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/tjintjelaar/5381410226/sizes/l/in/photostream/
(I apologize for not embedding the image, but Flickr's new policy is any link to their images also goes to the site. I don't know HTML well enough to just lift the photo off the page.)
I can't take my eyes off it. I'm blown away by the fact this is an actual building and not some optical illusion penned up by an artist. The sky might be artificial (I can't really be sure, but the artist mentions he used some post-processing stuff) but either way, the building itself is somewhere in Utrecht, Netherlands.
In terms of the three key terms we're dealing with, there is great contrast between the sky and the building itself. First, we can talk about the lines of it. You have straight vertical lines on the building, with the wire-mesh looking stuff on it. When it breaks into the sky, the wavy shape created by the paneling on the building gives almost an oceanic feel when juxtaposed to the diagonal streaking clouds.
The biggest contrast comes by way of light, I think, and it's also the greatest source of harmony in the image. This wire mesh paneling on the side of the building already gives us a cross pattern simply due to the layout, but combined with how light reacts, it is hard to look away. It's almost like the center of each panel glows and radiates, growing darker toward the ends. The fact it's not solid texture but one of this meshy pattern adds extra power to that glow, as in the direct center of each panel it's still pure white, like the light is so concentrated in those areas it fills in the gaps with light.
The photo is also balanced using the tools discussed in class. There is great symmetry, as every possible thing to draw our eye to it is duplicated throughout, and the rule of thirds comes in to play with the sky taking up the top third of the image with the bottom being of the building itself. I feel like light is the focal point of this image and even that is weighted out in a balanced way, the focal point in each panel being the center and even the sides of the image both have levels of light reduced at a near identical way.
Last, we've got harmony. Thematically, it's hard to say there's anything more than simply stating "That is a pretty impressive looking building." That's why the stripping of any color in this image lends it power. The focus is on the light and the form that light highlights. The vertical line energy of this skyscraper leaps out. I suppose I don't really know what to say here other than nothing feels out of place and yet you still can't take your eyes off it.
Addendum: I'm not sure what I take out of this psychologically, socially or culturally. As I mentioned, the building is located in the Netherlands, but it's a modern enough building I think it could exist in just about any first world country. Psychologically, there is a clear sense of might that I take away from this. The building just seems important. I imagine it's owned by Big Important Firm, LLC.
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