For this blog exercise, we are to select an image and analyse the picture on how might be read by target audience.
I chose to search for social documentary pictures and I found this picture, titled Young Mother. What struck me initially was the intensity of the woman’s gaze.
To start off, I’d talk about some elements of the picture, namely, light quality, focus and colour.
For the light quality, one thing that I noticed is that the lighting is quite harsh. The faces of the mother and child are really bright. THe light source seem to come from the sun, shining directly on the faces, thus the background is pitch dark.
The picture has a very sharp focus. Through this, I feel that the photographer was trying accentuate the mood she’s trying to bring out.
Using black and white for the picture, the very gloomy, harsh environment is highlighted. To me, I felt that the woman’s gaze is extremely.. strong. Even though it’s quite obvious that she’s living in pretty dire conditions, her eyes showed that she’s a very strong-willed, headstrong woman. The smile grim, yet contented. If it were a coloured photograph, the contrast of the dire conditions and her smile and gaze would not be so emphasized and dramatic as it is now.
As much as I love coloured photographs, I have to admit that certain effects are certainly hard to achieve with coloured pictures.
