Project for AMD 317
For my Sketch 5 assignment, I pushed light to my advantage and created an illusionist photograph. This weekend was an interesting time to be completing an assignment using creative light because it was overcast and misty which created a lot of diffused, boring lighting. So as I was on my outdoor excursion, I decided to capture some shots of light sources and how the natural lighting was effecting them. As I was taking this photo at a local intersection, the orange, musty lighting of the foggy sunset created a fascinating illusion with the stop light. You may not have noticed it at first, but the red light is in the middle of the three lights on this stoplight. This is not some engineering mistake, the orange lighting and my camera settings made the yellow light in the middle turn completely red. Although I did some general postprocessing in Lightroom, I did not change the color of the light after the fact. This is completely light and camera trickery!
In addition to the illusionistic qualities of this image, the way the light softly illuminates the smooth geometric shapes of the stoplight and highlights little screws makes the form of the subject much more apparent. The chalky surface of the stoplight, tiny stripes from dripping dew, and sharp lines of spiderwebs in the light itself all make this image subtly textural. There is also some pattern in the repeating circle elements of the lights and screws. Finally, I really like how the close crop makes this common fixture into an abstract, geometric composition. Overall, I am really glad that I could come up with a cool use of light in this photograph with trickery and attractive forms despite the bland lighting this week.
Shelby Rossman's Digital Photo Blog 