On our class trip to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, we were told to photograph pieces of artwork in order to get a closer look at it. I chose to photograph a variety of different mediums.
“Woman” by Man Ray
This photo is an image Man Ray took of one of his readymade artworks. The actual work is supposed to symbolize a woman. I took the shot to get a different view of his photo which are of some clothespins, used to represent a woman’s spine, and the shadows to the left of them. I felt that by only capturing a small part of the actual focus of the image and looking more at something you wouldn’t normally focus on such as the shadow, it makes the picture look more interesting and abstract.
“Ovid among the Scythians” by Eugene Delacroix
I love when paintings have a lot of detail and different things going on at the same time. This was one of those paintings. I wanted to focus on the woman and the back of the little boy. I thought that by focusing on these two people, it would make this look like a painting on its own.
“The Hand of God” by Auguste Rodin
In person, this statue was fairly big. I liked how there were two distinct textures. The statue was of a large hand with smaller people inside of it. I wanted to capture both in order to make each apparent. I did this by making the thumb the biggest visual in the picture, and the legs of one person and back of the other so the people were noticeable.
“Elergy to the Spanish Republic” by Robert Motherwell
My first thought while looking at this in the museum is that I loved how the picture was so simple in color, and had a deep meaning to it. Even though the picture was already abstract, I wanted to add to the abstraction by breaking the picture down even more to show each individual color and brush stroke.
“The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere” by Grant Wood
Before even reading the description of the picture in the museum, this picture instantly reminded me of Paul Revere’s saying, “The British are coming!” The painting itself is beautiful, but I felt that since the painting is titled around Paul Revere spreading the word about the British, the viewer gets lost looking at the scenery and buildings instead of Paul Revere himself. Taking a photo of that particular part of the painting puts him in the spotlight.
