Week 5 Re-imaging Visual Framing

             The image I chose is a photograph taken by Sally Mann of a young girl, probably around thirteen smoking a cigarette. She’s wearing a white dress and because of the use of colors and the rules of thirds, a viewer’s attention is immediately drawn to her. She is set in the lower left hand corner of the rule of thirds. Her stark white dress contrasts deeply with her dark background, and because the picture is taken or developed in black-and-white, she becomes the center of focus. However, upon closer examination, the use of lines helps the viewer’s attention be drawn away from the girl in white. Her cigarette provides the perfect line to another girl in the picture, who appears to be standing behind the girl. The use of space is a good indicator here that the girl in white is the foreground and the shorter girl, dressed in a darker dress, is the background. Here, an invisible line can be drawn from the darker dressed girl to a white figure out of focus in the background. All these aspects immediately drew me to the image. I love the way the girl is standing sassily with her arm crossed over her thin torso and her other hand flipped slightly as she holds the cigarette. I also love how the background is a big part of the image; there’s a story here, but it depends on the personal viewer’s opinion. Why is this young girl smoking? What is the white figure out of focus in the background?

            I chose to tighten the image and remove the white figure. I used the rule of thirds to emphasize the two girls. I thought the effect of the image would be changed greatly by this minor crop, however, the use of lines and spacing is still the main aspect in the image. I think the author chose to frame the image the way she did because the white, out-of-focus figure was important to her, and I have to agree. The figure adds a certain ambience or visual movement to the photo that is not expressed without it. Mann must have thought the figure added to storyline so she included it, using the figure as the main focus for her rule of thirds.