From Walls to Windows

Photography Module Project - Still Images (also on FB)



This is one of the first photos taken as my physical and photographic journey began. In taking this photo, my goal was simply to get a glimpse of the wall as it worked its way up the mountain. Rough and rugged, the wall resembles the rock on which it rests. From this angle, it appears that the wall is an extension of the mountain, rising up from the earth below. An indirect shot of this subject also accentuated some of the wavy lines that form the top of the mountain and then the top of the wall. I liked how they seemed to weave into one another. The mountain, largest on the left, diminished gradually as it sloped down to the bottom right corner of the frame. The wall, largest on the right, gradually tapered off into the top of the mountain. Taking the shot facing up the slope gives the wall an appearance of grandeur and endlessness as it extends into the sky. In addition to capturing the wall, I also wanted to include the clouds, which pebbled the sky early this morning. I liked how the pattern in the sky almost reflected the pattern found in the wall. Even with elements of line, texture, angle, pattern, this image lacked intimacy and intrigue. Nancy Hill says, “A good photograph stirs up emotion” (Hill, 2010: 3), and both she and Gwyn Calvetti emphasize the element of storytelling (Hill, 2010: 3; Calvetti, 2006: 4), which increases the potential of a picture from mundane to memorable. In the end, I concluded that this image is very common and sought something more compelling. I continued to climb.


As I moved up the mountain, I continued to capture pictures of the wall, with angles, lighting, and emotion in mind. On this hill, as I looked down on a still-sleeping city, I thought about the hardship and heartache experienced by so many, and I start to hunt for hope. My emotional perspective impacted my photographic perspective. I had been walled in by the wall before me, but now I was able to see a world beyond this barrier. Windows opened up everywhere, literally and figuratively speaking.

With windows as my frame, shape played a significant role in the shot. Lighting and shadows on the windows’ sills also affected the sentiment of the shot. With my field of vision narrowed substantially, though, I now had to focus more closely how hope was going to be communicated by looking beyond the wall. With the landscape littered with hills, slopes were a sure thing. Some shots centered the slopes, while others skimmed the tops with sky snatching up the bulk of the frame.

In the end, I stumbled upon a scene that I thought to be stunning. In the final shot, several sets of hills can be seen in fading succession, creating a crisscrossed corridor to the horizon line. In addition, a light layer of cloud shrouds the land, providing an intimate and intriguing illumination, qualities lacking in the first shot. To me, these elements work together to symbolize hope. While the journey is sometimes long and hard, and obstacles are sure to get in the way, hope hovers on the horizon.

As I worked with this final image, I applied a black and white effect, which I think helps focus on the shapes and shadows and sentiment. I also cropped the image, removing a large piece of the wall from the left side of the frame. Taking up a third of the picture, this dark portion of wall detracted from the picture seen through this peculiar portal. I cropped a couple times until an almost-square shot proved satisfactory. Finally, I applied an edge blur effect to the shot, which darkened the very outer edges slightly and seemed to bring the background blur a little closer… bringing that hope, which hovers on the horizon, within reach.