Broken Glass: A Senior Black + White High Dynamic Range Diptych by Michaella Gumila (2016)

The top image is a close up shot of a stained glass window from a church. The glass is textured, reflective and quite beautiful. However, because the image is black and white, the glass has no color and loses its much of its beauty, its just broken glass. In my personal essay, I wrote about how I would avoid looking at the altar by staring at the very eye catching windows. The first side stands to represent my experience with being forced into a religion and how I’ve resisted and rebelled. It is juxtaposed by a local playground that represents my childhood, innocence and freedom.

I merged the three shots of each image into two HDR images in Adobe Photoshop. After desaturating each HDR image, I increased their contrast through levels and adjusted the angle of the images to make them appear more interesting and dangerous. If I could have changed anything about my diptych, I would have shot each image again, but the first shot of the stained glass windows would be further away to reveal the whole picture. And the second shot would be empty of people.