Fenestella: A Senior Black + White High Dynamic Range Diptych by Megan Yama (2016)

My two words I decided to use from my personal essay was shame and pride. For shame on the right, I took a photo of shadows of a window on the ground. The shadow of the window doesn’t have strong contour lines which make the photo seem more mysterious and like a hidden truth. I didn’t know the truth about my grandparents lives about being in internment camp so I felt closed off and shameful because I didn’t know about my family and my history. I wanted to use the shadows to make the viewer feel closed off and isolated because of the unknown. For the other photo for pride, I wanted to use a clear crisp photo representing knowing, and being able to share their experiences which I was able to do after the documentary unit last year. By using a window, I wanted to portray new beginnings and pride to describe how I felt after the documentary unit.

The shadow of the window creates mystery and because the shadow isn’t in complete focus so you don’t quite know what it is. I wanted the viewers to feel curious and try to figure out what the object in the photo was. By now knowing what it was I wanted it to feel shameful so I made the exposure very dark. For the left for pride, I wanted to have the clearest crisp shot of another window. I used the rule of thirds to focus on the cables to lift the blinds. When I think of pride I think of the truth so, having a crisp photo of a window I think was appropriate. I wanted to have the slits through the blinds overexposed to look like a beam of light, so the truth would be shining through. Both photos were taken in HDR which we had practice so I knew how to set the camera. By using the camera RAW filter in Photoshop I was able to adjust the shadows and highlights to help emphasize specific points in the photo. By using contrast of the darks and the lights I was able to convey the emotions that I felt when I was writing my personal essay and during the documentary unit.