Wednesday, February 26, 2014

Emphasis

The Empire State Building itself possesses a great component of New York City's culture. It is a building of business, culture, and NYC life.



After carefully analyzing this photograph that I took on Valentine's Day, I noticed that my eyes or focus was initially drawn to the empire state building and that is one of the reasons this picture conveys emphasis. Emphasis is working in this image in two ways. Not only is the Empire State Building the viewers' initial focus but light itself is another subject being emphasized. I believe that this image shows depth of field but also applies to the rule of thirds. The composition of the photo, places the Empire State Building in the middle of the image emphasizing its significance. What I also find really interesting is that my eyes progressed upwards to the empire state building when I analyzed the image. My eyes went downwards to the people in the image and then up to the building of pink LED lights. 

I stated that the other subject of emphasis in this image is light. Light is also being emphasized because of the amount of sources of lights seen in this image. Not only is the top half of the empire state building flaming fuchsia, but one can also see lights in windows of the building. You see the street lights further into the image. There are also lights on the building on the far left of the picture. With all these lights illustrated in the image, the picture contains this vibrancy and truly encompasses the definition of NYC, "The city of lights." Repetition is a component of emphasis, and the mere fact that the repetitious element in this image is light, this image does in face illustrate the concept of emphasis. Light encompasses a number of meanings but in this image, it represents busyness. Lights are a form of guidance in a place that is dark. In this image, light has a presence. One wonders if the Empire State Building would be as attention-worthy in this image if it wasn't for the fuchsia lights.

When the viewer looks at the image from right to left, it is quite interesting that the right portion of the image is quite empty almost peaceful. But as the eyes travel leftwards, the environment becomes that much more metropolitan and fast paced. Lights are more prevalent and cars take stage. The only component or subject in this image that appears static is that Empire State Building. While everything around it is moving, it stands alone even though other buildings accompany it.  It calls attention to itself in a way that is so beautiful that it becomes organic. In my opinion, emphasis or when something is emphasized in a composition, it seems artificial and forced, but the Empire State Building simply draws onlookers to it. It not only represents the cosmopolitan lifestyle but integrity and euphoric solitude.

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