Compositional elements of "Don't Walk and Red"

Photographer Jay Maisel is known for his vibrantly colored images, and his “Don’t Walk and Red” is an example.

Overall, the composition is limited to essentially two different colors: black and red (with the exception of a few splashes of yellow and gray). The silhouettes of the men and crosswalk sign and pole act as points of emphasis, carrying visual weight which balances the image. The image is balanced asymmetrically about the vertical axis. Although the balance is asymmetrical, because the men and crosswalk sign occupy approximately the same amount of space, equilibrium is achieved. The lack of a horizon line is somewhat disorienting, yet the image still “feels” balanced to viewers.

Maisel uses isolation as another means of visual emphasis in his composition. The foreground figures’ isolation from the background also a ttracts the viewer’s eye.

The high contrast between the darks and highly saturated red is eye-catching and demands a viewer’s attention. There is almost a complete lack of shadows in this image, which achieves an interesting almost two-dimensional effect upon the sign and men in the foreground. Maisel’s use of lighting and elimination of almost all shadows in this image contributes to this two-dimensionality. Furthermore, the exaggeration of the red background almost pushes the image beyond the limit of reality. It is difficult to gauge the foreground subjects’ distance from the red wall; making the red appear infinite.

A sense of rhythm is achieved in the composition if we consider the foreground subjects to be only shapes and blocks of black color. The repetition of these “shapes” and jazzy colors evokes a sense of music.

Also present in the image is a psychic line. The men appear to be looking towards the crosswalk sign and beyond it. This line creates tension and attracts the viewer’s attention, creating the existence of mental connection between the subjects and the viewer.

In summary, Jay Maisel’s “Don’t Walk and Red” is a fine example of a composition that represents many principles of design: visual emphasis through isolation, color, and contrast; use of lighting to achieve dramatic effects; a sense of rhythm through repetition of shapes and color; balance with shape and color; and psychic line to create a sense of tension and mental connection between the subjects and viewers of the image. The result is an eye-catching and overall pleasing image.

Edited Writing Assignment #1

The Basilica of San Francesco in Assisi is the subject of my photograph. The picture was taken in November of 2011, during my study abroad trip to Italy.

Although I have very similar shots of the church from my class trip to Assisi, this one holds particular significance for me. The context of the time when the photograph was taken contributes to its significance. Outside the frame is me, reading aloud from my journal, and the photographer: my sister, Lisa, who traveled Italy with me for a week.

During the moments Lisa took pictures of the church, I decided to share with her some poetry from my journal. I was enrolled in a poetry course at the time, and the entire study abroad experience lent itself to pages of writing. The poem I read was inspired by the basilica and the life of St. Francis. 

The basilica itself is possibly the most interesting I visited while abroad. It is also multi-level: The crypt, where St. Francis’ tomb lies, is the basement of the building, the ground floor level is the original church, and built directly above it is the new church.

The older church is very dimly lit, with masonic architecture and glittering golden mosaics. In the masonic style, many of the arches were not mathematically calculated, so there are slight variations in the angles and tilting of the ceiling and beams. Staring at crooked arches is rather disorienting, and evokes a sense similar to vertigo for observers. Side chapels contain devotions to saints other than Francis, and much of the artwork on the walls remains unexplained. Conversely, the upper-level church was built in the Italian Gothic style, with much more illumination from windows and the color palette. Giotto, a famous Italian painter, decorated the panels along the nave with frescoes, which in great pictorial detail depict the life of St. Francis. 

As Giotto visually explains, Francis had great faith and was a revolutionary. At a time in the Catholic Church when much of the clergy was very affluent and ostentatious, Francis chose austere poverty. He promoted much-needed reform that stretched all the way to the pope. 

Therefore, the picture reminds me of St. Francis’ life and of the beautiful architecture of the basilica. The reason for the structure, the structure itself, and the context of the photograph are why this specific church represents me well. Furthermore, my memory of the moment inspires me artistically.

Image Manipulation

Original image

The subjects of my image of interest are my mother, aunt, and best friend. The shot was a candid one, and captures my mom and aunt resting on a bench and conversing with my friend Kristen. The setting is an organic vineyard in Tuscany, located just down the hill and approximately a mile from Texas A&M’s campus in Italy. 

The image was manipulated in two steps: first, a point operation was applied. Secondly, a neighborhood operation in the form of a digital filter was applied. The point operation increased the image contrast, using a piecewise linear transfer function, and affected each pixel one at a time. I chose to manipulate the image in this order, simply because I felt that contrast adjustment was the higher priority.

In Photoshop, the manipulator simply has to navigate the interface in order to apply point or neighborhood operations. Under  the brightness/contrast submenu, I upped the contrast to a level of forty-two. Mathematically, the lower intensity values of the input image up to level 42 were mapped to zero in the output image. Aesthetically, the shadows became darker and the lighter values brightened. Because it is a numeric transformation, it is irreversible and image information was lost. My reasoning for increasing the image contrast was to emphasize the interesting shadows of the silhouette of the people and bench, and the beautiful halo effect from the atmospheric backlight. Darkening the shadows of the tree on top of the image allows it to better serve as more of a frame. Furthermore, I wanted to draw the eye to the people, rather than the vineyard in the background.

I then applied a Gaussian blur filter to the image. This digital filter uses discrete convolution, which combines an area of pixels to produce each output pixel. In addition, this low-pass filter suppresses the high frequencies of the image, in which details and sharp edges exist. With the Gaussian blur, each output pixel is the mathematical average of the input neighboring pixel values. Based on the preview option, I chose a radius of 3.9 for my Gaussian filter. The blur at this level blended the pixel values to create an almost painted effect. Though the changes are fairly slight, I am pleased at the resulting image, because it achieved the aesthetic effects I wanted: emphasis on the persons, shadows, and backlighting; a muting of green of the olive trees and background; and a painterly rendering.

Manipulated image