Obvious – plaster on the wall

Obvious – tape on the elevator

obvious – chipped paint on the chair

ambiguous – gum

ambiguous – cracks on the road

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ambiguous – tiles

In some other world, these pieces were placed for someone to find them! One man’s garbage…is another mans treasure. Hopefully all of my discoveries find a home soon.

Ambiguous

#1: At one point in time, I believe there was nothing but dirt planted in the area of this photograph. I took this photo of the ground around a tree. Someone maybe saw that just soil wasn’t as enticing to look at. So they decided that small chippings of wood made the tree more appealing. The shapes here are organic. When looking closely, you can see overlapping. The shading gives a sense of chipped wood. The figure/ground relationship is 50/50. That means this photograph is ambiguous.

Obvious

#2: This is a picture of the floor at the Utica Avenue station in Brooklyn. The shape really caught my eye. So I angled it in a way that made the picture obvious. The darker shape is the 30 percent of the picture. The light grey is the 70 percent of the picture. Thinking of the color way to the train gives me an understanding of why geometric shapes were chosen. I also feel like the school and playground located exactly above the station could have made an impact on the geometric feel to the station.

Ambiguous

#3: This is a picture of the baseboard to the MTA bus wall. In person, the baseboard looks like its a metal border that is painted black. The reflection of the light on the paint makes the texture look like leather. I consider this to be ambiguous because of the 50/50 ratio between the light and shade in the photo. After I transferred the photo to tracing paper, you could tell a lot easier that the figure/ground relationship is ambiguous.

Obvious

#4: This Con Edison plug looks like a button. I honestly believe that it is a plug on an electric pipe that possibly leads to the power plant on 14 street in Manhattan. This photograph has a 70/30 figure/ground relationship. When I look at the picture, I can easily distinguish that there’s a Con Edison plug first. Then I notice that there’s a bunch of background area that takes up most of the photo. What catches my eye is the Con Edison.

Ambiguous

#5: This is a zoomed in photo of a subway train wall. At first glance, in person, you’ll notice that the wall looks like a smooth, solid grey surface. I’m thinking that the interior designer put a lot of thought into a sort of pixel version of their design to get the desired look. In the photograph the shapes are organic. There’s a flow to the shapes rather than a bunch of purposely paced circles that would have given a geometric look. The photograph’s figure/ground relationship here is 50/50.

Obvious

#6: These are cigarette buds found on sidewalk. I would say the shape is organic because they once were cylinder shapes. In the hands of either a man or woman, the form of the cigarette became distorted. To me, the distortion came from the pressure of the forefinger and the middle finger as it was smoked by the person. The figure/ground relationship here is definitely 70/30, making the photo obvious. My focus is to the cigarette buds first, then towards the background.