Photo Essay – Nitu Singh

Nitu Singh 

Photographer: Laurie Simmons

Laurie Simmons is an American, New York born, artist, filmmaker, and photographer. The style of Laurie Simmons is very distinct. The use of miniature objects and dolls help display domesticity in American society. These photos are known to question society and their stereotypes. I chose Laurie Simmons because I thought her photos were unique. Especially in her Walking Objects collection. I think some photos  are cleverly executed and I was definitely drawn in. The photo I have chosen to analyze is from the Walking Objects collection. It is called, Walking House (Little) 1991/2014. The photo can be found at the bottom of this post. I chose this photo because it drew me in right away when I was viewing her work. I don’t often see photographs as unique as hers. The content and subject matter of the selected photo is a house and legs. There is a white foreground and a black background. There are shadows present in the photo, specifically on both sides of the subject. In this photo there is a house on legs, it seems to be walking somewhere due to the direction of the legs. What strikes me about the photo is that the colors and contents of the picture pop and make themselves known. Everything stands out. As I am not exactly sure what the photo represents, I think I relate to the aspects of walking away from home, but home is on your mind no matter where you go. That being said, I think the photographer is showing someone walking away for a home, or has home on their mind. There are many compositional elements used to convert and emphasize the meaning of the photo. Firstly, the framing, the subject is slightly over on the right third of the photo, since the left is emptier, it shows walking or traveling, which can indicate leaving something behind or walking toward something new.The foreground and background relationship is used to convey the meaning because due to the lightness of the foreground we can say that represents a new bright path. The background being dark is all the negativity that will be left behind. This ties into lighting being used to convey the meaning because we are able to see the shadows, which indicate the direction the subject is walking. This further emphasizes leaving something behind and moving forward. Another compositional element that contributed to conveying the meaning was the tonal and color contrasts. As previously mentioned the foreground is light, while the background is dark. The contrast further emphasizes the brightness to look forward to and leaving the darkness behind. The position of the lighting also helps create the tonal contrasts as some where the subject is heading towards is darker as opposed to behind, where the shadow is lighter. Lastly, the house uses the color blue which is the pop of color in this photo. There are connotations with the color blue representing sadness, freedom and intuition. That being said, the meaning is shown through this aspect.