Author: Caryn Gutierrez

  Title: Light my way home

     I was midway through cleaning my home when I noticed the shadow of my home’s living room. It was reflected on the window in between trees. Everything clicked for me in that moment, and I was inspired to take a picture of it. As I started looking for the vantage point, certain angles worked better since I wanted the living room to occupy the Space right in the middle of the photograph. Actually, when deciding on the title, nothing seemed right until I thought of “light my way home”. The title made me emotional, so I chose it. Additionally, it seemed just right because while there is light in the foreground, the light in the living room is more outstanding. Moreover, the title reminds me that there is always a warm home to return to no matter how much I explore the world.

Title: Is it this? or is it that?

      Yes, I actually decided on such a title for the photograph. You may be wondering, why? Well, if you have not noticed, in the photo there are some bright and dim lights. If you focus on the bright lights, you will notice that while they seem to be coming from the outside (buildings and such), it is not the case. Similarly to the photo, “Light my way home”, the light is reflected on a window, and they are actually led lights. Making use of windows to be part of the composition is really amazing as can be seen from the resulting photographs. Finally, due to the light pollution, it is hard to see stars in NYC, so I created the illusion of some by spraying some hair spray sparingly on the window right before capturing it. 

Title: Lights here, there, and everywhere.

      This photograph was the third I took and another one in which the vantage point is of great importance. It was actually taken by using the same window as “light my way home” but at different angles. With this one, I chose to focus on lights because we all live in a city with a lot of light. This light can come from many places, but each one has its own shade as we can see in the picture. Also, if you look closely to the top part of the photo you can see some shapes which are actually from a curtain but can blend in due to its similarity, in color, to the clouds.

In Teju-Coles’ photo essay, my favorite photo is, “Three boys in Liberia” by Martin Munkacsi/Howard Greenberg Gallery. This photo may be said to be of the portrait type because it consists of a group of humans. However, it can also be said to be of the art type because it focuses on creating an abstract image between the children, the water splashing and the light. To me, this photo tells a story of happiness and enjoyment, just children playing around and enjoying their time at the beach. The dominant impression in this photo is the darkness of the figures in it, it may have been the camera or editing but for the most part we cannot make out the figures’ features as if light was not hitting them. The only parts where light is prominent on the figures is on one foot and the arm of the figure out of frame. To the photographer, the second that the picture was taken was the decisive moment, the moment in which he decided that the photo would portray the feelings he wanted to show.  Additionally, the photographer could have taken more photographs in order to get ahold of the feeling and I feel like he did great because I can feel the joy radiating from the photograph. The moment he captured shows the movement of the children running towards the water as well as the splash that came from setting foot on it. The tide is going towards the figures, and they are running towards the tide. Although for one of the figures we can only see an arm, we can conclude that it is another child’s arm so we can conclude that at least four children were playing together. The photographer decided that three children and the arm of another is all he wanted in that photo, that is what makes this photo a perfect one.