Powerful emotive frames

Exercise: find 3 or 4 powerful, emotive frames. Write notes on what feeling you get from each picture and how the framing has contributed to it.

1. Happiness

I get a strong feeling of happiness at looking at this image. This is a subjective view of a happy girl amidst her paintings. As a viewer, we are head-height with her though it is a wide-shot. We can see the light in her eyes. She is looking up. We also see the paints in the foreground and her paintings in the background. She is engulfed in painting, in bright colours. There is also a sense of movement in the picture - of her laughter, so it feels like a very active image.



2. Sadness
This image is very different. It is a close-up of the girl's face and hand. The colours are just shades of black and grey. It is a very still image, - no movement. The girl is looking down, though we are at head height to her, as we were in the previous one. It gives me a feeling of sadness, though it would depend on the context. It could be fear. There is a strong sense of empathy evoked by this image. There is nothing in the background that we can see, only blackness, which adds to the sense of fear/loss/sadness. ie, we know nothing of what exists in this girl's life. Perhaps there is nothing.









3. Loneliness

 This is a wide-shot of a child in the corner of the room. We see his whole body, scrunched up in the corner, making him appear tiny. The artist has also, like the image above, used just shades of black and grey.  As a viewer we look down on him slightly, so that he appears even smaller. It is also a still shot, suggesting no movement in the boy. I found that my emotion was pity. I felt less involved in the picture, and wonder if that was because we are looking down on him, even though it's only slightly. This had the effect of exaggerating the sense of loneliness, in that even as a viewer, I wasn't there with him.




4. Psychotic

The feeling I get from this picture is fear. I found the picture on someone's blog and it was titled 'Mommie Dearest' which adds to the fear experienced by the picture. It is a mid-shot, of the mother's upper body. She is looking down at the camera . There are a few things in the background but they are unrecognisable, which adds to the chaos and psychotic feel of the image. The colours are dark and subtle. There is a lot of movement suggested in the piece by her open mouth and by the blurred thing in the foreground.