Photograms - Michelle Acas

#1 Theme: Elevation
The main focus of the photogram is obviously the dinosaur floating towards the top left of the photogram. I chose elevation as the theme, because it as though the flying animal appears to float towards the top of the composition; it seems to leave an excess of everything in its wake, which I attribute it to be its “past.” The bird in the bottom corner helps to serve the idea of “elevation” or “flight.” The composition serves to illustrate moving forward, and leaving the past behind. The past may not be as important, or relevant to the present, as can be see by the very slight blurring in the bottom right corner.

#2 Theme: Unreachable
When creating this composition, I was playing with the idea of framing, so I placed two sheets of notebook paper to act as framing, perhaps for a window, placed the cotton balls—which represented clouds—around the photo paper, as well as placing my hand on the lower half of the paper. Through the composition I hoped to present the idea that sometimes things are out of our reach. That which may be out of our reach may be clear as day to us, such as our goals or dreams, but at the moment are still out of our reach; we are still in the process of heading towards those ideals.

#3 Theme: Blurred
I had wanted to play with the idea of blurring my objects in some of my photograms. It was kind of risky, because I was not sure with how the photogram would turn out, but I ended up with a satisfying product. I waved my hand over the left side of the composition while I would overlay the bird over different parts of the paper, creating a faded effect. In my mind I used the theme of “blurred” because sometimes things in our lives are never really clear and that every person has a unique way of seeing things differently. I have always loved the concept of blurring objects and compositions, because it causes the viewer to think more about what they are seeing, and may infer different interpretations of what the artist may be trying to convey.