Contrast, Balance, and Harmony

This is a picture by a photographer called Alexander Yakovelv. This image is part of a series where he photographed ballerinas while adding the dynamic element of exploding flour. This picture is beautiful to me because it is powerful while still being graceful and captures contrast, balance, and harmony well. First, there is contrast with the black background and and her elongated arm which looks stunning and creates an infinite line that extends beyond her fingers. Not only is there also contrast on her with all the shadows, the flour also creates contrast. The ballerina is standing on pointe and holding passé position strongly while the exploding flour looks like its moving all around her. A lot of the flour covers her body but with the law of closure, my eyes fill in the rest of her torso. Her position is also creating balance by having one leg in front of her and one arm back allows her to balance and hold this position on one leg.  All of this creates harmony within the picture which makes it beautiful to look at.

From a pscyhological context, this picture takes me back on stage when I used to do pointe and gives me a nostalgic feeling. I miss dancing and being on stage and looking at pictures of beautiful dancers brings me a lot of happiness. I think pictures like this depict strength because ballet is tougher than it looks and that is the beauty of it. Trying to look light and graceful while being powerful and strong is the whole essence.

Visceral Response

This is a picture of  the downtown San Diego skyline that I found on Google. I was drawn to this picture because I love sunsets for their stunning colors that change within minutes. This sunset has different hues of blue, purple, pink, and orange which reflect stunningly on the water.

My eye is drawn to the skyline because it lies horizontally which brings a sense of peace and relaxation. Also because there is negative space above and below it. I can see that the sun is setting on the west because of the light's gradient effect from left to right in the sky which also creates contrast and shadows on every building. Another thing that I like about this picture is that some buildings are symmetrical within the skyline but overall it is asymmetrically stronger to the left because of the two tall buildings.