Project 1: Reflective Essay

A new chapter in the adventure of EMDA! For my first assignment, I have recreated images using scale in contrast and composition in images of architecture. This project was certainly something else, and I feel that this should be explained a little further.

My best final image would have to be my take on Daniel Portilla’s “Play Time.” I found this one to be the most interesting because while being very simplistic, like Peter Eisenmann’s Jewish Memorial shot, it’s subtle intricacies made up for anything as such. Some examples of this include how each office cubicle is cluttered with designs suggesting outward drawers, which could also potentially double as being boarding for the little houses for offices that the employees have. To the left we can see society on the outside of the office behaving completely normally, as if in some way we are all willing to accept each other, quirks and all.

In a way, I did not decide a scene was finished at all. The ones who decided the scene was finished were the artists who took the original pictures. My goal was to emulate the pictures I chose to be as exact as I could make them with the time that I was given. I stopped working when my scene matched the original image as closely as I could manage.

This is an entirely new experience for me. I had trouble even grasping what kind of pictures were desired for emulation at first, so I simply google searched “scale contrast and composition architecture” and skimmed through the result in google images. I chose the pictures very carefully, I wanted them to simultaneously be as simplistic as possible, but have subtle intricacies. Sometimes this was not as possible as at others, so at those points I simply picked out what looked cool.

This was an intimidating project for me. I am not even sure I did well, though I certainly hope so. While I am excited to be able to explore a new area of art, I feel like my usual motto of “The Tortoise Beats the Hare” might be challenged in the process. Though I am willing to tell myself “I don’t know” for the time being, as I always have the potential to be dead wrong.