In Solitude Set

In Solitude Set, a set on Flickr.

These photographs were taken as part of the In Solitude photography task.
I took these pictures in the Crawley Memorial Gardens on the 24th November, 2011.
The task was relatively simple in nature, we were supposed to capture the nature of "Solitude" in our photographs, picking out key details on whatever we wished in order to replicate the feeling. In practice though, it is much harder than one would first imagine. Taking a photograph of a lone animal isn't always going to give the sense of solitude/loneliness, a huge amount of the quality of the picture relies on context and setting.

For example, the photograph of the pigeon, seen above, was taken in a fairly small area of grass. The pigeon was alone, and the paths were no more than 5 metres from it in all directions. In order to give the feeling of solitude, ommiting the surroundings was key in order to give the sense of a continuous expanse of dead leaves and grass, making the pigeon seem isolated and alone.
The photograph below shows how context and setting can ruin a solitude piece:



If you look at the photo, the pigeon is still alone, so it works as an in solitude piece. Is it actually a good solitude photograph though? That is somewhat subjective, but in my opinion, no, it is not. Why is this? Namely, the context is wrong. For a start, the location is very visible, detracting from the focal point of the photo which in this case is the pigeon. The pigeon is sat alone, but it is not alone in a sense, as there are people around, the location is bright and visible and clean, it just doesn't look right. Changing the angle even slightly, gives us a much better idea of what emotions the picture is trying to capture, primarily the feeling of isolation and detachment.



The effect is much better. Now we have context, the pigeon is the focal point of the photograph, and to the viewer, he is stuck in an endless sea of dead leaves and grass. There is nothing around to distract the viewer from the message of the photograph and the isolation the pigeon is subjected to. The viewer has more attachment to the pigeon, they relate to it a bit better. The photograph was taken with a specific aperture as well, giving a nice depth of field. The expanse of leaves blurs as it gets further away from the pigeon, increasing the size of the expanse of grassland he is hunkered himself down into, the feeling of solitude is heightened.

However, the scene could do with something more. The location looks a bit too bright. I wanted this pigeon to look very cold and alone, but the location doesn't go as far as I want. This is where editing comes in. I added the photograph to photoshop and decided I wanted the colour tone to reflect how "indifferent" I wanted the pigeon to look. During times if despondency, many people do not feel "colour" from an emotional perspective. Colour and tone often reflect how we feel. Bright colours espouse a sense of happiness, whereas dull ones blur and we do not respond to them in the same way, the colours become almost monochrome to us. Beautiful reds and greens, pinks and oranges don't catch out eye any more. We are indifferent to them, ignorant. This pigeon, as I watched him watch the world go by, seemed to have a similar view of his surroundings. I decided to make the photo colourless, but also have some colour in order not to make the photo look "dead".

With some editing, mainly by removind greens and yellows from the colour gamut, and also slightly enhancing the reds, I got this result:



Perfect. This was exactly the effect I was looking for, a cold, grey day; a cold, grey pigeon; and a cold, grey expanse of nothingness. The leaves were deliberately left with some colour in order to deepen the tone a bit. The dead leaves reflect the emotionless aura of the pigeon, he views his world as nothing more than an expanse of dead leaves.