Contrast, Balance, Harmony

This is a self portrait by photographer Edward Honaker. Some of you may have seen his self portrait series online. He created these to showcase how depression feels for him along with anxiety.

The Highlights and shadows of this portrait are very prominent through the middle section the way they are contrasting each other. With him slanding in the lake in a black suit and the bright reflection of the water it creates a bright contrast. 

The shadows and highlights in the grass section create what's known as a texture. The way the light bounces off the grass gives our hands a feeling of a prickly sharpness. and the way the light reflects off of the surface of the water it makes it look glossy. The way the prickly grass and the glossy water interact it gives the portrait a sense of disease. like the grass is encroaching on Edward and is going to take over. 

The way I interpret this size of the objects in the portrait are: that Edward is looking out to the body of water and it seems the way things are angled (the camera is positioned above him) he is much smaller and less in control compared to the body of water. And the size of the grass around him is overwhelmingly taller than him which makes me think that the world is closing in on him and he cant deal with what he is feeling. 

I like how the circular shapes are mirrored in the picture. with the larger body of water mirrored by the smaller one. and the white balloon mirrored to the black one. It makes me feel that whats behing him is dark and while he is trying to deal with what's going on in front of him, the world behind him is dimming and approaching.

All in all, I think this portrait does showcase a lot of contrast and balance. It could be showing harmony in a way. In the fact that this is an all around depressing portrait.