Contrast, Balance, Harmony

I love everything about this photo by Richard Avedon.  He has beautiful contrasting black and white photos, but my favorite is this one.  This photograph called Dovima with Elephants, and evening dress by Dior, at Cirque d'Hiver was taken in 1955.  The beauty within this photograph is emulated by contrast, harmony, and balance.  The first thing I noticed was how Dovima's white dress makes her stand out between the elephants dark grey skin, and shadows.  I also see contrasting figures and texture by the rough and dirty elephants compared to sleek, elegant Dovima and the dress.  I feel with these high contrasts I cant take my eyes off the dress and Dovima, which is where I believe the cognitive aspect comes into play.  The goal that Richard was trying to achieve is to show off or advertise the dress from Dior.  He created that psychological response to viewers making Dovima's dress be the subject that was most likely looked at first or more often in the picture.
The elephants' poses and actions portray an energetic yet harmonious feel, even though Dovima and the elephants are very different, it still seems to be a pleasing combination.  I especially love the cultural uniqueness shown with an elegant women posing just like the elephants, in a probably very expensive dress.  Normally in real life (not posing for photographs), you wouldn't see a women in a beautiful expensive dress next to a giant animal covered in dirt.  Which makes the photo even more interesting.
Balance and harmony tie the photographs subjects together by a couple of ways.  The photo has a dusty look, but what seems to balance the photo is the clean dress right in the middle.  Her pose imitating the elephants balance the photo as well, creating a more organized, unified, and harmonious look.

Visceral Response

I can look at a thousand pictures of any type of landscape and become completely stupefied by its beauty.  Those frozen in time moments of reality that my eye's wish to keep, can, by these talented professionals, that I hope to one day be.  So why did I pick this one in particular? As hard as it was to only chose one image, this image was able to sum up every personal and design aspect I adore that elicits that visceral response in my body.  This beautiful oil painting was created by Albert Bierstadt, called, "Among the Sierra Nevada, California."  My first response to the piece was the painting's depth.  I felt this painting was never ending, as if the artist was able to create a living world with paint and one could travel forever in this painting.  The realism and structure help give this feeling of depth.  I can see subtle perspective lines drawing me into the center of the piece from the trees, shoreline, mountains, etc.  The light color value also plays a big part in pulling me through the piece.  It gradually becomes very bright towards the middle of the scene and takes me to the top where depth is taken further by the fading mountains.  What intrigued me most was the dark value on the outer scenery that created a circular frame around the brightly lit middle scenery.   Or maybe it was the form of the clouds, or the placement of the landforms.  Uniqueness is what I feel he created while framing depth.  Whatever it was, I am drawn towards the illusion of a tunnel that stops by each meticulous detail I pass.  I feel a sense of unity by how everything points to the middle of the painting, colors that seem to flow together instead of jump from one exotic color to another, and the illusionary circle which usually signifies unity and completeness.  Not only do the design aspects make me 'feel' the beauty, but it also has much meaning personally to me.  Its artists like Albert and all the other many talented people that can capture stupefying moments that can't be kept in one's eye forever that amazes me.  Being an artist in training, this talent speaks a lot to me to help further my own skills to create pieces that can communicate to other people like this did to me.