Assignment 6: Photographic Analysis

Pillars of Creation (1995)

This assignment seemed to be a tricky one. For assignment 6, we were told to find an iconic photograph and critically analyze it. Now I may have a small background in this but it still seems like a difficult task. After roaming the Internet for a while looking at various iconic photograph lists, one that truly stuck out to me was Pillars of Creation (1995) captured by the Hubble Telescope. The photo itself is nothing more than three large pillars of clouds in space but I found this to be the most interesting out of all the others. For this assignment we were told to use Lester's six perspectives of personal, historical, technical, ethical, cultural, and critical as well as to use the structures of the golden spiral and the rule of thirds. Starting with the six perspectives, the personal perspective of this image was that space simply amazes me. It's something completely different because it something that we cannot fully relate to. I also found this photo to be interesting in its color use and the back lighting of the cloud masses. The cultural perspective of the photo is that there is a certain symbolism of our planet and the greater whole of the universe. Although they seem like scale-less clouds, the pillars are actually very, very large to the point that they dwarf planets, stars and entire solar systems and it is within these clouds that new planets will, eventually, form. This fact creates a very humbling experience for the viewer in allowing the viewer to know that there is so much stuff out in space that we do not even know about. Out of the six perspectives, these two were the only ones I really understood in relation to this particular image so I really do not know what to say about them. Next I looked at the image in the rule of thirds by dividing the image into a nine square grid. According to the lecture in class, the four intersections that occur around the central square are areas in the image the viewer is most drawn to, particularly the upper left and the lower left. While nothing actually happens at these intersections in the photograph, there are events within the photograph that happen within proximity to these intersections such as the tops of the pillars in the upper intersections and the lower right intersections and a very bright pink start in the lower left intersection. Another visual structure I noticed within the image was the strong diagonal of the rising cloud pillars that starts in the lower right and rises to the upper left. This diagonal movement draws the viewer’s eyes towards the top of the tallest pillar also where the most viewed intersection of the rule of thirds is.

Overall I found this to be one of the more difficult assignments even though it was the least amount of work. I found it difficult to analyze the photograph using the six perspectives, as I did not really see the connections between the perspectives and the photograph. I did however find the rule of thirds to be interesting in how the intersections lined up with the important elements within the photograph.