WP 1: Pre-Writing Assignment 2

John Collier Jr., the photographer of the photo of the farmland in Catskill country in New York State, was a brilliant photographer.  He knew exactly what he wanted in the picture when he was looking through his viewfinder.  At the time this photo was taken, there was not a whole lot Collier could have done in terms of editing his shots after he took them.  This meant he was thinking about the coloration, framing, lighting, focus, and cropping as he was shooting his photos.  Some cropping could be done but there was no such thing as photoshop in the 1930's.

The vectors of attention in my photo start with the buildings in the foreground.  These are the first objects that catch your eye so this would naturally be the starting point.  As I discussed in our first pre-writing assignment, The flow, or vectors draw us through the green pastures, past clusters of trees, with all of this eventually taking us to the mountains on the horizon.  By taking our eyes on this journey, Collier takes us through a beautiful and obviously quite picturesque countryside of the Catskill area in New York.  We can see the beauty and simplicity of a farm in the 1930's.

The fact that this photo is in color also makes a statement.  This was fairly new for the times and there are not a lot of color photographs from this era.  When you think of the Great Depression era photos, images of breath taking countryside do not come to mind.  The norm for photos of this time was that of somber workers working for low wages to try and make ends meet for their families.  These would also be done in black and white film.  These photos would definitely stand out against photos of that nature.  This would have been done on purpose.  Collier's purpose for his photography was to show America America.  These color photos would show the beauty found on the east coast.

As with most landscape photos, the entire photo is in focus.  This allows us to be able to see the entire landscape; from the buildings in the foreground to the mountains in the distance.  The focus also lends itself to the purpose of the photo.  The purpose is to show the landscape of a farm.  If the purpose was to document old farm buildings, the focus and framing would be a little different.  The photo would not track to the landscape.

The lighting is also important here.  Since it is not so easy to control the lighting over such a great area such as in a landscape like this, time of day is important for the photo.  It is clearly sometime in mid-day. There is no evidence of sunrise or sunset.  The focus was to be on the land and the rolling hills leading to the mountains.  The sky does not really draw from the over all effect of the photo.  It does however, add to it.  It adds to the vastness and beauty of the land that Collier wanted to capture when he documented the Catskill country.