Elisa Colbert

1. What is your strongest work (technically)? Why?

My strongest work technically is my "Phobia" picture. The phobia that it represents is haphephobia, or the fear of being touched. I think that this picture is strong because it evokes emotion and a reaction from the viewer if they were to have haphephobia. The hand is coming directly towards the camera and is in focus while the background is blurred out. This draws the viewers attention to the looming threat of being touched, and the size of the hand exaggerates the impact of being touched and continues to evoke emotion from the viewer. 

2. What is your most meaningful work? Why?

My most meaningful work is my summer diptychs because they are 10 different images of the surroundings of my home. Every day when I wake up, I come face to face with a view that is displayed in one of my diptychs. I have known the old truck that is my diptychs since I was a baby, I used to go on long car rides with my dad in the truck, just listening to music and looking at all the trees in wonder. The pond that is featured in one of my diptychs is the same pond that I used to go walk around, eat picnics next to, and play with my friends near when I was growing up. There are thousands of memories that are associated with each and every diptych, each of which holds a place in my heart. They remind me of all of the fun times I've had in my very backyard, and remind me of all of the personal touches that the surroundings of my house contains.

3. What is your weakest work? What could you have done to make this better?

My weakest work is my high key and low key pictures. Without a description, they are not emotionally impactful, and they could be more thought through. The low key picture does a good job of portraying the emotion of being shy, but the black background and the black jacket blend into each other, making it very difficult to distinguish between the two. The high key picture is also unclear, as I am holding a hand and smiling, but there is no evidence of who's hand I am holding, causing the picture to be very confusing. In order to make this better, I would have thought through the layout and execution of my ideas much more thoroughly. I would have brought in a different color dark jacket in order to distinguish the jacket from the background, thus creating a more meaningful picture. I also would have changed the execution for my compassion high key picture. Instead of holding the hand of an unknown person, I would have shown that it is my friend or someone that I care about, and I would've had my arm closer to them or been helping them up from the ground. The high key picture is unclear about the character trait it is portraying and unrealistic in the portrayal of "compassion."

4. Of these works, how could you take one of them and expand it into a series of multiple works (similar theme and technique).

The work that I could expand into a series would be my summer diptychs, because they are all centered around one thing; home. I could expand the idea of "home" into what my idea of a home is, some place that I spend or spent a lot of time in and that helped to shape me into who I am today. The idea of home could also be interpreted as people who raised me and who influenced my decisions and beliefs. The summer diptychs portrayed many objects or places in my neighborhood or yard that help significant meaning to me, and I could expand on that idea to incorporate people, events, and places outside my neighborhood that hold the same significance.