Response to image:
This work by Tom Chambers, is clearly a digital imaged edited and manipulated through photoshop. From first glance, the image is of a young women/girl holding a cake with a forest in the background with the time of day being around evening time. My initial feelings towards the theme of this image were a loss of innocence. The image depicts the body of a young girl with flowing curly hair and a flowing blue dress holding a what could be a birthday cake which has been destroyed by the birds. The background is dark, unrealistic and uncertain, lead from a dirt trail with no life and shadows darkening the mood. The birds are apparent all throughout the image, close up and in the distance. The background reminds me somewhat of the Mona Lisa with the same open landscape and color theme. Much like the Mona Lisa, the background is possibly not as well noted as the main image in the middle of the picture. Just like the main image however, it suggests much more then initially interpreted. Unlike the Mona Lisa, the head of the body is not shown but rather a dark shadow leading up to where the head should be right before the image has been cropped. The image also gives the feeling of surrealism, much like the girl is dreaming and could possibly be looking back on a memory of her birthday as a young girl where something went horribly wrong. The image gives a twist on reality. The reason for deciding upon the theme of loss of innocence, is that the visual language expresses the juxtaposition between the colours to show the surrealism. This is created in order to show the difference between the innocent young girl and the dark and gloomy trail/forest that lingers behind. The colours to create the subtle contrast are between warm and cool colours. In the forest there is shades of grey, black, brown, deep orange and brown, all being earthy colors. Whereas the girl in front is in blue, skin tone, a slight red through her hair and a light yellow cake. The birds in the background are black, and the birds in front are a grey. The focal point of this image is the strongest contrast between the cake and the dress. The cake being the "Saccharine", saccharine being sweetness. The sweetness being a possible metaphor for innocence, and the cake being the metaphor for innocence. In her hands she is holding her innocence, and it appears have a section sliced out of it, and on the cake or "innocence" which suggests that parts of her innocence has been taken from her. On the cake, there is birds eating it and bugs crawling all over it. The birds have somewhat been seduced by the cakes sweetness. Because in the background there appears to be bats flying away in a large flock, indicating that something is not right and they are leaving. Whereas the birds in front are obvious to what is happening behind and are staying even though something is not right. Once again supporting the idea of innocence that even though something bad may be happening these birds, and herself still wants to stay connected to the innocence no matter what is happening, even though the innocence the "cake" may be being torn apart by whatever has happened they do not want to let go. The contrast between the birds as well are the that the birds surrounding the cake are sparrows soft birds which are small and innocent, almost as exposed to the harsh feelings of nature as easily as humans. Whereas the bats in the background as stronger and not as likely seen by humans or as innocent as the sparrows. Overall, the image congers up feelings of someone looking on a memory through a dream, where something is happened possibly a birthday where she realised her innocence was gone. Tom Chambers appears to want to put across is fairytale like, to emphasise he idea of the image not being real.
