Reimagining Visual Framing

I picked Sally Mann’s One Big Snake. I was drawn to the photo because of the peace necklace that the boy is wearing. It is the only thing the boy has on which causes the audience to further focus on the necklace when they examine the picture. The original photo is a MS shot of a shirtless boy who is holding some type of snake skin in his wingspan. The snake covers up his eyes, and lines up with the horizon and the upper horizontal third in the photo. Mann also uses limited space in the photo by there being a background area but because it is out of focus the attention is automatically shifted to the boy because the viewer can not see clearly what is behind him. Mann uses a lot of lines in the photo but in different directions. The horizon, snake and the boy’s arms have horizontal lines, but they intersect with the vertical line his body makes. The intersection is where the new shape is introduced. It is the peace necklace and this intersection of lines makes the circle necklace pop even more. Mann also use the necklace itself to point directly at the peace sign by using two diagonal lines. The two shapes give a contrast from the boy’s actions which are all lines and the boy’s only piece of attire, the circular necklace. I changed the picture by making it an extreme close up of just the necklace. This gives more attention to the picture but it has much less of an effect. Instead of being something that the viewers’ eyes discover it is something that is just thrown in the viewers’ face. The space becomes flat because you can’t see anything behind the boy. You also lose all the contrast between line and shapes. The circle peace necklace does not have the same importance anymore because it is not contrasting itself from anything. It is the only shape that can be seen. I think Sally Mann framed the picture like this because she wanted her audience to find what she had hidden in the picture. Of course she could have just taken an extreme close up of a peace sign but it would not have the same feel for her or the audience.