My series is based around the idea of the miniature world. My photos bring to light the detail and expansiveness of the small. I connect with this idea because I’ve always found beauty in the subtle: nothing outwardly expressive. But I’ve also found beauty in the harsh and cold; the truthful. I used literal macro view on my camera and dusk or dawn lighting. I made sure my photos had strong value of contrast so the starkness of the subject would come out more. I wanted to explore this topic because I’m naturally drawn to texture, and I found small subject matter makes the texture even more impressive.

                I explored close ups of textured matter, like the first photo of icy grass. Then I was drawn to small scenes within nature and took pictures of plant-life, like the sixth photo of the plants sprouting. I played with reflections in the ninth photo with a tree reflected in the water, and then showed the macro world of non-plant objects in the final photo of a leather landscape. At first I wanted to make the small seem expansive, and this idea appeared in later work. In my second week I wanted to use faces, layering, and personification of objects. Then I decided that working subtly with my abstract natural pictures could create a more powerful emotion. I also had a rolling idea of showing the relationship between small and big, but again decided to let the small stand alone. In my final week I finalized the mood and concentrated on the miniscule and the cold, clear atmosphere. In Photoshop I strengthened the contrast and tweaked the color to fit the crisp mood. My photos are centered on texture and I used value of contrast for clarity. My color scheme was low-saturation and analogous, cool shades. I also made sure the lighting created shadows for good contrast of value and emphasis on form. I was intent on having a strong, consistent mood, and I achieved that near the end. I also used abstraction in some photos with the macro view and intense textural shots. The final idea that I reached was that the things that are small and overlooked have their own modest beauty. These things feel no need to proclaim their existence but refuse to leave your presence. The small is as metaphorically big as the literally big.