Thursday, 22 August 2013

Freedom.
Earlier this year I went on a trip to South Africa and visited Robben Island (for those who don't know what that is, it's the island where Nelson Mandela was jailed). While on the island, we got a tour around the cells - including Nelson Mandela's, and surprisingly all his belongings are still present in the cell. At first I thought I could use the photograph I took of his cell to represent the opposite of freedom. However, I took this image of Cape Town from the island, and I thought it could work. 
The photograph shows 'freedom', the exact same view that the people imprisoned would have seen, and longed for each minute they spent locked up. 
I chose to make the image seem quite 'ghostly' and 'cold', as that would have been the atmosphere on the island compared to the island of Cape Town. 

2. Freedom       f 10.0     shutter: 1/125     ISO 100      filter: black & white, colour change

I like how none of the detail in the image has been lost by editing this image to black and white. However, on editing the colours within the picture, the image became slightly 'grainy'. This however, I feel works well for the photo, as it adds to the atmosphere and kind of takes you back in time to when the prisoners would have been on the island. The atmosphere within the photograph is so poignant, and you can almost feel the emotion that the prisoners would have felt.  

(part 2) 
I thought I'd add one of the images I took of Nelson Mandela's cell, for those of you who were curious to take a look! It goes well with the word 'Freedom', however would be used as the opposite of the word. 

part 2. Freedom       f 3.5     shutter: 1/40     ISO 100     filter: levels and colour balance
 As the background of the photograph is blurred, and you can only see the bars of the cell, I think that this shows imprisonment particularly well. You do not need to know what went on behind the bars of the cell, the prisoners' belongings were no longer important. All that was important was that they were imprisoned, and no longer 'free'.

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