Rumani Agnihotri/ Artist Statement

“Click every photo as if it is your going to be the best of your life: said Ms. Canelake at the beginning of the class. I tried and followed this statement every time I clicked the shutter. I clicked every photograph in a very random way. I kept one thing in mind that my photo should be acclaimed the best photo of the week every time; it should be on Ms. Canelake’s window every week. That was my inspiration, my goal to be better than the best.

My first assignment was desaturating the colored photo and thus turning them to a black and white picture. It was our classic photo assignment by using the desaturation tool in the iphoto. My favorite picture in that assignment was a picture in which my two long fingers are playing with a tiny, shiny jelly ball. The jelly ball was transparent and so it shined giving a glowing effect to the ball. I never planned to take that picture until one day I was playing with the jelly ball and camera in my second hand. Just randomly, I clicked the shutter. When I saw the picture that I took, I knew that it was
“THE PICTURE” that I wanted.

My second assignment was to desaturate the whole photograph but one object. The motif behind doing this picture was to create a surprise effect for the viewers. Our aim behind this assignment was to create an “ooh-aah” photo in Ms. Canelake’s words. I used the sponge tool in adobe Photoshop to desaturate. This tool absorbs the color basically and so it is named a sponge tool.

When I was going through all my photos, I noticed a pattern in my pictures. I noticed that most of the photographs I clicked were off center. For some reason I like off center pictures because it takes your attention in a discreet way. It is not right in front of your eyes but still it is the main thing your eye notices.

I have so far clicked some of the best pictures of my life and I hope to continue clicking some good pictures in the future. I believe that a photograph should be such that you don’t want to take your eyes off them, it should get you in the mindset of analyzing it, making you think.

I wanted my photographs to better than the best and to some extent I think I have succeeded in doing so…

This is what I see....