Photography and Text by Linda Ruan, Copyright 2017
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LIGHT, SHADOW AND MOOD
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I have always loved chasing after and playing with light and shadow. In my opinion, when there is light, there is a higher chance to yield a good picture. Thus, I choose to use light and shadow as my theme for this recent series of pictures.
Instead of shooting a series of new photographs for the project, I used and selected most of the photographs that I previously captured but never had a chance to edit and put them together to turn them into a cohesive series.
This series of photographs consists of portraiture and interior space. The majority of the photographs were taken during travel. Yet, since I do not like taking so called “tourist pictures”, it is hard to tell the location of the photos. There are more things to pay attention to besides sightseeing while traveling to a new place. Also, capturing and emphasizing a person’s feature of just the face is not my aim. A silhouette of an unknown person and a contour of a friend’s face and body arouse more interests in me. Rarely do I brighten and focus on a person’s facial detail. I do not want people to see and judge how the people that I photograph actually look; I do not want them to pay attention to superficial beauty because the application of makeup on a face can make one pretty enough in front of a camera. Yet, it would then be a pretension of beauty.
There are various ways to define beauty. My definition is mood. Beauty is mood. I want my work to evoke a sensation, an emotion. Letting people have their own reflections and form their own stories when looking at my photographs is my goal.
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About The Author: Linda Ruan is a sophomore with Painting and Art History concentration at Bryn Mawr College. To access additional articles by Linda Ruan, go here: https://tonywardstudio.com/blog/linda-ruan-photographs-abstraction/