Reflections of South Congress

While exploring South Congress, I felt especially attracted to the reflections I saw in the glass windows of shops, cars, and skyscrapers. Rather than noticing the buildings themselves, I become captivated by the play of light, shadow, and the sense of depth which the reflections embodied, along with the repetition of shapes created by the windows themselves. As I began to take photographs, I also became aware of the barriers created by different reflections overlapping at once and the way their corresponding lines and shapes blend together.

In relation to Gestalt, my collection of photographs utilizes the principles of continuity, repetition, and containment. The lines and curves found in the architecture of windows and building fronts lead the viewer through the different layers of reflections creating a continuous, unified whole of both small details and larger scenes. In addition, the consistent appearance of squares and lines in the architecture of buildings adds an element of unifying repetition within the photographs and provides containment for the reflections. Focusing on these reflections of South Congress in this way enabled me to explore the area and its details with a new perspective which otherwise would have gone unnoticed.

A Gestalt principle that I took into account through the duration of this project was the concept of direction. I wanted my photographs to lead the eyes in a certain direction. One idea I tried to keep in mind was the abstractness when it came to my images. Many may think of photographs with directions as ones of winding roads or the line of a hay field disappearing into the distance. I attempted to capture leading lines in a more unconventional way.
The images collected in this gallery also capture what South Congress is to me. I come from the hills and endless fields and forests of Vermont. Street performers, graffiti, and all the subjects that make up South Congress are quite foreign to me. So, for my project, I also wanted to capture the images that capture me.

When people think of South Congress, they think of the street down from the Congress building that has lots of fancy stores and tons of people. The tons of people part is somewhat true but really, congress is a place that has so many little elements to it that when combined, makes South Congress…. South Congress. For my assignment, I just took pictures of things that interested my and then looked over them later to determine the Gestalt elements. What I found was that almost all of my pictures had at least one element of containment, proximity,repetition or continuity in them.