I’ve (Julie) been sitting on this photo for months thinking I’d use it as a Foto Friday, but we have so many newer photos I can use, I decided to just post it for fun.

This picture was taken in the backyard of the house we stayed in while in St. George last October. The landscape is beautiful and so is the sky. I didn’t do much editing to this photo, as the colors are really that great. We would frequently go to the edge of the backyard and look beyond the fence. We’d look for bugs and lizards on the rocks and just enjoy our surroundings. It brings back good feelings.

For fun, I wanted to contrast the same picture with a different treatment; in this case, a darker one to contrast the bright, happy one above.

In this picture, Nate looks caged instead of curious and playful. The shadows on his face emphasize the jailed-in feeling. To me, it’s a sad picture. The possibilities are endless if he could just break free.

I wanted to show these two pictures to show the importance of editing your photos with both the subject and the mood in mind. What do you want the viewer to feel?

Rob and I went to an art gallery a couple years ago and there was a sculpted piece of a chair with a belt strung over it. In the explanation of the piece, the artist meant it to be cheerful and relaxed, like an evening after a long day of work. As it turned out, it ended up tormenting one of the viewers of the piece. Seeing the belt resting like that had reminded her of her abusive father.

Art is very subjective. That’s one thing I love about it. We hope that some of our photos aren’t just pretty to look at, but evoke some kind of emotion. Any kind, really. Art IS emotion.