After looking at the real works of Jeff Wall at MoMa museum, I really think that a successful photograph is a powerful path to communicate with people visually. Compares to the assigned photograph “The Floored Grave” 1998-2000, I chose “A Sudden Gust of Wind” 1993; because I felt that they have several similarities just by looking at these two great photos.
First of all, “The Floored Grave” is one of Jeff’s success photomontage works. The setting or background of this photo is at the cemetery, which created a pretty wide, lonely, peace feeling of it, and the blue-grey sky color that really brings out the lonely mood. Obviously, the main focus is the floor grave filled with colorful sea lives. And the grave looks like newly dug, because the plastic cover and the soil dust are at the side of the grave; inside the grave is full of ocean’s living creatures, which created a strong contrast between the lives & death; plus the farther side is kind of peace and the closest side is in active, which are the grave during construction and those living creatures inside of it.
The second photograph, “A Sudden Gust of Wind” is another great work of photomontage. The background setting is at countryside or some farmland that is far away from city; the land is pretty wide but you can still see the crowded buildings at the far side, also it is not summer, seems like a thunder storm is coming soon. And of cause the main focus is the closest side, which is the wind blew everything away from people. The movement of papers, tree, and cloths were blown to the same direction; the facial expression of those four people showed that the wind speed is fast and strong. Each of them were doing different things, two people who dressed causal farmer clothes were holding their hat and themselves steady against the wind; however, the other two who dressed formal clothing were obviously not from around there, because they totally unaware of the sudden wind. The woman in front was covered by her scarf and all of her paper works were blew away up to the sky; and the man in the middle was worriedly looking at his blew away hat by the wind.
I think the similarities between these two photographs are of cause they are photomontage and the same method of printing. Besides that, both of the background atmospheres is pretty wide and lonely; and the actions are happening at front. Also, both of them have water in it; I believe water is considering a kind of living sign. But the first one is more like focusing the grave and the rest of the cemetery, not much of the negative space; the second one is more depth and more negative space because it is focusing how the papers got blew up to the sky.
