This is Cage the Elephant's album artwork for their most recent album, "Tell Me I'm Pretty". I chose this image not only because I love this album, but because it is confusing, beautiful, mysterious, and most importantly, STUPIFYING. When I look at this image is causes a flutter in my stomach, like how Seymour described his reaction to the watch in his TedTalk. The contrast from the pale border containing the artist and album name that surrounds the image, to the dark, cool image really draws the eye to the girl at the center of the image. Because the background is so blurred it leaves a lot of questions unanswered. What is she doing? Is she in a pool? Why is her hair wet? What is in the background?
There are mainly horizontal lines in the image of this girl in the background which causes some vibration and confusion when looking at this image. The negative space is found primarily around the border of the album, and the positive space is the artist name, Cage The Elephant, and the album title, "Tell Me I'm Pretty". The focus is clearly being drawn to the female in this picture because she is the only clear part of the picture.
My favorite part about this image is the color scheme. The colors in the image are dark and cool. The colors literally make me feel colder. The color of her eyes match the color of the icy turquoise (assumed) water in the background. Her lips are also the same hue and value as her hair which is a deep red. Her facial expression is sort of creepy to me because it's really not an expression at all, she looks lifeless. The strap of the tank top she is wearing is an intense white that almost burns the eyes when next to the dark dull colors of the rest of the image.
When analyzing this artwork I started to think why the album designer would use this image for the album title "Tell Me I'm Pretty". The girl obviously looks very natural and doesn't look like she is wearing make-up. Her hair isn't done, it's wet and slicked back. Her complexion isn't perfect, it's red and blotchy, but for some reason I would still consider this woman to be beautiful. During his TedTalk, Richard Seymour makes the statement that beauty is a result of facial symmetry. The woman in this image doesn't seem to have perfect facial symmetry, however she is still beautiful.
The woman in this photo is actually a model named Rachel Sykes. The lead singer of the band, Matt Schultz, carefully selected her to be the model for their album artwork, and she was chosen because of her honest beauty and transparency. He wanted someone that was beautiful but that also looked like they had been through life and had some ruggedness that would be relatable to the album's music. Sykes normally has a very bubbly personality but in this photo it is disquised just as the photographer, Ira Chernova, had intended.
There is much mystery in this album artwork which makes it interesting and different, and stupifying to me.
No comments:
Post a Comment