Photography:
Third Place, Most Professional

Patrycja Kwiatkowska
Columbia College Chicago

Goddess of Reflected Light

Artist's Statement: In Goddess of Reflected Light, I wanted to express a beauty, grace and mystery that lives in every woman. The photograph shows a modern woman in industrial surroundings.

The landscape behind the woman is constantly changing with the centuries. Even though it is no longer the soft landscape of southern Italy, but the cold, rushing images of everyday city life, she is still the source of calm and dignity.

When she pauses in the middle of rush hour, light reflected from her body enters the lens of my camera. Then the light freezes on film, forming an image of the Goddess of Reflected Light.

I took two different photographs of Angela and the still wall with a regular reflex camera. After scanning, I combined the two photographs, and playing with the contrast, I adjusted the color balance and levels. Retouching was done with the cloning tool, and I also applied a gaussian blur.