Rosie the Riveter

by Stephanie Lawrence
(Commack, New York, USA)


I had learned about World War II advertisements and campaigns in my U.S History class and wanted to do something to modernize the strength of women that was also evident back in the 40's and 50's.

I shot the photo with a Nikon 5000 and the model is a close friend of mine who dedicated her time to my project.

I found a bandanna with the American flag printed on it which we found very effective.

After the photo shoot I worked with the photo in photo shop and made some adjustments to the photo including adding a vignette filter as well as experimenting with the red, blue and green curves.

I tried to get a vintage feel.



I love this photo, and I'm sure many visitors will too.

But what makes it so appealing?

I think one of the key thinks is the story behind the photo. Us humans love a story, and we love images too.

Put the two together and you've got a picture that tells a story.

The best way to use this technique is to do exactly what Stephanie did - take a story, distil it to just one image, and then present the picture with the key parts to the story.

The secret is to not try to tell the whole story - otherwise there's a danger that you try to cram everything into the photo.

Better to pick one element of the story and represent that in the picture.

Great use of software here too. Fortunately there's lots of photo editing software available these days - much of it either very cheap, or even free!

A few tweaks of the settings and you could create a retro image like this one.

If you have a smartphone you could even try one of the free photo apps. I've written about photo editing apps here.

Thanks for the submission Stephanie,

Darrell.

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