Compelling is the first, black and white, photo; not compelling is the second in-color image... Honestly, this photo has no idea behind it. A lot of my artwork springs from something akin to a Dada conception of art – art need not make a point, it need not be composed according to rules, art need not be an expression of anything in particular; a piece of art is what is beheld and anything the viewer invokes upon sensing the work is the viewer’s art within their mind. I took this photo standing on top of my car. I was driving home, passed by this spot and was compelled to take some photos – so I went home, got my camera, and went back to shoot. Both images are manipulated in photoshop – mostly play with the contrast. I think what makes the image that I have called more compelling such is that there is both a revealing and concealing action that the light creates. According to our readings, one of the elements of a great photo is the lighting; here I have used side lighting – allowing the light to spread light across the rest of the image and into the background, which creates a depth of field. The less compelling image, on the other hand, casts light down and forward more than backward or sideways – although this light frames the image and contains the eye, the feeling is not as mysterious, perhaps because this image is in color while the more compelling image is black and white. While to me, neither photo explicitly says something about life, I think the more compelling of the two suggests a story, or has a visual progression. The road sets the foreground and guides the eye through the middleground into the background, which is void but marked by the railroad crossing signs. And so, perhaps there is a message about life – one can never really know where the road they travel will take them. The road leaves one's eye seeking, retaining focus within the photo.