Mood and Emotion in Photography using The Color Purple by Alice Walker

As the 4th quarter comes to a close, the best of my students' hard work shows in their Color Symbolism photographs based upon the book The Color Purple by Alice Walker. Mr. Allard and I came together to do a side-by-side cooperative teaching model, using the book The Color Purple to within our respective curricula. As his Junior students read and analyzed the literary content of the novel, my students used passages from the book to examine how mood and emotion can be conveyed in a variety of art forms, and created photographs based upon those passages.

My photography students were asked to analyze the mood and emotion in music, famous works of art, and poetry, leading up to working with longer passages from The Color Purple. Students were asked to interpret the mood within 5 passages, and to create a variety of photographs based upon those passages. Using Color Symbolism (how colors can convey emotions), students were then asked to create duotones, or two-toned photographs in Adobe Photoshop based upon the color symbolism chart. They chose the duotone color that reflects the same mood and emotion as found in the passages from the book.

Below you will find the best student works, and the quote from the passage that they used to create that photograph. I'm very proud of all that my students have accomplished this year, and with the diligence they had in this complex assignment.

Tina Fontanez
"Their skin glows even in the sun."

Takerra Purnell
"Until you do right by me, everything you touch will crumble."

Stephen Francis
"She got the nottiest, shortest, kinkiest hair I ever saw, and I loves every strand of it."

Shunyce Davis
"The hair that come out in my comb I kept."

Shanella Charles
"I pray for strength."

Daejonne Rock
"I make myself wood. I say to myself, Celie you a tree."

Nehemiah Gray

"Everything you touch will crumble."

Nastacia Valentine
"I pray for strength."

Michael Campbell
"The jail you plan for me in the one in which you will rot."

Jada Carr
"He tired, he said, he weak, he cry."

Irisabelle Soto
"I wink at her, she act like she scared to look."

David Braithwaite
"I pray for strength, bite the insides of my jaws."

Ashley Santiago
"The children be outside the room peeking through the cracks."

Anabelle Dejesus
"The jail you plan for me in the one in which you will rot, I say."

Amanda Fontanez
"He beat me like he beat the children...he say, Celie, git the belt."