Nick Case 11/12/10

Nick Case 11/12/10

Nick Case 11/12/10

Nick Case 11/12/10

The Song I have chosen for this project is “Four Letter Words” by One Less Reason. It is

about a person who has lost everything in his life and does not know what to do about it. Just by

reading this little excerpt of the song, it is easy to tell it is kind of depressing so the perfect way

to illustrate this was to take black and white pictures. The first three pictures show a guy in them

doing some kind of activity that demonstrates he is in some kind of turmoil and the last two

pictures show emptiness or bareness. I believe the song is about a guy who has lost everything

in life, including his girl, his parents and his friends, and he knows it is his fault so I went with a

visual aesthetic that matches that feel.

The first picture I took I wanted to be literal so I took a picture of a guy reading a paper

that says “Loss” which goes with the last part of the song verse and pretty much sums up the

song. I wanted him to have something physical that demonstrated the only thing he had left, the

“four letter word”. The song mentions four four letter words later on but when I close my eyes

and hear the song I see the word “loss”, which demonstrates how he feels so I showed it in the

picture. The “over the shoulder” shot I used for this picture gives the impression that someone

really is looking over his shoulder and this generates a feeling as if he is not in control of his life.

For the second and third picture, I show a guy coming to grips with having nothing and nobody

around him. I believe both positions he is in demonstrates perfectly how he feels and using rule

of thirds for these pictures also demonstrated this feeling. For the last two pictures, I wanted to

illustrate emptiness and bareness, which is pretty much what loss is. The fourth picture shows

the spot where the guy was standing in the third picture but a little further away and to the side.

The crossing shows nobody on it or near it and that emptiness generates a feeling of loss. The

fifth picture shows trees with no leaves which also generates a feeling of loss and emptiness.

Nick Case 11/12/10

Visual Aesthetic: The visual aesthetic that comes to my mind when I hear this song is this black and white picture by Paula Span.

Excerpt from “Four Letter Words” by One Less Reason

When everything is wrong and nothing feels right And everyone has left, no one said goodbye

The days seem so lonely and I've never been this scared This four letter word is all I have left, it's all I have