TECHNICAL:

The image uses artificial lighting from the lights in the store which gives a cold feel to the light in the image. The use of the store lighting gives a more natural feel to the photograph but has slight over exposure which is nice as it creates perfect reflections on the roof in the background of the image reflecting the products bellow. The overall image has a large tonal range in both colour and shadow having a very high contrast. This image was most likely taken using a wide angle lens as the image has a very wide view but would have also had a higher number of F-stops as all of the image is in focus and has a large depth of field. The image most likely was taken using a tripod as the image is perfectly upright and the shutter speed would have been a reasonably high speed but low enough to give it a slight over exposure. The ISO would have been very low as the image is very sharp and crisp without any grain or blur.

VISUAL:

The image has a very large tonal range as well as range in colour. The image has a very wide range in vibrant colours seen in the bright packaging of the products ranging from bold red and orange colours to poping blues and pink colours. The image also has very soft neutral colours which are seen on the walls of the shop with cream colours and in the shop logo. In the image there is very clear lines which give strong compositional structure to the image from the lines in the rows dividing the products to the lines in the beams of the building which create a very interesting aesthetic to the image. The reflection on the roof almost is almost unrecognisable as it could almost be mistaken for more rows of products with its almost perfect reflections giving an aesthetic which is particularly interesting to the image.

CONTEXTUAL:

The image was produced by Andreas Gursky in 1999 as a part of a two-part photograph. The image was printed into a single large-scale image which is a digital montage from multiple images taken in a 99 Cents Only store in Los Angeles, the seemingly endless rows of stuff, with shoppers’ heads floating ­anonymously above the products, more closely resemble abstract or Impressionist painting than contemporary photography. Gursky who is a German Architect and photographer is known for using digital manipulation to create scenes that turn almost everyday experiences into art. In 2006, in the in the days just before the Great Recession, 99 Cent sold for $2.3 million at auction. At the time this broke the record for a contemporary photograph but this also moved contemporary photography into the auctions alongside paintings and other highly expensive artworks.

CONCEPTUAL:

The image is a very clear reflection consumer culture which we live in, where their is almost an infinite choice in what to buy and a constant demand for different and fighting for brands to be on the top choice. The image is almost like a criticism on how we live our lives with the rows and rows of products that are all consumed in different ways and almost questions the viewer of the image to say is all of this consumption needed and are we thinking about what we are actually buying.