Preview
Upload Date
10-22-2025
Department
Classics
Label Text
Pineapples are historically associated with hospitality, exoticism, and wealth, particularly in European and colonial contexts. They symbolized luxury, generosity, and power—thus being understood as a gift or metaphor for ownership. In my image, the hand serves as a stand-in for colonialism, taking and giving, offering welcome while asserting control.
The pinky ring and lavish sleeve show elegance. The fingers are unblemished, inviting viewers to imagine the person behind these symbols of excess and power.
Each change of the three-layered orientation alters the balance. During editing, the object was given a blue tone after grime and imperfections were removed, evoking melancholy that is not perceived from the natural object. The large version of the object grounds the composition. Its inversion in the middle destabilizes. Flipped and reduced, it acts as a reflection of the first, introducing a tension between opulence and distortion, between giving and taking. The smallest sits at the top, reduced but upright, creating the pyramid.
Do refinement and abundance lose power once they are replicated and reframed? Arranging the hand in this ascending progression suggests a cyclical and elevating motion, offering a meditation on how symbols of status shift when repeated, inverted, and reduced.
Camera Settings: Aperture
f/13
Camera Settings: Shutter Speed
1/8
Camera Settings: ISO
100
Lighting
Overhead and front lights on full.
Photoshop Adjustments
Raw image was shifted with color grade. Background removed. Spot healing tool used.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.
Found in
ADC study collections