Elijah Gowin

Elijah Gowin's use of movement in this piece has a somewhat disturbing effect for the viewer.  The woman falling appears to be smiling, as if she has just jumped on a trampoline and is on her trajectory downward, while the larger context of the picture offers a much more disturbing image in which the woman seems to be falling from a building.  The woman seems to be falling downward -  her hair blows in her face as if she is falling, she has nothing to hold onto, and it is evident that the heaviest, center part of her body is being pulled down first.  The vertical lines in the background also help to pull the viewer's eyes downward.  Interestingly, the edges around her body, although they're blurred, seem a bit rough, as if she has been pasted into this photo from a different scenario in which she was falling from somewhere else (hence the smile).  For me, this "photoshopped" quality makes the piece even more interesting.