In order to gain a sense of how loneliness is created through media I had to do some research into the subject. I aimed to look into multiple different forms of media; not singularly film and television, and so I was required to look into other artforms, such as photogrphay and painting.
NightHawks by Edward Hooper
The first interesting image I found was "Nighthawks" by Edward Hooper:
This picture is a brilliant example of how a shot can be composed to create loneliness. The image singles out and alienates the man sat at the bar. To start; the character is positioned in the centre of a frame within and frame, and then is equally centred in the image as a whole. By placing the character in the centre of the frame, this draws your eye to him immediately and then as your eye moves from the centre of the image you notice the empty space around him:
The other people in the image are then placed on the other side of the bar to make it obvious that they are not sitting with the central man, however they are placed in such a way that there is a perfect line from his eyeline through both of theirs, and likewise there is a line from where the bartender is looking back to the man. The overall placement of the characters then creates a triangle, which aids in escorting the eye around the main features of the image:
Lighting wise, the use of bright light or even the look of overexposure has been used to single out the central man from the other characters. This has been done by making the "happier" people in the image much brighter then the lonely man, who has been made to seem gloomier and somewhat depressed from loneliness.
John Crosley
John Crosley is a well known photographer who focuses his work on everyday life, with his black and white photo albums and galleries full of images showing real life situations as they present themselves to him. Whilst browsing through him albums I came across two images that represent loneliness very well: they are simple, to the point and easy to read:
The first image is entitled "Loneliness" and is an unbelievably simple, yet powerful shot of a woman sat alone on a staircase. He has composed the shot with the right in the centre of the frame, and the sheer amount of empty space around her emphasises the point very well. She also creates a section of high contrast between her black coat and the white staircase which aids in keeping your eye fixed on the woman.
The second image is "Alone", where you can see and old lady sat in the middle of the pavement with nobody around. It looks as if she has possibly fallen down and that there is nobody there to help her, creating a sense of fear ontop of the loneliness, and desperation for her to find someone to help. Just like the shot above, the character has been placed in the centre of the shot and is in a contrasting colour to the background.
Alternative Method
All of the images seen so far follow the simple idea of composing an image so that the figure of loneliness is always in the centre of the image: But this isn't the only way of creating this illusion. An alternative method of composing an image to create this theme is to use balance, or to unbalance as the case may be. When an image feels whole and is satisfying it is almost always balanced: for example a large focal point in the background would be balanced with a smaller object in the foreground. When an artist wants to create the feeling of loneliness and the feeling that there is something missing; they can unbalance this image, as done below by an amateur photographer called Goh Wenxian Victor. Also, you can see again the recurring theme of contrast being heavily used, this time with a silhouette:
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