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This is an interesting photograph. I was actually photographing the other dicrection, across the river, turned and noticed this and quickly grabbed the shot without any real thought as to placement - it just seemed right, so why mess with it.
Only after the fact do we recognize a number of elements in the image which help it work - note the placement of the left end of the railing relative to the white pillar in the background - had the railing matched the edge of the pillar or overlapped the edge it wouldn't have been as nice.
Note the radiating lines on the right side of the print created by the wide angle lens - from the rows of bricks in the retaining wall to the splaying lines of the railing, continued on into the line of the drainpipe.
How about the bright central pillar and the way it is arranged against the pillar behind, the curved arch to it's right and even the mark on the concrete to the left of the top of the pillar seeming to extend from the flare in the pillar.
Even the furthest end of the railing (after the turn, is perfectly aligned with the rest of the railing so the end shows nicely.
Absolutely none of this was planned - none of it even noticed when I took the picture - I simply recognized the rightness of it and plunked the tripod down in front of my eye and make the picture, without a single move of the tripod.
Luck? Perhaps, but I find this kind of luck happens all too often. I think instead that having photographed for many years, I recognize the rightness of compositions without analyzing them - part practice, part looking at good images. This kind of 'shooting because it's right' without analysis happens too often just to be luck.
It does raise one concern though - this kind of luck depends on being in exactly the right place at the right time - surely I could find a lot more good images if I put myeslf in a variety of locations, left right, up down, to and fro, so that I might find that right spot more often, even better is to actually think about it and recognize that moving in a certain direction is going to strengthen the image.
Still, I'm not going to reject such 'lucky' shots when offered me.
2 comments:
I think it's kind of like after you've been reading for a few years and you no longer have to sound out each word letter by letter anymore. You can grasp the sound and meaning of a whole word at once with a single glance. And as you learn to speed read, you can even grasp a whole phrase or sentence at a time. When you've been sizing up good compositions for several years, I think you gain an intuitive sense of what will work as a good composition and what won't.
I'm sure you do put yourself in a variety of locations. You even mentioned that you'd been looking in the opposite direction but then turned around and saw this composition and snapped it. The number of viewpoints you're in where you don't take a photo probably far exceeds the number of ones where you say to yourself "yes, that's a good one!" so much that you don't even notice the former.
Are not all shots "lucky"?
It is always the photographer who first sees the potential, then sets up the framing and finally takes the photo. The latter is the easiest and least relevant part. Seeing is the hardest and as Rosie says - it is like reading, only we all know the steps of proficiency in reading, but not photography where too many people think snapping is the only art there is.
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