“Brick Building, Chester” — A brick building in the sun, Chester, England.
A photograph may resonate in multiple ways and for many reasons. Sometimes the fact that it captures an interesting or important moment is sufficient, regardless of technical or esthetic quality. Or it might be about composition and the relationship among its component parts in the abstract. It might evoke a memory or an association. It could appeal on its intrinsic visual qualities — tonalities, light, color, and more. Many photographs work in more than one of these and others not listed here.
“River Severn Swans” — A family of swans on the River Severn, Shrewsury, England.
We were out for a walk in Shrewsbury, and as we crossed a bridge over the River Severn we spotted this swan family in the water. The trick is usually to get critters to align themselves with the rest of the scene in a way that is compositionally interesting and makes them the primarily focus. Darned birds don’t always cooperate! But this time I only had to wait a moment — and then photograph quickly — for them to cross the river in the foreground.
“Rural Stone Buildings at Loch Stack” — A cluster of stone buildings in Northwest Scotland.
The northwest Scotland landscape is spectacular in so many ways — the highlands mountains of course, but also the coast, and the lower elevation valleys and rivers. It is relatively “empty,” in the sense that you are often out of sight of signs of civilization, aside from the single-track road you might be driving. But empty as it is, it is not wilderness, and there are plenty of little hamlets and isolated homes and lodgings.
I made this photograph the English town of Shrewsbury. (More about that place below.) If a photograph is “about” something, this one is about more than one thing. To be sure, it is a record of a specific spot in a particular town, a doorway to a building with a sign for “Alfred Mansell & Co. Auctioneers.”It is perhaps a record of some history, too, given the old brick walls, the weathered doorway, and the cobblestones at the bottom of the frame. But most of all, I think it is about color, the “temperature” contrast between the warm tones of partially-sunlit bricks and the very cool blues of the doorway in shadow.
Photographer and visual opportunist. Daily photos since 2005, plus articles, reviews, news, and ideas.
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