(Camera: Ricoh GX200)"I'll have a square head and a broad shoulder. Taller. Bigger."
These questions pop up in most people's childhood at some point: What will I be like as a grown-up, what will I do for a career and who will I marry? And these were the questions immediately sprung up when the author noticed this scene. With years of training to see through a viewfinder, the author instantly saw with his bare eyes an intriguing abstract image from it. The scene could be mundane to most passers-by, or photographers being less observant. Fact is, the framed image was surrounded by many distracting elements while people were hurrying past behind the author to work. The scene did not appear to be as philosophical or "serene" on the spot.
The simple composition against the empty wall gives much room for the viewers' imagination to take flight. The contrast of the shapes, of the colours (big black shadow and other elements in pastel colour), of the light and shadow, of the material foreground (the physical signal lamp) and the virtual background (the imaginary grown-up shadow of it) all add up to hold the scene as an integral whole. Nothing irrelevant is included. This coherence effectively directs the viewers' focus on working out their own interpretation of the image.
Another issue which has to be raised is giving a title to the image, which is "When I Grow Big" for this one. The author has come across photographers who said that they didn't give titles to their works. Maybe they were trying not to sound pretentious. That's their choice. But thinking up a title to an image is a training in disguise. This is because in the process, the photographer has to grill themselves in the heart about the real themes and focuses of the images. Keep doing this and you will in turn become more conscious and observant about what scenes would make intriguing images and, most importantly, why. This is not to say that those who do otherwise cannot make images as good. The point is, this is one of the training with which photographers can harvest the benefits to mature in photography.
When you grow big in photography, what will your dream be?
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