(Leica D-Lux 5)
Reviewing
the recent photos posted here, I noticed that the golden mean left its footprint on most images.
The discovery interests me, not because of the fact, but for the reasons of its existence. Maybe those shots are just coincidences or maybe this nature of seeing has
taken root in my subconscious. Without any intention to boost, I tend to believe the second. The consistent
evidences suggest that this is how my glance flows through a scene at the material
time before my mind believes that the elements have fallen into places for
a snap. The time I make sense of this is usually when I review the pictures at
home on the computer screen.
No, I didn't reason my way through to the moment I snapped at the scene. All I would say is that practising to observe with a photographer's eye pays.
I always like how asymmetry
gives the focus and breaks the balance giving a sense of dynamics to a static
scene like in today's shot. With the priamry subject occupying one side, the "empty" space on the other gives much room to derive stories from the shot too.
There had existed many combinations of body gestures, positions of passers-by, glowing of traffic
lights and passing of vehicles in this scene before my
observation somehow dictated that the combination in this shot was the best, and I snapped. The reason hadn't
been obvious to me until I viewed it on the big screen: apart from the golden
mean mechanism, there are the echoes (red traffic lights and two passers-by), the
progression if you look further (suggested by the man in akimbo in the foreground - the man in the
middle ground -the man on the other side behind the taxi hood) and the point
of interest if you think deeper (Are the two red
pedestrian lights and the taxi swishing past suggesting that the time interval was too short for
the man in the middle ground to have walked to the safety island - i.e. he jaywalked and probably did so in big strides?)
You may look at the pic again and derive your own stories. Enjoy!
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