Portfolio - Dayboats
Sunday, March 1st, 2009When I’m on a subject expedition, I’ll take photos of anything that grabs my interest and if it looks promising as a composition, I’ll take loads more around the subject exploring the potentials - if that’s possible. There are dozens of ‘almost, nearly and not quites’ on my hard drive that I can’t quite bring myself to delete. But I never really know whether it’s going to work until I”ve seen it on the monitor; and more usually it’s a question of what needs emphasising or repressing to get the composition to work. These adjustments are only vaguely discerned at this stage usually - just a ‘bring that up a bit’ or ‘push that back’.
There have been precious few frames that were instantly felt to be good subjects - Dayboats is one example of this. And oddly enough it was the only frame taken of that subject because I became engrossed in the almost perfect clarity of the reflections, ignoring the background. But this aspect on it’s own would have been insufficient to keep the eye interested in the picture for very long; the eye needs to flow around a composition to keep it ‘interested’ or it will look away.
There are a number of elements that can be drawn on to create this journey, whether these be singled out or used in partnership. The strongest element of the journey in Dayboats is the balancing of the strong white on the left boat which acts as a pause against all the surrounding busy surfaces and textures. There are a number of routes around the picture that follow along the ‘architectural’ structures. If you look at it for a while, notice how your gaze travels around the different items but will invariably return to the white boat - then off it goes again when it’s had a brief rest, trying out a different route perhaps.
It would be inaccurate to think that I am always conscious of a full understanding of how or why a composition works right up until it’s completed. Usually, I see something that I find striking because of one aspect of the image (like the reflections in Dayboats) and discover the reasons for it working, for me, whilst I’m getting it on paper. I was aware of how the overall building and features contributed to the flow of Dayboats before beginning it but inconspicuous details like the shadows cast in the left hand side or the rope hanging down from the scaffolding - quite minor details, almost ignored visually - are integral to keeping that visual flow going. I was totally unaware of the significance of the white boat until it was finished.
So drawing is my way of finding out what it is about a view that interests or intrigues me; it’s pulling the elements apart to find out how it works, what makes it striking to me, discovering why it appeals.
Apart from Pine Trees that is; I’ve never come up with a satisfactory explanation for that one - yet.
