Or dynamite.

she gave him a lift!

Correct!

I knew I had seen that knife before!

I'm still not done with what I am writing, but I'd like to share the incomplete part I've written, and get your feedback. Are you ready?

READY!!!!!!!!!

Evo, fill me in on that post you were referring to!

absolutely

OK. Here it is:



I'll approach this from a different tack.

I prefer not to spell things out about my pictures. This is partly because what visual expressions communicate is not fully translatable into literal descriptions. Since we can't fully express pictures in words, trying can be frustrating, misleading, and unsatisfactory for all involved.

I also prefer not to spell things out because doing so can hamper the viewer's interpretive role by constricting and/or shifting the interpretive possibilities. I'll give a quick, easy example of this:



Some people look at this picture, and think she's stretching herself to her limits as she climbs up, while others look at this picture and think she's holding on for dear life as she slides down. Some might go back and forth between those. Which one you see leads to a very different interpretation of the picture, overall, than if you'd seen it as the other. Obviously, only one of those is correct. Since I was there and watched the whole scene unfold, I know which one of those two possibilities is the actual case. If I told you which, it would probably constrict your interpretations to those involving the real answer. I prefer keeping both possibilities open for you, and I'd rather not impose upon your interpretations with the actual answer.

Nevertheless, I'll try to explain a few of my pictures a little, with the hope that it brings some clarity to this discussion. Please forgive me for this trespass.



This picture shows (1) a beautiful baby girl who innocently expects her father's undivided attention and efforts, and (2) her Papa, who would like to give her his complete focus, but must split it with her because of the other demands on his life. The baby is placed centered in the picture to show her as the center of the universe, both in terms of her own understanding, and in terms of her father's ultimate priorities. She is shown from a low angle, with me sitting on the floor as I photographed her, so that you see her from eye level, to get a sense of seeing her perspective. Her gaze toward her Papa shows her expectancy and desire for his attention, and her gesture with her hands shows her expectations for him to attend to her. The father is framed very tightly – so tightly that if he wasn't hunched over, or if he straightened his legs, he wouldn't fit in the picture – to give a sense of the demands of the world encroaching upon him, boxing him in. The various objects which tightly encroach his space in the frame (such as the towels, cabinet door, box of baby wipes and toilet paper) on all sides, the lines which converge with him (such as the toilet, shower curtain, and the shelf), and the sink which overlaps him and presses into him all contribute further to the feeling of external pressures invading upon him. His posture, with the way he's leaning on his left hand and on his right elbow, indicates his imaptience to get off the phone. His gaze shows his split attention.



This picture uses one of the everyday moments in this little girl's life to represent her as remarkable by emphasizing her precocity. She is (in this picture) only about one and a quarter years old, but she brushes her teeth like a big girl. I picked the angle and the framing to include a number of subtle indicators of her very young age – the full length of the hoodie infant towel to emphasize that's what she's wearing, the stool she's standing on, the lock on the toilet lid, the toilet paper holder with no roll on it – all to counterpoint the maturity evident in her pose and her concentration.



Fewer than five minutes after dawn, the temperature was already nearly 100 degrees Fahrenheit. I was panting for breath, a little, as I hiked up hills in the thin air at about 11,000 feet above sea level. The air was so dry that my throat was parched and my lips chapped, despite drinking plenty of water. I was experiencing the area as a rather harsh environment, in which life struggles to survive, and so I decided to show that in a landscape. For a subject which expressed this, I chose a dead tree fallen down against another dead tree. I framed the shot to include as much barren area as I could, from my feet to the distant mountaintop, while excluding the signs of life to the left or the right, just our of the frame – thereby creating a sense of desolation. I polarized the shot, to make it look starker and harsher. I waited a couple minutes, until the cloud blew into the shot, to create a feeling that even the clouds were wispy, distant, beyond the next ridge, bringing no relief.

These are examples of composing pictures, in the wholistic sense. All of the pictures I showed, above, were composed in such a way. That's what I'm showing in the pictures, above.

P-Easy, it's on page 757.

that last picture REALLY moves me its one of my favs that you got!! maybe the no. 1 for me. thank you for taking it and sharing! <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />