1980 | Tijuana, Baja California
Among the many ideas from Ben Lifson, his evaluation schemes for looking at photographs have stayed with me. He looked at description, organization, and then emphasis – these became the three visible facets of the cornerstone of my own discipline.
For me, description is key; figure-field relationships draw the forms and define the picture’s illusion of space. And as to organization, a picture can look any way, but it has to look like some thing and some place. And how is all this stuff prioritized? Where might it take the viewer and, over time, how might it reveal its meaning? A photograph rarely tells a story, but it can show a crisp cross-section of one. So for me, the street is the best place for infinite possibilities, where I can build intuition, regularly fail, and then keep going ahead.
The first picture here might be ok, but something was yet to unfold as I attended to this mix of pedestrians. I stayed in the scene and eased up, and the second* picture came to me. I think it’s a better one; some of the characters have developed more, as the mash of ‘bystanders’ reveals more individuals and participants, like there is a kind of chorus supporting the primary actors.
So these two pictures might show a preview of one of life’s special tableaux, and even if the second one does not have the feel of a polished performance, I’d say that this little play is coming along nicely in rehearsals.
* Run your mouse over the picture to compare my two views.
*Touch-screen users can just touch the picture to swap, then touch the white border to revert.