semillerimages.com Image of the Week 3.21.06 The Boy
Steve
I have finally found a decent gallery builder and I am in the process
of redoing my website to be able to show more and update more often...
in the process, I have been going through the tens of thousands of
images I have taken in the last few years. I have found so many
interesting pictures that have been overlooked...
Henri Cartier Bresson was the man who created the photography phrase
"The Decisive Moment", he is or perhaps was yet still is THE
photographer of the masses. Taking pictures with his Leica, decades
ago, that stand the test of time for "street photography". Photographs
of people, being people, without the influence of the the photographer.
This concept extends to quantum physics via Erwin Schroedinger, simply
stated "The act of observing disturbs the observed-- Which ruins your
test" or in this case, disturbs the photograph. Before you jump to
conclusions about my esoteric quote, I have taken, and passed a quantum
physics course at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, so I am not just pulling a
hair outta my butt :) The application in physics is that one can
observe the location of an electron, but they cannot tell where it is
going to go... or one can tell where an electron is going to go, but
they cannot determine it's position. In either case, the calculation of
position or direction makes it impossible to determine the other
variable. Anyway, everyone knows people act differently when they know
a camera is near. Just watch the 11:00 news, there's all the proof you
need - even you know personally when you see a camera, you act
differently. The great moments of people photography are when they
don't know they are being photographed, although for arguments sake,
there are plenty of people who can fake it in front of a camera...
hence the reason for the need for models :) Modeling is a more
difficult job that most realize - that's why photographers exist...
they really want to be models but they cannot do it :) hahahahaha just
a joke, maybe :)
I digress. I was digging through images I had taken, and I came across
this shot I had taken when I was in Portland back in October of 2005.
My friend Sarah was driving, I was shotgun, Leif was in the rear. It
was a wet day, a little mist on the windows... I cannot even remember
where exactly we were going in the city. I cannot exactly remember
taking this shot, but since I never throw away any images, I know this
was the only one I took...
This was a luck shot. With all due respect to Mr. Bresson, this was a
junior decisive moment. I hit the shutter exactly before this jeep
passed in front of us at the intersection, which would have blocked the
the boy in the red shirt. The mist on the windshield caused the
streaking of the taillights.
Does this image even mean anything? It does to me, but the few chapters
it speaks might not speak to you... needless to say I like it for
various reasons, mainly for the dynamics of the shot... the boy's
expression, the feet off the ground, the subdued colors... I cannot
really verbalize the reasons why I like the image, but maybe you can...
let me know.
http://www.semillerimages.com/iow-link/iow-3-21-06-portlandboy.html
*steve