Brain Editing!

or, just thinking too much?

My Final Photo - May 3, 2023

I made a lot of photos as I worked to get the best angle, primarily foreground, in the frame of yesterday’s My Final Photo.

Perhaps is better to say that I worked to get people and foreground as equal components. Measuring the composition of their connection was important.

This frame works well with the foreground (the neatly arranged and marked plants), the middle ground (the volunteers meeting about their next task), and the background (the church steeple against the sky and the row of vehicles.)

There are several frames with the woman in the pink jacket in the foreground but her emphasis in the frame overpowers the other subjects and changes the story.

The Rule of Thirds. Three-act structure.

Foreground that tells a story. Middle-ground tells a story. Background has its own story.

My only very strong brain activity was to make sure everything was squared, properly aligned. Check the horizontal and vertical. The receding parking spot lines. There are many photos that didn’t meet those criteria or failed in many other ways.

Added to the confusion I’m standing on a slippery recently mulch-covered downslope falling to the roadway and holding my camera over my head in the “Hail Mary” position hoping that everything lines up as planned.

This My Final Photo, I hope, makes the viewer begin to ask questions. Begin that 1,000-word inner dialogue. It requires questions.

The Unchosen

Now, having said all that about the photo I chose, here’s the one I left on the editing desk.

It’s also a very good photo with a much different feel.

The uninterrupted foreground makes a better photo than this one with the woman so prominent. The story changes with her location and action. There is more explanation about the activities in the photo and less searching for the story. The background becomes less important. There isn’t a middle ground. There is but it’s empty.

There are fewer questions.

Which one’s your choice?

PhotoCamp Daily

• “When older generations died, families would go through old photo albums and boxes of belongings. Now, when a loved one dies, we have so much more to pore over from their life – text messages, emails, to-do lists, playlists, voicemails. These digital artifacts contain life’s spontaneity and chance. They show us details and small moments that we may have otherwise missed. - The Digital Fragments We Leave Behind After Death