Good composition.
I shot this person from a few different distances, getting very different compositions. Took me a moment to choose the one I felt suited the subject best. As you can probably notice, its not ‘perfect’. Even the horizon isn’t straight, but knowing my images you’ve seen it here before. There is some empty space in the bottom left corner, the umbrella is cut in a sort of funny way. That’s ok. I like it like that.
I had a few a lot cleaner versions of this scene – horizon straight, from a bit further away, whole umbrella in the the frame with more negative space around it. A nice, clean, straight composition. Proper. Academic even, in it’s correctness. Close to a damn postcard. Not working for the subject, if you ask me. It’s cold, it’s raining, it’s the evening rush hour. The lady is in a hurry, struggling to keep her umbrella over her head and withdraw her cash at the same time, with rain getting everywhere – I know, I was there. Nothing pleasantly organised about the situation.
There was also a version where I got closer – the umbrella is dominating the image, taking almost all of it’s left side. Then it’s all about that light, you start to loose the context of the rather doggy surrounding. And the light is becoming too much of a special effect, almost looks like a posed flash image. Wrong again.
I believe that is the correct composition for this scene. Messy, hasty, wonky, dripping with unpleasantness but also a moment of stillness, forced brake of just several seconds. Not too perfect, not too messy, just right amount of controlled chaos. The cheesy effect of that light balanced by the overwhelming dirt of the scene, there’ even lovely wonky torn home made ad to the left. Lovely little detail. A good composition.
