Monday, April 07, 2008
A Stand Pipe
Comments:
You really are giving us the city tour aren't you.
This looks like it was taken in a badly kept and poor place so might not be thought to be very Tokyo. But that aside everything works - angle, tone, framing, focus. The flaw in the concrete wall to the right is surprisingly important to the overall composition.
Another image to make me appreciate your square format. The cracks, the textures, the flaws, the angles, and then that shiny faucet -- all in their perfect place -- there isn't anything I don't like about this.
I am not sure about the composition of this, but I do like how you have captured the tonalities of the wall, pipe and ground. I guess I find the the pipe and spout seem to be too far right, but that then creates the tension that I am finding with this photograph. Unsettingly.
I'm happy enough with the composition - in this format. But with this one I have a small tug somewhere inside asking for a wider format: maybe it's to do with the line of verticals eventually righting themselves. It might also be to do with the fact that one feels that one is confined by the confrontation with the standpipe: a turning away of the head by a shy woman. All the things mentioned by others are very nice but dropping the camera an inch or so might have got that group of leaves, which having been introduced, and looking rather part of the scene, seem to be somewhat peremptorily cut off.
I am sure that I would have composed with the pipe more to the left. However this composition creates a tension with the tap turning away from the left of the image. I also like the simplicity and the incompleteness of the tap.
It's that touch of chrome on the spigot that makes this work for me.
Totally practical observation: Unless that spigot stands out a little further from the wall than it appears, the only way I can see to turn it on/off would be with a pliers. There's no clearance for a handle.
Thanks for the comments. Matt wins the 'what may me shoot this photo' prize. You do see plenty of taps around Tokyo and most without handles. These are stored in a safe place until needed. With this example it was so close to the wall that a handle would not have worked.
As for the composition I still have problems with the reverse laterals in my viewfinder...
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This looks like it was taken in a badly kept and poor place so might not be thought to be very Tokyo. But that aside everything works - angle, tone, framing, focus. The flaw in the concrete wall to the right is surprisingly important to the overall composition.
Totally practical observation: Unless that spigot stands out a little further from the wall than it appears, the only way I can see to turn it on/off would be with a pliers. There's no clearance for a handle.
As for the composition I still have problems with the reverse laterals in my viewfinder...