Four A-Centric Photographs

I take a lot of photographs that have no obvious focal point. There’s nothing, or very little, in the center. They are thus radically unlike portraits, when a human face is always in the center. And they’re unlike landscapes that may focus on a mountain, or a tree, perhaps a lake, or a bird. They may even have weak overall composition. No obvious visual masses.

They’re just stuff. They get little attention on my Flickr site. Which is not surprising.

But I love them. I may snap them quickly, or perhaps in thoughtful deliberation. Either way, I know what I’m doing.

What?

Here’s a recent example:

Obviously, there’s the tree to the right of center. There’s nothing special about this tree, it’s not of an exotic kind, nor an exotic shape. It’s a tree, and its bark contrasts with all the green around it. That’s what gives it its noticeable non-presence. It parallels a tree at the left, obscured behind the foliage. In the front, spanning the lower half, large leafy plants of some sort. No one or three or eight of them stand out. They’re just there. As for the rest, green, leafy, twigs, light.

That’s it. But it’s very full. Bustling with life.

And you have to find your own way around in it. The lack of focus and composition forces that on you.

Here’s another one:

Obviously, very obviously, those bright out-of-focus leaves at the left. They grab your eye. And yet the photo couldn’t possibly be about them, could it? Of course not. It’s them, on the one hand, and everything else. Bare branches at the left, reeds in the middle at bottom, everything else. Rich and full, no visible emptiness.

But the space between those nearby leaves and the rest, is that not empty? Could that be what this photo is about, if it’s about anything? Perhaps. I do want you to notice that space.

In the next photo there’s an obvious foreground and obvious, if crude, composition:

The background is the blurred surface of a pond. In the foreground, diagonally from upper left to lower right, mixed vegetation. Much of it blurred and indistinct, but then those crisp leaves of grass cutting through the image, cleaving the space. I love them. They make the image whatever it is.

Finally, a focal point, a patriotic statue:

You almost don’t see it, it’s so small. But it’s right there in the center. It’s even in focus.

Compositionally, the sky contrasts with the reeds and other vegetation. Two zones, that statue almost invisible at the joint between them. And those sharp blades of grass at the left.

Space, yes.

But what of that statue? It’s not just any statue, it’s THE Statue of Liberty, patriotic emblem of the USofA, gift from the people of France. I’m photographing it from behind, and I suppose you can make something of that. But really, I had no choice. If the statue’d been facing me, I’d still have taken the photo. It’s enough that you can, by the upraised arm, the pedestal, and the patina, recognize what statue it is.

I suppose I might be making a statement about the insignificance of the state in the face of Nature. And yet that statue is at the center of the image, not to one side. It articulates the space, giving it form and definition. That’s hardly insignificant. It is VERY significant. But I’d resist the suggestion that this is a photograph about the state dominating nature. Articulation is not domination, and small is, well, small.

I say that, again, it really is about THE space. The fact of that statue tells us that there’s more to the space than coordinates in three dimensions with this or that object located here and there in the coordinate system. The space is a social one that includes vegetation and includes a nation state, and all that is implied by both.

And the sky.