These are selections from another search through old negatives. As always, this process is informative because of which photos I rejected previously, and the reasons for that rejection.
Of these, I only chose the third last time (or at least a version of it). I am assuming this was because it had some human activity in it, and that was an unstated precondition of photos I selected for printing at the time.
All of these photos were taken on one trip, in late 2005, I believe. We were visiting Kyoto in the winter, and were graced with scenes of that beautiful city in the snow. I remember this place clearly. I remember being woefully under prepared for the bracing cold, after years living in Taiwan and travelling only in SE Asia. I had no warm clothes. I bought a fleece there. My only shoes were formal Kenneth Cole city shoes. They did not survive the trip, stained by the snow. I remember taking these photos, and what I was thinking when I took them. I remember the intent behind them.
In the first and third, in particular, you can see the attention to getting the geometric structure in place, with the human activity taking place within this. The snow helped with the graphic aesthetic.
I remember taking quite some time with the first, working to align all the architectural elements, the snow piles, puddles, lanterns and eaves, in the correct compositional relationship, together with the exact position of the two women in the frame. For me at the time, it was very important that they were part of the photo. I also remember reviewing the photo later, at home, after I’d developed it. It was rejected because I felt it was compositionally too formal, as the women were merely standing there.
But look where they are standing. Their proportional and compositional marginalisation notwithstandng, they are centrally placed vertically in the frame and horizontally in relation to the far balustrade. That would have been intentional. As I keep mentioning recently, I have lost that obsession over the past ten years or so. It used to be there.
Looking at the photo again last night, after an interval of 15 years, I was surprised that I had rejected it before. I really like the formality now.
The same goes for the second photo, of the cauldron with the burning candle framed (shielded from the wind) by the inserted plaque. I’m not sure whether I appreciated (in both senses of that word) what I had been trying to achieve at the moment of capture the first time I reviewed this set. Last night, looking through them again, I am astounded that I didn’t see the graphic beauty of the photo.
Tastes change. I was very gratified to find these few.
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