Framing while walking, my dear Nudnik

A framed image. Quite flat, all elements carefully organized.

While there is information here, that is not the

intent of this art photograph.

Walking with the hiking club along the Ruckle Park waterfront, I chose to

trail along behind the rest so I could look around me , not engage in conversation, and use my camera. I must have been annoying to leaders intent on shepherding all along in one neat package.

A standard informational type photo.

And yet it is carefully composed.

I have recently started working in watercolours, little miniatures, using the caravan as my studio and I noticed right away how that practice was affecting my photographic awareness. The small paintings must keep things simple or they loose their effect. What is the essence of the scene? My lens selected carefully to encompass fewer elements. The photographs began to emphasis strong lines, textures, blocks of colour and tone. They became flatter and more severely ordered. More painterly, musical, or poetic perhaps.

A sailboat on a sparkling sea,A pretty standard informational picture

without the added tree frame that directs out attention.

I have included one standard informational type image of the walkers in Ruckle Park to show the difference. It is  more expansive, includes the background, a sense of perspective etc. It details a standard reality as we have come to expect from photographs. Neither type is 'correct' however, there is no right or wrong, they simply aim at different things.

By severely restricting the information within the frame we are lead to think about the twisted tree trunk and not boats and distant islands. Photography is about communication and here I have chosen one subject and emphasized it.

“Veery interesting, my dear Nudnik”* ( that's a line from 'Laugh-in', an old TV show some may remember.)

• *my writing program of course questioned 'Nudnik' and suggested 'nonstick'. I think there are some poetic possibilities in this dear robot.

The smooth skin and rough bark of the arbutus tree.

One dominant element that fills the frame makes a powerful statement.