Indeed, Steve! A couple of slides from my course on Composition and Creativity:
Sadly, since the inception of the cell phone and social media, many people walk around looking at their screen rather than what is in the real world around them - and they miss a lot. That is particularly valid for photography.
I started the Composition section of my course with those two slides full of quotes. That last one in the second slide, Gestalt relates to a personal experience. I was walking through downtown Victoria, BC and went past the window of a gallery that I often frequented and which had sold some of my work. I stopped in my tracks and did a double-take. The scene was of the image you see.
It struck me that these two characters had similar bone structure, body proportions and a striking similarity and that the person in the painting looked very much like a younger version of the statue: the connection was startling and told a story to me of a man in his elder years overseen by a portrait taken of him when he was young.
While the young man in the picture was strong, virile, clean dressed, relaxed and in a dominant, almost provocative pose; the figure on the chair was old, his flushed face suggested a drinking problem, he was worn, disheveled, somewhat spent, and looked like he had fallen on hard times. His hunched body language suggested tiredness, tension or defeat.
To me, the two told a story of how a young man fell into hard times, drank and grew old and possibly impoverished, but had certainly lost his pride and mojo.
The window had a lot of other items in it, and I maneuvered around with my camera to try to get the right perspective but not include other distracting elements. The owner came out and recognized me and asked what had caught my eye. When I explained, he said that the two were not related and, in fact, were put out in a prominent position because they had not sold. He was intrigued when I told him of my impression and asked if he could have the photograph to use, to which I readily agreed. It turned out he approached to two artists to see if he could sell the items as a composition with a context, and they agreed. So, with my photo and some marketing stuff they did attract a sale, and I even got a small part of the commission!
