of photography

Had an argument with Banno a couple of days back about my photography style. Good thing….. resolving conflicts is a nice way of working out this lazy brain of mine.

I have this habit of avoiding close up photographs and zooming out to squeeze in a whole lot of things in the frame. This according to Banno is a mark of a novice, now coming from a novice himself I don’t think I want to believe that. Not that I would be disappointed if that is true, it will only give me an opportunity to differentiate from the old-timers.

Every photograph tells a tale and its background, the context forms an integral part of the plot. A non existent or hazy background leaves too many questions unanswered.

The most intriguing of plots have their background leading to the central theme, ‘Parson’s pleasure’ and ‘The champion of the world’ are the two stories that instantly come to my mind. The theme cannot be isolated from the contextual setting, the two make an indissoluble complete.

But a story is probably not the best of analogies. In a photograph the distinction between the background and the foreground is much starker than in a story. A photograph gives enormous scope in portraying a conflict or harmony, something which the interplay of context and theme can’t bring out easily in a story. No wonder the Chinese of old days said: ‘A pictures paints a thousand words’.