Serendipity sometime selects our photographic subjects, but compositional choices are always influenced by our lifetime of experiences and accumulated biases.
The old wooden cannery building provided shelter from the storm and was thus a perfect (and the only!) subject to photograph. But why did I decide to place the red boards there? This photo is part of the "close to home" section in our companion website—Rommes Arts—accessed by clicking this photo. Photo: © Donald J. Rommes
Several weeks ago, a cold front moved through our area bringing wind and rain off the Pacfic Ocean. In the afternoon, the wind dropped and there was a pause in the rain, so I ventured out, hoping to photograph raindrops on local leaves and flowers.
After only 20 minutes of calm, the rain and wind returned. It was impossible to do close-ups of flowers in these conditions. I could have abandoned the idea, but I was looking for something to do, I had my photography gear in the car and I was dressed for weather. I continued further in the car, hoping for another respite from the storm and for some photographic inspiration.
My drive took me to the coast in the vicinity of the old cannery buildings I photographed several months earlier. Parking the car and putting on my rain jacket and hood, I walked around the buildings. In the lee of one of the buildings, I looked more carefully for compositions.
The reddish wooden boards nailed over a broken window intrigued me, The bright color was a jarring but interesting interruption in the building's regular, gray, vertical wooden slats. I placed the red boards in the lower left third of the composition to "balance" the two patched windows on the right.
In post processing, I straightened the vertical slats a bit to preserve the geometry of the building. Otherwise, it is a "straight" image.
It is hard to know where ideas for composition come from. In this case, shelter from the storm placed me in front of this building which practically invited me to photograph it. But every photographer brings with him a lifetime of experiences and biases that subconsciously inform his compositional choices.
It is hard to know where ideas for composition come from. In this case, shelter from the storm placed me in front of this scene which practically begged to be photographed. But every photographer brings with him a lifetime of experiences and biases that subconsciously inform his compositional choices.
Composition with Red Blue and Yellow by Piet Mondrian, 1929. Could my imperfect memory of Mondrian's art have influenced the placement of the red boards in my photo?
In this case, in retrospect, I wonder if I was influenced by the work of an artist from the early part of the 20th century—Piet Mondrian. I had the good fortune of seeing several of his paintings in person at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. Memories of those paintings surely still bounce around the subconscious hallways of my mind.
Mondrian came to abstraction via cubism and the landscape in the 1930's. Many of his works are divided into rectangular spaces by horizontal and vertical lines. The spaces are often filled by carefully chosen primary colors arranged in size and space to create visual balance.
Like Piet, I have moved from straight, representational landscape photography towards scenes of nature that resemble abstracts through careful compositional choice. Unlike Piet, I never dared push these abstractions to the degree he did. Perhaps I should.
Like Piet, I have moved from straight, representational landscape photography towards scenes of nature that resemble abstracts through careful compositional choice. Unlike Piet, I never dared push these abstractions to the degree he did. Perhaps I should.
The best of my abstracted landscape photos can be appreciated both as colorful patterns (when viewed from a distance) and as detailed natural studies (when examined more closely).
But that's where the comparison with the great Dutch artist ends.
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