Uzbek Artisan
Fergana Valley, Uzbekistan 2012
An artisan decorates pottery the way pottery has been decorated for generations. His light source is from an open door that opens to a small, unkempt garden. I love unkempt gardens. They seem magical to me as does this photograph.
The man is very nearly centered but the photo works because there is geometry here. Can you see it?
There is a “C” curve: the line of pots curving from the middle right edge to the lower right edge. And look how beautifully the door light outlines those bowls.
There is also a diagonal line from the dish hanging on the wall (upper left) which extends through the man’s head to the dish in his hands and then to the cylinder on the floor.
But there is even more! Another diagonal from the dish on the wall in the upper right extends through the man’s head and down to the covered bowl on the bottom left.
These two diagonals form an ‘X”.
I wasn’t conscious of all this at the time. But my unconscious took over and made me look good. One of my favorite photographers, David Vestal, wrote that practice at home allows us to shoot automatically when we find ourselves in an interesting situation. Through practice and studying photographers we admire, we program ourselves to see what makes a pleasing photo and our subconscious takes over. We react automatically when the time comes.
Read an article of David Vestal’s here:
http://phototechmag.com/when-in-doubt/
And the link below shows another unconscious shot.