Friday, May 4, 2012

A Photo

And here we have the more or less weekly photo.
Here we have a nice duality between the busy leaves above and the busy crowd below, with the wiggly separating line between as a sort of pseudo-horizon, appealingly placed about 1/3 of the way down. The light's kind of pleasant, dappling the people. We have some near/far with the out of focus person on the left. So, some visual interest and a not-bad basic composition, I'd say.
Then we have this fascinating array of people and expressions. Attention seems to be directed behind the photographer, to the right of the frame, although a few people are looking at the camera. There the guy with the guitar, and someone in the foreground perhaps with a drum? So there's some sort of.. band.. more or less surrounding the photographer?
Something is going on, something we're not privy to. A bunch of characters are watching it, but we have to guess or imagine what it might be. There's a lot going on here, looking at the image a while rewards the viewer, and opens up more questions. Somehow it seems to escape being overly busy, possibly because there's interesting stuff (faces) everywhere, rather than simply clutter meaning nothing.
The caption on this suggests that this is a revival meeting in Oklahoma.
Russell Lee, July, 1939, under the aegis of the FSA.

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