HUMOUR
COMPOSITION - humour or point of view
If you see something funny, odd, a play on words or a unique juxtaposition, as only you can, then try and find some way of incorporating this in to your composition. Like other examples in this chapter, we are learning to recognise and react to those short insights when you first see a subject. It doesn’t really matter what these insights are, as they will be unique to you. So you need to listen to them.
At a new location try to relax into it and don’t start firing off loads of frames, take a breather, have a coffee, sit and wait and look all around you, there will be all sorts of visual cues just waiting. As you relax, your sense of humour or irony will start rearing its head. Once you start taking note, these things may be subtle at first and often corny, but if that is your sense of humour, then find a way of juxtaposing this with the location. It’s a great way to let your inner self project, don’t be afraid of it, embrace it … it is you.
It’s lots of fun and hours just seem to fly by. So incorporating your sense of humour can pay off, Lonely Planet seemed to agreel!
Waiting for stuff to happen - as it will
This was a very busy scene visually with horizontal and vertical lines everywhere, plus highlights and shadows, colour, structures, boats, a busy cafe and dark spaces. In most windows or doorways someone was either entering or leaving. So there was a lot going on.
But I felt it needed a focal point, and the little voice said ‘Jon, you know... bide your time...wait’. Sure enough, this man walked out on to a balcony lit from above just beside me, and my first thought was ‘It’s the orchestrator, he’s controlling all the lights and activity with a hand held device’.
Well that’s what it seemed like to me. So that was the reason for the shot and the dynamics meant that he had to be off to one side to show the townscape that he was orchestrating. Who knows what his real story was and it doesnt matter, he was just playing his part in my pistache of this colourful busy Italian fishing village. Remember, the reason governs the composition.
