Greetings from Newport Beach, California, USA!
Photo taken on Wednesday, January 9, 2008.
Photo taken on Wednesday, January 9, 2008.
The photo would inarguably be the Photo of the Week. But it inspired me. The results are below. I look forward to your comments.
When I first looked at this photo, it became an instant favorite. If asked why, I could reply with a simple “just because” but the full answer is much, much longer. The thought of deconstructing the picture sounds unnecessary, undesirable, and even unpleasant. You may think that the photo as a whole is greater than the sum of its parts and I agree. Yet identifying the parts and how they interact with one another shows why the whole picture is that much better.
With so many elements, where do you begin? The focal point, believe it or not, is the bench. Prominently in the forefront of the photo, it is a point of reference providing perspective to the view and serving as a scale to the scope. Also the bench’s pastel hue is shared with the sky colored by a setting sun into a fruit candy combination of orange cream and crushed pineapple.
The next step is to examine the photo, layer upon layer starting from the top. A sky-wide rip in the cloud cover offers a peak to the low-slung sun. It has not yet begun to sink beyond the horizon but a convoy of clouds creates the illusion that it is. Beneath this is the Pacific Ocean living up to its name, its calm waters stretching westward, its welcoming waves lapping the shoreline, its warmth radiating by its interplay with the sunlight. In the center of the photo, slicing the long lines of the Newport Harbor breakwater are the silhouettes of scattered palms, their slender columns crowned with a firework explosion of fronds.
On the left side of the photo, an extremely low tide briefly widens the beach of Corona del Mar – Spanish for Crown of the Sea – exposing a swath of sandy shoreline usually submerged in the salty water. Moving rightward in the middle of the photo are two people – a pair of small slender marks on the beach – and further right in the parking lot is a lone car. We return to the bench – empty – and realize the near absence of human presence, hinting that this unfolding scene – a mere moment of it captured by this photo – was witnessed by too few.
All these elements contained in one photo. Deconstruction done. Did you notice everything that I did? Did you notice anything that I didn’t? Please share. I did.
Angelo
When I first looked at this photo, it became an instant favorite. If asked why, I could reply with a simple “just because” but the full answer is much, much longer. The thought of deconstructing the picture sounds unnecessary, undesirable, and even unpleasant. You may think that the photo as a whole is greater than the sum of its parts and I agree. Yet identifying the parts and how they interact with one another shows why the whole picture is that much better.
With so many elements, where do you begin? The focal point, believe it or not, is the bench. Prominently in the forefront of the photo, it is a point of reference providing perspective to the view and serving as a scale to the scope. Also the bench’s pastel hue is shared with the sky colored by a setting sun into a fruit candy combination of orange cream and crushed pineapple.
The next step is to examine the photo, layer upon layer starting from the top. A sky-wide rip in the cloud cover offers a peak to the low-slung sun. It has not yet begun to sink beyond the horizon but a convoy of clouds creates the illusion that it is. Beneath this is the Pacific Ocean living up to its name, its calm waters stretching westward, its welcoming waves lapping the shoreline, its warmth radiating by its interplay with the sunlight. In the center of the photo, slicing the long lines of the Newport Harbor breakwater are the silhouettes of scattered palms, their slender columns crowned with a firework explosion of fronds.
On the left side of the photo, an extremely low tide briefly widens the beach of Corona del Mar – Spanish for Crown of the Sea – exposing a swath of sandy shoreline usually submerged in the salty water. Moving rightward in the middle of the photo are two people – a pair of small slender marks on the beach – and further right in the parking lot is a lone car. We return to the bench – empty – and realize the near absence of human presence, hinting that this unfolding scene – a mere moment of it captured by this photo – was witnessed by too few.
All these elements contained in one photo. Deconstruction done. Did you notice everything that I did? Did you notice anything that I didn’t? Please share. I did.
Angelo
