One is a lonely number.
Coming back from a road trip to Dallas, I was listening to a classic hits channel on Sirius-XM. One of my all time favorite bands played one of my favorite songs. It was Three Dog Night and they were playing, “One is the loneliest number”.
As is usually the case (I was not driving) I closed my eyes and listened, but this time I was conjuring up past photos that I’ve taken as I was singing along in my mind. It’s a great way to produce ideas that I can write about on my blog, and also show the way I like to send out messages via photos to the viewer.
I’m a firm believer in the psychology of Gestalt, and in my online classes with the BPSOP, and in my “Stretching Your Frame of Mind”, I often show photographers how to incorporate these concepts into their imagery.
It’s so important to think about how we manage what the viewer perceives and processes when looking at the visual information we lay out to him in the form of a photograph. One of my favorite ways to manage said information is through one of the six concepts called Figure-Ground, and I’ve talked about several ways in past posts.
People like to see people in photographs, and I like putting them in to also show scale. I also like to create a mood, and there’s nothing better to do just that as to use the light to your advantage and to isolate one individual; creating the feeling of the Figure (the subject) being small and lonely…or being alone. By making the Ground (the background) the overwhelming part of your composition, this message will come across to the viewer.
Btw, by definition, Figure-ground refers to the relationship between an object or subject and its surroundings.
As far as the photo above, one morning I took my fellow photographers that joined me for my “Springtime in Sicily” to Acitrezza, a small fishing village north of Catania. It was before sunrise so we were looking around for silhouettes to put against the sky that had not yet seen the morning sun; one of my favorite ways to spend the pre-dawn moments.
I noticed this intersection and the unusual light cast on the streets from above. I immediately visualized one lonely person walking under the street lights before people came out to start their daily routines; I thought about my song, “One is the loneliest number that you’ll ever do”.
Since I rarely see what I want, I photographed what I wanted to see by having one of the non-shooting spouses go over and slowly walk down the street for me. As you can see it worked perfectly, and sent the message I wanted to the viewer.
FYI, for those that also love the song, here it is: One is the loneliest number.
Visit my website at: www.joebaraban.com, and check out my workshop schedule at the top of this blog. Come shoot with me sometime. On July 30th I begin my 29th year at the Maine Media Workshops. I’ve had the same week since the beginning. It’s the week of the Lobster Festival down the road in Rockland. It offers a completely different set of photo ops than one would expect when coming to photograph the coastline, lighthouses, and fishing villages of Maine. Come join me and spend a week completely immersed in your love for photography.
Send me a photo and question to: AskJoeB@gmail.com, and I’ll create a video critique for you.
JoeB
