February 7, 2013

Halfway down the stairs
is a stair
where i sit.
there isn’t any
other stair
quite like
it.
i’m not at the bottom,
i’m not at the top;
so this is the stair
where
I always
stop.

Halfway up the stairs
Isn’t up
And it isn’t down.
It isn’t in the nursery,
It isn’t in town.
And all sorts of funny thoughts
Run round my head.
It isn’t really
Anywhere!
It’s somewhere else
Instead!

– A.A. Milne

Focus:  Still Life (B&W)

I had about an hour of free time today so I grabbed my camera and went into LoDo for a little change of scenery.  Driving around looking for a parking spot, my eye was immediately drawn to the pattern of shadows cast by the fire escape above.  The midday sun was just right to create the illusion of perfect symmetry between the actual stairs and shadows.  Lucky me, there was an open parking spot nearby (and the meter was already paid!), so I pulled over, hopped out of the car and composed the shot above in a tight frame to emphasize the graphic nature of the scene.

Intrigued by my original find, I wandered around for a few blocks looking for other fire escapes to photograph.  I wanted to see how else I could compose the images, so that the eye was drawn more to the shape of the fire escapes, rather than their function.  The results are the two pictures below.  One is a head-on picture to highlight the horizontal ‘Z’ pattern formed by fire escapes in profile, and the other is a silhouette of a fire escape to emphasize its vertical height.  I specifically chose to process all the photos in b&w so that the eye is drawn to the rhythm created by the shapes and patterns.

In the end, I’m very pleased with the results.  Today was a good day.