The Plotter
Romania Early 1970’s
When I began photographing, I’d shoot a scene or person without a thought to composition or point of interest. I didn’t realize that I needed to think out the best way to show why I thought the scene or person was worth shooting. And sometimes, I’d shoot even if I didn’t think the scene was special…I was in Romania, wasn’t I? Ipso facto, it had to be interesting. I found out later, that even Romania could be uninteresting without some ‘pre-visualizing’ as Ansel Adams used to say.
Recently I had a request for some photos taken in Romania in the 1970’s. I looked through my old slides to see what I had. The photo above is a snippet of a scene showing our tour group, wearing 70’s clothing, lined up to get a cold drink from a tiny snack bar on the grounds of a monastery, church or castle. Despite its mundane subject I decided to scan it. Then I noticed this Romanian man with his glowering eyes sitting under a tree. He looked, to me, straight out of a Russian novel. I loved this snippet. I got the idea that my subconscious had tried to tell me that this man should be my focal point. After severe cropping and adjusting contrast, I darkened the man on the right of the frame. He looked a bit too modern to fit in with my story.
Harvest
I didn’t “love” this man although he happily posed for me in a hayfield in Bukovina. He seemed rather doltish. But today, I noticed a German Modernist painting shown in a Wall St. Journal story. I decided to see if I could emulate it. I couldn’t. But I tried. And I had fun.