the rendezvous

Balance matters. Even in photos. It is as if the subjects (those that are not part of the background) in a photo weighed proportionally to their apparent sizes. When we look at a photo, we hold it up in our mind and hang from the middle of the upper edge to see if the picture would tilt to either side, depending on the 'weights' of the subjects in it. Our intuition as regards things placed on a see-saw, further dictates that the further a subject is from the centre of the frame, the heavier it affects on the frame. If different-sized subjects are placed at appropriate spots, it is possible that the picture would not tilt to either side. By then, we would find ourselves looking at a well-balanced photo.

I was absorbing the early morning lights on this quiet beach in Anglesea. A light drizzle had just come. Rain clouds were still hanging from the sky. As they were beginning to disperse, the heavenly rays pierced through them, spraying the spot with warm lights. There, I came across the structure. Not sure what the intended use was. But someone did put a hat on the pole, and I found it pleasantly interesting. I was going to take a photo of it.

As I circled around for a good viewpoint, the car came to stop at a short distance. I decided to include the car in the photo frame I was going to create, in hope of giving some life to the desolate scene. From where I stood, the apparent sizes of the two--the structure & the car--were far from equal. Placing both on each half of the frame fairly & squarely would have tilted the photo to the left, I felt. So I put the smaller one--the car--closer to the right edge than the other one to the left edge. Now, the effective weights were about equal.

The colours & cloud formations in the sky were interesting. So was the texture of the ground on which the structure stands. So I opted to put the horizon in the centre to include the heaven & the ground equally. If it were up to me, I'd always have some clouds in the sky, even at sunrise. They give shapes to the otherwise plain sky. At first, I thought of illuminating the structure with flash. But seeing it as (almost) silhouette against the early morning sky with vibrant colours conveyed a greater sense of longing. So I left it as it was. A GND8 filter was used to keep the sky dark enough to be seen. Such warm colours!

Location: Anglesea, VIC, Australia
Camera: Nikon D300
Lens: Nikkor 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6 VR
ISO: 200
Exposure: 1/50s
Aperture: f/9
Focal Length: 18mm
Filter: GND8
Flash: No
Tripod: No