A Composition’s Dilemma in Black and White – One Shot Story

This photo, taken in the centre of Padua, with my Nikon 35TI and a Ferrania P30, shows a composition’s dilemma.

The idea was to explore the usual technique of ‘framing’ a subject within an architectural structure to make it resemble a painting. Actually, though, the main subject, the biker and his vehicle, is more of a disturbance than something worth including in the picture.

He runs from right to left, an unnatural direction. Indeed, since we are accustomed to look from left to right and not vice versa, the bikes seems to go outside the frame rather than into it. Furthermore, I should have waited for the subject to be right in the centre of the image. Had I done so, however, a part of the double-arched window would have protruded from his head, like a pole planted on his skull.

One might say that the geometry of the scene and the intrusion of the bike work together to create an intrusion of speed into a static, ordered space, preventing the image from becoming purely abstract. However, in hindsight, taking a picture of the empty space would have been a much better option.

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