I’m in town with Serendipity the Olympus Pen F and her 25mm lens that thinks it’s a 50mm.  Anyway the light is bright and contrast is too. I walk on Market St and all the sudden, this woman get’s right in front of me with an umbrella. No rain, ain’t gonna rain and if and when it does, this corner won’t have rain anyway. No., it’s true I tellya it’s a dry corner…. oh hold on…yeah… really….oh my, silly me. Well, I stand corrected. It’s a dry corner cause there’s no alcohol permitted not because of rain, imagine that.

I raise the camera quickly and see some things that are cool….CLICK.  

Ok, it’s obvious that the frame has a strength and energy that forces eye travel. What are signals? What are irritants? Show us in this image.

Lets start with Triangles. We look at her hand and we see a triangle with the fingers, then we see on her sweater, triangles….moving right along, we see the sigh behind her, triangles…..and then again, we see the 2 against the wall. These are signals that support the photo and also give eye travel a map to travel. We see the shaft of her umbrella and the cane from the man, more signals and more enjoyable eye travel. So, there are interrelationships in photos and maybe you don’t pay much attention to them. Maybe you don’t think they do anything or don’t work but let me tellya something. If you don’t pay attention to the syntax and language of what your doing, your viewers will do likewise. The need the direction to stay in the photo. Signals work mostly subconsciously but not always.

There is something called an irritant. I learned that from Peter Sheidt. It helps draw eye travel and usually is something not very important to the image. It’s like an activator or stimulator. The image does not depend on the irritant but the irritant keeps you in the image and that’s what it is about.

Polly and Susanna asked me to write about this because they feel that it’s good to know info. I suppose I agree but to tell the truth, writing this stuff is a bore for me on the blog. Put a camera in my hand, let me loose on the streets and I’ll write anything you want. I come to life out there and I need that energy to keep things going. People have told me i do a heck of a workshop and i appreciate that but on a stagnant blog, for me, it’s work.

So, in a day or two, I’ll be free to go out and work the streets again. Then I’ll feel like posting on the blog and get it more interesting.

Thanks for bearing with me during this rough time. Seeya’s in a day or two……shooter