I think this photo looks good, but there isn’t much more to it. It was taken on a photo excursion with a friend. We went around town photographing architecture and random things without much purpose. Near the end of the day we were walking along the river and I quickly grabbed this shot. I showed it to my friend and he seemed to like it.

Every time I look at it I feel ambiguous. On the one hand it felt like one of my better captures, something that would maybe print nicely and has an interesting composition. On the other hand it doesn’t do anything for me. In part that is because I still remember the moment I took it and it evokes a feeling of banal indifference. Mostly because it feels gimmicky and a bit of a cliché.

The real problem here is photographing to a spec. I didn’t set out to communicate or document anything. I just identified a common composition pattern and went with it. As learning exercises those kinds of things are probably valuable, but not as a way to make photography that is meaningful to me.

See this photo (and more) in my flickr stream
(Written on 14 Oct 2010)