Wednesday, October 7, 2009

Roadside Visit

I've been photographing roadside memorials for some time now as part of a future body of work project for the Bay Area Photo Club in Clear Lake. This past weekend three early twenty-something men were killed in a tragic automobile accident on Bayway Drive down the road from the Baytown Nature Center where I do a lot of shooting. I stopped by to take a few photos of the memorial for the young men and as I was shooting the young man in the photo pulled up and parked behind me. He was obviously a distraught relative or friend of at least one of the deceased men. As I prepared to take one more shot before leaving, to give him some privacy, I noticed his reflection in my rear view mirror. I thought the image was particularly poignant so a took a few shots before leaving.

3 comments:

Barry Armer said...

Nice bit of street photography Larry! Your composition really gives the image a lot of emotional impact!

Well done!
Barry

Cindi said...

This is an image with a lot of impact even if you don't know the backstory. Your composition is especially creative to me, with the cross and pictures of the accident victims so out of focus but the obviously grieving visitor very sharp. It might have been interesting to see the opposite focusing too, with the memorial sharp and the person blurred. You have certainly picked a very emotional subject as your body of work and if this is any indication of your images I think it will be very successful too.

Larry J. Patrick said...

Great use of selective focus. You MAKE me look at what you want me to look at. Then, because the rest of the image is very soft, you make me study it to better understand the whole image. This is good, very, very good.