His foot was lost in the surrounding reeds and couldn't be seen, but, more important, I think the photo looks better by not showing all of his leg. It puts him "into" the scene a bit more, otherwise he looks like a perched crane.
My personal philosophy is that it's not always necessary or warranted to show the entire body, or face in certain portraits, when making a photograph. Sometimes the extra bits are distracting, diminish the story, reduce the impact, or throw a photo out of balance. While one may argue the merits of such framing on a case by case basis, the general concept holds true, imo. Many times less information makes for a better story or more powerful image. A prime example (although perhaps not the best, but it comes readily to mind) are the tight facial closeups used by Sergio Leone in some of his better known "spaghetti" westerns, notably the showdown at the cemetery in The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly between the three protagonists of the movie, in which Leone cuts from one to the other, showing only their eyes and the brim of their hats. The eyes show their concentration on the task at hand more so than the entire face, and the face would show more than a medium head shot. Likewise a similar scene in Once Upon a Time in the West, when Henry Fonda squares off against Charles Bronson. George Steven's had a wonderful shot of James Dean in Giant, in which Dean walks into a room and his face is partially obscured in shadow - half his face in "in black." While we can see the entire scene, most all of Dean's body and the surrounding room, the loss of detain in a portion of the face creates in impact and forces the viewer to look closer at Dean, perhaps trying to discern the obscured features. But, whatever the reason, the viewer is drawn into the scene rather than remaining a totally passive observer from outside the frame. While the photo of Jesse may not qualify as a case for all these examples, it does provide the reason the photo is framed the way it is. Does the "loss" of Jesse's foot add to or take away from the photo? Well, that's for you to decide, for you're the viewer, and, as such, add your own dimension, experience, and sensibility to the photograph. As suggested here several times, I strongly urge still photographers to watch movies to learn about light and composition. The DVD player is a wonderful tool for that, as it allows one to stop on any frame to look closely at the still photo, and some players allow zooming so the viewer can even play around with cropping to a small degree. I hope I've not gone on too long with too much for so short a question, but the topic is very interesting to me, as you know. Hope all is well on all fronts. have you gotten into the Adams' book yet? Shel > [Original Message] > From: Boris Liberman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > SB> http://home.earthlink.net/~my-pics/at_shore.html > > Shel, I may be up to the lesson from you, but why Jesse's right foot > is cut off? > > Thanks. > > > Boris > mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
