> Greg Anderson wrote: > > > > Greetings, > > > > Staying home with a sick kid and several days of backed-up thoughts > > as triggered yet another comment or question. I've been lookingat the > > submitted pictures and like to serve up the comment on composition. > > Looking back through my slides for one's that I'd like to pass on to > > Dave for scanning I've discovered that the shots that appeal most to me > > are those have substansial amounts of geometric shapes in the > > composition of the shots.
Actually, you've touched on one of the very reasons that I think I am fascinated with trains. (At least, this is what I tell "lay-people" when I am trying to explain the reason for my hobby). Trains are extremely geometric elements in the environment. Composed of many individual parts, they form a larger, elegant, linear whole form which snakes its way through the environment. Each car or locomotive is built out of several basic Platonic forms - rectangles/boxes, cylinders, circles. The form of a locomotive consists of a main box - the long hood - intersecting a smaller, wider box - the cab. Classic designs continue the long hood form to the other side of the cab, locking the pieces together. There is a base in the frame/fuel tank/truck assembly, which again in classic designs extends itself beyond the ends of the basic hood boxes, reinforcing its end points yet extending beyond to the next unit in the series, and emphasizing its length. The wheels are purely tangent to the rail surface (I believe the only wheels used for general transport which do so). I could go on.... Your observation is significant, though, because I think that many of us emphasize those geometries, and the larger compositional geometries in the scene, either knowingly or unknowingly. (I'll will sometimes be conscious of it, other times not). Hidden geometries in art became very significant during the Renaissance, when linear perspective was developed as a way of portraying space in a unified (three-dimensional as seen from one static point of view) way. One of the earliest such paintings, Massacio's "Holy Trinity" painted on the wall of the cathedral in Florence, Italy, depicts literal imagery of the persons of God the Father, Jesus the Son, and the Holy Spirit, symbolized by the dove. Close inspection of the painting reveals that it is, in fact, a triangle - a not coincidental use of the shape in portraying the "three-in-one" nature of God. This was pointed out to me by a college architecture professor; I later tested the idea again by looking at Leonardo da Vinci's "Annunciation". Turned out that the overall organization of the painting, depicting the angel announcing to Mary that she would be the mother of Jesus, by its geometry had, to my eyes, a cross centered in the painting, in the otherwise empty space between the angel and Mary. Jesus was thus depicted in the painting without even being seen. The use of hidden geometries in composing a painting was common, though not universal. I frequently try to emphasize the geometries I find in scenes in order to emphasize the geometry of the train, and the passage of the train through the landscape; by emphasizing those geometries, a greater depth is added to the image, providing greater definition of space and the train's passage through it. I looked quickly at the current selection of SPORRS shots for examples, and found a few, but I must wait until tomorrow before I mention anything about them. It is way past my bedtime, and my wife gave up on me long ago.... 'Til tomorrow then. Patrick Lenahan Dallas, Texas "Look - from up here, you can see that the square isn't really a circle, it's an ellipse!" - overheard on the roof of St. Peter's Basilica in Rome, in reference to the view of Piazza San Pietro, St. Peter's Square, which is, in fact, an ellipse. -> SPORRS: 'Serious Photographers Of Railroad Related Subjects' -> Web Site: http://www.anet-stl.com/acphotog/sporrs/ -> Message © 1998 SPORRS® - All Rights Reserved
