“Rain After the Game” by Turkish photographer Engn Gunesyu is my second favorite March photo in FWA’s One Photo a Day series. The photo shows a child playing a skipping game around a giant puddle of water, remnants of a recent rain. The litter on the ground, laundry hanging off apartment balconies, and paint peeling off whitewashed walls in the background give us a sense of place and tell us where the girl comes from. Here’s why it’s one of my favorites.
- I like images that express movement through ABSTRACTION, and in this case, the blur of the child tells us a story of playfulness and reminds us of the joyful innocence of childhood, despite the otherwise poor surroundings.
- A great story contains great CONFLICT, which often shows itself in the form of conceptual contrast. Normally, our eyes are drawn to focused areas before blurred areas, and to human elements before non-human elements. In this case, the blur of the child contrasts with the focused stillness of the surroundings. Which do we look at first? Further, the muted colors of the overall scene – the slate blue of the sky and the light pink of the girl’s dress – contrast with the evident joy of the child.
- Thus, our eye leaps back and forth between the two – from the girl to the desolate surroundings and absence of other people, back to the girl, back to the desolate surroundings, and because the photographer has chosen, through the eye of a wide angle lens, to show us CONTEXT, we see within this environmental portrait a story of solitude, and the indomitable nature of the human spirit in the face of this solitude. And this, my friends, is a POWERFUL THEME.
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