Thinking Pictures #1

I thought it might be interesting to start an occasional series of images that I (we) come across which are both timely and insightful and deserve wider appreciation.

This image was posted by Damon d’Amato on the photonet Street & Documentary forum. The orginal was in colour, with the subject central and after some to-and-fro discussion Damon reposted it in b&w, cropped to put the subject to the right. This has created a strong diagonal formed by the two pages and the written message on the backpack (and also the subjects head & gesture) and made the written message larger and more obvious. Works well for me.

Comments from Damon:

It was taken on November 12, 2011 at Occupy Los Angeles, which is, as of today (Nov 26th), on the City Hall lawn in Downtown L.A.  (rumor is, they’re going to be evicted Sunday night.)

The photo was taken without any real forethought about it. There was a little stand-off between a protester and the local police on the City Hall steps. I was photographing that, when I looked down and saw the sign on the kid’s back. I leaned over him, shooting almost straight down, and went back to the police situation.

Invariably, those are the shots I like. Walking around, see something, raise the camera and shoot. It seems whenever I try to lie in wait for a shot, I’m never satisfied… that’s if the thing I’m waiting for happens at all.

I would call myself an amateur documentary photographer. Took some photojournalism courses in college, but never worked at it. I also do some street photography, but it, too, is in the context of documentary work– of documenting current social norms.

 

Image © 2011 Damon D'Amato

I really like this image, it works on so many levels, and sums up so much of the motivation (and perhaps frustration) of the ‘occupy’ movement over recent weeks.

Thanks Damon for permission to reproduce it here.