Street Photography Now - Week 6

Challenge #6: "Never overlook a cliche" - Artem Zhitenev

Taken as part of the Street Photography Now challenge.For more info: streetphotographynowproject.wordpress.com/

The challenge this week asked us to 'never overlook a cliche' whilst photographing in the urban environment. This threw me. Was it better to be fully informed of the established cliches or to just go and photograph the really obvious? Well, studying photography for the past four years or so has instilled too much, I was aware of all of the 'cliches' that can pop up. I get the point of it though: there are still photographs to be had by using previously successful compositions... Not that we would reinvent the wheel by attempting cliches but they have become cliches for a reason.

In the end I went for the seasonal cliche of focusing on the dramatic shadows that winter's light can produce. Also, there is an established tradition of framing the natural world [trees] upon the manmade and industrial world [buildings] that had been stablished long before but perfected in the colour photography of Eggleston to Callahan - another cliche-box ticked!

I was tempted to opt for:

- Images that featured a repetition of colour...

- Images that used the obvious compositional traits. Such as adding a natural frame or border by including walls, posts or trees to create an 'edge' of frame. I prefer this image to my submission to the competition but the other photo fit the brief better.

-PM

[10/11/2010]