Taking an image, freezing a moment.

I'm not a photographer but I know what a photo satisfies the viewer in terms of both sights and thought. A photo that you may feel very normal and nothing special, but somehow it won a big prize in international competitions. Let me give you a real example and let's try analyzing that photo in some aspects. The following photo is an artwork by Anna Opinová from Slovakia. This photo won the first prize in the Next Generation Award: Single Photo category in Nikon's annual photo contest.

According to John Szarkowski 'The central act of photography, the act of choosing and eliminating, forces a concentration on the picture edge - the line that separates in from out - and on the shapes that are created by it.'. Let's begin with the composition of the photo. As normal photos show, the photographer will tend to open the camera aperture aloud so that the font can be erased and people can focus on the man. But Anna Opinová chose a moderate aperture to get the best depth of field. The author has successfully expressed a photo where the subject character is very harmonious with a simple but peaceful background. The author used two rules about the main composition in photography: the rule of thirds and the rule from left to right. The rule of thirds helps men stand out in the frame and become attracted to viewers' attention. Just like the habit of reading from left to right, people tend to view photos in such order, so the rule from left to right is applied successfully.

After that, we may pay attention to the light of the photo. When I first practiced photography, I had a concept that I thought was right that light was the most important factor when taking photos and that's somewhat true. We can see that the impact was taken in the early morning or early afternoon as in the photo. When there are some rays of sunlight shining down. The evidence is that the light that hit the man's back and the roof made the front part of the subject and the house has more shadow. The light is 100 percent natural.

The last stage is the photo's color, the most crucial part that builds the emotion for viewers. Black and white photos often depict nostalgia and emotion heavier than other colors. Anna Opinová named this photo Mysterious, which is very true of what is shown in the frame with a combination of black and white. Thanks to this combination, the white smoke has blended with the white of the sky, while covering the man's face makes the viewers feel curious. Despite being a monochrome image, readers can still imagine the colors of the scenery of the forest, mountains or sky. The author also adds little grains to the photo to create a feeling of harmony and mystery.

The Mysterious photo by Anna Opinová is seemingly simple and ordinary, but it is the simplicity that the author aims to make it a masterpiece.

Wordcount: 512 words

Reference:

Szarkowski, J. (1966). The photographer's eye. Museum of Modern Art; distributed by Doubleday, Garden City, N.Y.