Regrets. I try not to have regrets. Despite that, I do have a few photography-related regrets. For instance, I regret I wasn’t a more experienced photographer when I was taking pictures on safari in South Africa. I regret I didn’t get out of bed early for an amazing sunrise in Montreal. I regret I waited so long in my life to graduate from snapping pictures to becoming a photographer (the trip to South Africa was when I started to appreciate what it meant to be a photographer).
This image, taken on a photo walk in Vienna, or rather, Wien, Austria, was the source of another regret. Not in the image itself. There is something about the mixture of colors and the irreverent graffiti that draws me to this image. No, the regret is that it was an image that I took almost in passing.
I can still picture the street corner where I took the image and recall that I was also drawn to the building on the other side of the street and the view of the street itself. I only took a few snaps of this scene and moved on.
Ah, to have those ten minutes back. I would have loved to have taken more shots and approached the scene from a variety of perspectives. As it was, I lost way too many precious pixels when cropping to get to this composition. I should have walked across the street so I could have gotten this image without needing to do that crop (another way of saying I wish I would have gotten this composition in camera).
Patience, young photographer, patience.
Reflecting on the blog post where I ruminated on the use of graffiti in photography – that image had the seeing-hand graffiti which, by itself, is art. Including the seeing hand as an important component of a broader scene, in my mind, made that image art.
The graffiti in this image isn’t meant to be art. On its own it’s offensive vandalism. That vandalism, however, adds visual depth and grittiness. It helped; or rather, it was necessary, that the color of the graffiti – the reds and greens – matched the reds and greens of the structure and of the bicycle. Serendipity at its best.
I strive for images such as this one on my photo walks, which probably means I will never find another scene as perfect. Ah, to have those ten minutes back.
By the way, I highly recommend Vienna/Wien. It is a beautiful and, despite the graffiti, clean city. And if you want to see some amazing graffiti, go to the Donaukanel, the branch of the Danube that runs through the city. An area has been set aside for graffiti artists to show their impressive talents. A Peaceful Afternoon is one of my favorites from this area.
Oh, and one other thing. If you find the spot in Vienna where this image was taken, walk down the street about two blocks. There’s a nice little indoor/outdoor café that we really enjoyed.