As photographers, sometimes we overlook shadows as key elements of composition.
Claude Debussy said, “Music is the space between the notes.” Mozart said, “The music is not in the notes, but in the silence between.” Truman Fisher, an American composer, said, “The pause is as important as the note.”
Photographers read the light; follow the light. Derived from Greek, the word photography means “drawing with light.” But we must also read the shadows. For often it may be the spaces “not in light,” or in the “pause in light,” that impact an image.
This photo is an oxymoron. A “good witch,” or as the title says, “the angel in the witch.”
Long ago people claimed the witch-hobble growing around one’s home would protect them from witches because they could not walk through it. Anyone who tried to walk through a witch-hobble thicket, would thenceforth be endowed with powers of a witch. (According to Ellen Rathbone, an environmentalist and naturalist.)
My focus, however, is on photographer, John Todaro’s brilliant composition of two witch-hobble leaves and what their power has done for me. I’ve been in a creative doldrum for several months because of personal reasons. Upon seeing this photograph, I was creatively lifted to a place where I could again appreciate pristine aesthetics.
Initially, I saw refined design in this composition—a balance of tonality, rhythm, repetition, variation of form, and simplicity. I especially like the apex on the left leaf duplicated in reverse by the convergence of the two leaves above their overlap.
The dual vertical light spheres directly above the leaves’ convergence, coupled with the overlap (or “lens” shape) atop a triangle represents to me, a beautiful totem composition.
But what did I see beyond the pleasing composition?
I saw an angel with a halo, spreading her wings. That’s probably what I needed to see and feel, for afterward, I felt rejuvenated and got right back to attending my creative spirit. My doldrums have dissolved, thanks to a conscientious, well crafted black-and-white photograph by my friend and fellow photographer, John Todaro.
