André Kertész’s photograph Rue des Ursins immediately captured my attention because of its sense of desolation and mystery. It depicts a lonely street in what seems to be a town in France (rue means road in French) and it is curious to find that there is no real subject being photographed other than the emptiness of the street. Rue des Ursins is a narrow, winding road that seems crudely constructed, as do the buildings which line the street. There is a lone woman in the road with what appears to be a cat, a run-down, corner wine shop with some customers, and a bike wheel in the bottom right corner that seems to belong to a bicycle that is exiting the photograph. There is something innately sad and bland in this photograph that draws the viewer in. Its vulnerability and intimacy make the viewer feel like he/she is standing in the middle of this road and taking a glimpse into a brief, single moment on this street.
There is something particularly unique about the angle that this photograph was taken at. The photographer seems to be standing right at the bend in the road, giving the photo a more curvaceous structure and an implication of fluidity and motion. Kertész made a fantastic choice with positioning by making the vertical linearity of the street less rigid and harsh by placing it off-center. In a sense, nearly everything in the photograph is cut off in some way–from the store on the corner, to the bicycle, to the street itself, of which we do not get to see the entirety. But by not getting a sense of completeness from any one individual object or person, Kertész allows for a better understanding of the environment as a whole. We are given a more holistic view that is not focused on any one subject but rather on the effect of having several subjects together in one image. In fact, there is no focal point to this photograph at all. It is as if we are seeing this moment in passing, but it is this immediacy that envelops the viewer and gives the photograph its visual power.
Compositionally, this photograph makes use of many of the typical “rules” for photography, while simultaneously defying them for a higher purpose. Certain objects in the photo are placed according to the Rule of Thirds, such as the Rue des Ursins sign (which is notable because it is the title of the photograph), the woman and cat, and, as a bit of a stretch, the bicycle wheel in the corner. Yet, this placement in key areas of the photographic space does not actually give these objects any precedence in the piece over other objects. Kertész does an interesting job at creating a photograph that makes use of good compositional guidelines, but also subverts their significance at the same time. No single object in the photo–not even the ones located at the pivotal Rule of Thirds positions–seems to steal attention away from any other object, which is an impressive feat on the photographer’s part. Furthermore, the positioning of this image is beautifully rendered. There is an organic aspect to the natural curve of the road that is reminiscent of the Fibonacci Spiral relating to the Golden Mean in photography. Kertész also plays with the idea that a moving person/object must have room to move forward within the image by placing a moving bicycle almost already out of the image, which leaves us wondering what the bicycle was doing on that street in the first place. We still get a sense of motion, but Kertész keeps us questioning what the nature of this movement is. Kertész has a clear grasp on the compositional rules of photography, but it is in choosing to break these rules that he attains a greater depth and vitality in his photography.
I find that I am particularly inspired by Kertész’s compositional choices when framing his shots. His simultaneous acknowledgement and rejection of the Rule of Thirds, the Golden Mean, and positioning accomplishes the difficult feat of somehow breaking down the wall that separates a viewer from an image in a photograph and thrusting the viewer straight into the moment of the image. The audience is pulled into the image because it seems so natural, so real–as if it were something we could see in passing and not even notice in such intricate detail. I want to be able to do the same when I take my photograph for Snapshot Day. I don’t want to lose sight of the values that account for a compositionally-strong photographic image, but I also want my photo to be accessible. I want viewers to feel as if they could step right into the image and exist comfortably and normally in it. I want to avoid posturing and overstated positioning and placement. My hope is that whatever it is I take a photograph of on Snapshot Day will be so mundane that it becomes powerfully real. I too want to break down that divisional wall between art and viewer and allow the viewer to feel as if they could have been behind the lens of the camera too.
–Norine Chan (Blog A)
