Something in Andre Kertesz’s “New York 1966” caught my eye when I was looking through the photographs in the gallery of his work. In this photograph, it is as if we are peering through a gate to watch the boys on the other side. A sense of curiosity is evoked because it is not really clear what the boys are doing – are they fighting or are they playing catch? We also wonder about the boys because they are hidden from us behind the bars of the gate; we are only allowed to see the side profile of one of the four boys.
I chose this photo because it could be open to different interpretations. Unlike the other pictures, our subjects are not blatantly open to view; instead, we, as the audience, are prompted to try and look past the gates to view who our subjects are. I also like the monochrome quality of the photo because it seems as though the picture was taken amidst the action between the boys – it looks like at any moment, the boys may start moving right in front of us. The black, white and gray contrasts that are seen in on the floor pavement, the brick walls, the concrete wall and the bars of the gate highlight the contrast between the skin colors of the different boys. The difference in clothing choices and patterns are also emphasized by the bland black and white colors.
The choice of color and positioning in the photograph makes it compositionally strong. The monochrome coloring not only produces sharp contrasts in the photograph, it also adds to the texture of each object. We can feel the rough jagged bumps on the brick wall; we can see the more smooth surfaces of the right walls and the concrete floor, and we can almost feel the cold metal bars of the gate that separates us from the boys in the alley. Kertesz’s choice of positioning adds an additional dimension to the photograph by taking the picture behind the gates: he creates a sense of separation and removal from the subjects and draws us into the piece by making us want to look at each part of the photograph more closely.
At first, I couldn’t really see how Rule of Thirds or the Golden Ratio was applied here because the subjects seem relatively close to the center of the shot. After careful reexamination, I noticed that after I imagined the photograph to be broken down into vertical and horizontal thirds that most of the action took place in the upper two-thirds of the picture, and the lower third remains still. The only visible face is in the first third of the vertical divisions, but there is enough room given to the boy so that he does not appear to be running out of the photo yet (although he seems to want to escape from the other boy).
I plan on framing my shot so that if I am taking a photograph with no specific human subject focus, I will not have the streets right in the middle of the picture. Instead, I will have them higher up so it gives room for the sky and the buildings so the taller buildings will not seem like they are abruptly cut off. If I take shots of human subjects, I probably avoid having them concentrated in the center of the photo like I used to do. The readings actually taught me a lot about how even the slightest shift in positioning can change the framing and focus of the picture.
-Winnie Yu (Blog A)
