Quirky scenes
Composing a photo means putting a tiny window on your field of vision. It will direct your attention to what the photographer wants you to see, while losing a lot of context. This is good for pointing out the irregular and the unexpected.
It's a rewarding to spot something other people might not notice. This is another way to brag about your "photographer's eye". Things that don't belong together, things that aren't supposed where they are. I call these "quirky scenes".
Sometimes the quirky isn't there at all. It's your perspective that puts unrelated objects together in a meaningful way. In the gallery below, that's the Sant'Ambrogio church next to the Vega rocket launcher in Milan, Italy.
At other times, the quirky is fully intentional. The poster in the photo above belongs to a serious health campaign in Italy but the way the restaurant installed it inside looks slightly (and fully deliberately) out of place. For a scene that is entirely intended as it's shown, look at the gallery, and find the photo from Highgate Cemetery in London.
Photographing the unexpected can also be an exercise in naming your pictures. In case of the quirky, you can also try and mislabel the scene to make the situation more grotesque. But fair warning, this can be overdone.
I think I should make my future posts less generic. This post cannot do justice to any of the photos included. Each scene carries a long history that I haven't researched... for now. But I'm sure you could write a book or make a feature film about each and every one, separately.
As always, the photos were taken by me and are included here without any post-processing, except for some slight straightening of slanted images.
Scroll down to read the description of each photo.
Description of photos, from left to right and top to bottom:
Sculpture in the Reffen, Copenhagen, Denmark
Who left their lunch under the vintage MG? London, England
Is it me or are English Easter decorations deeply creepy? London, England
Lions shed pink tears, Montreal, Canada
Vega launcher and Sant'Ambrogio, Museo Leonardo da Vinci della Scienza e della tecnologia, Milan, Italy
This place serves fantastic dinners, outside Milan, Italy
Deception, Milan, Italy
Reassuring message on Corso Garibaldi, Milan, Italy
The Godfather playing in a church in Savoca, Sicily, Italy
In Sicily, they put everything in severed heads
Don Vito approves this message because it leads you away from him. Taormina, Sicily, Italy
Uhu? Aha. Also, why? Sástó, Mátra hills, Hungary
Something is missing or has your brain been downgraded? Avignon, France
This ball is homesick, hiding at the beach. Maspalomas, Gran Canaria, Spain
Urbex gear in the former stock exchange building that became the former television headquarters, Budapest, Hungary
Excuse me, sir, some dead and alive people are watching. Highgate Cemetery, London, England