So close. This pic is so close to being a great photograph. The figures in the background keep it from being so.
This photo was taken in the Campo in Sienna, Italy. A wedding had taken place somewhere nearby. There was confetti on the ground in one corner of the piazza. A little swirl of wind began playing with the confetti. It made a tiny tornado of the paper. Children ran to it and began playing with the swirling paper. I took many pictures.
The composition of this shot is nearly perfect. You can see the wind thanks to the motion blur and some serendipitously placed mid-air confetti. The circle of the base of the white paper dust devil is clear and complete. It surrounds the girl in the foreground. She is in wedding attire unlike the other kids. The two groups stand slightly opposed as they play together further suggesting difference united.
Sadly, while framing the action, I couldn't separate this group of kids from the people in the background. The Campo is a busy place. The figures at the top of the photo really distract the eye. Some photographers might crop the top of the photo and clone the legs behind the top-left girl out of the photo. It would be easy to do and would improve the picture. But then we would no longer have a photograph. We would have a photo collage.
Photography has a unique relationship with reality. It reports, "At this moment of exposure, these objects, subject to the laws of optics, were present."
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19.04
