by Gary Fong
Photographer: Seong Joon Cho
Click photo to enlarge
Composition is all about eye movement through frame. The desire of the artist/photographer is to move the viewer’s eye, gracefully around the frame, picking up the details of the image, to convey the story. The most successful photos accomplish the exchange in an instant.
Seong Joon Cho is a young photographer in South Korea, starting his career photographing for travel magazines and business news….not to mention starting a new life with his new wife. He’s not conventional about the way he sees pictures…but more traditional…perhaps more traditionally Asian.
Now for the Nit Picking
Seong’s winding sea at low tide in Suncheonman Bay, South Korea, reminds me of the Snake River in Yosemite National Park. It has a traditional “S” shape through the frame that moves the eye gracefully to the details. It’s wonderful.
However one Item that bothers me is the boat making its way through the river. It almost cries out to be faster, or higher in frame. It may have been a youthful moment of impatience or the timing of the sun coming or going behind the mountains, but the boat feels in the wrong place.
Yes…I know…it’s easy for me to say….because I don’t have to paddle the boat faster for young Mr. Cho’s picture… And yes….I can hear a few of our readers saying “PhotoShop it!” But one will have to appreciate the greater wonderment if the integrity of the image is maintained as a genuine photo.
Pictures are not made by the skill of our PhotoShopping, but by the discovery of our senses. That’s part of the secret joy of photography…the discovery.
