Instant Nomad – In Transit

Instant Nomad (Italy) copyright 2010 Douglas Stockdale

While working on the Ciociaria project, this composition was interesting to me as the empty bench created a sense of anticipation. This bench under the cover was meant to be used by someone. The broken path through the fallen leaves on the sidewalk indicates that someone has alredy been by here before. It was also a late Fall morning, thus the slight overcast sky provided an additional sense of moodiness and very different feeling for me than when there was bright sunshine.

What I did not anticipate was the appearance of the car, as I was rather “focused” on this composition and did not hear the car coming up the street behind me as I making my exposure. My first reaction: bummer! So I patiently waited until all of the cars were no longer in sight and made what I wanted for my pre-visualized composition. Before moving the camera set-up, I made a quick check of my exposures, including this one, and found that this photograph, above, was more interesting to me than the one devoid of any humanity. hmmm.

So I patiently waited for more cars to pass, attempting to capture them at various points as they moved through the frame. Interestingly, the serendipitous accident is the photograph that I keep returning to. Although this photograph is not as elegant a fit for my book, it is now taking on more life for my project Instant Nomad.

Cheers!