Friday, October 12

Windsock at Te Anau

Here's a photo that's a newer version of one that I made about 10 years ago. Called Wind at Whenuapai, it was also of a windsock except it pointed the other way. There could be a big difference because there's a theory that when we look at photos we have a tendency to read them from left to right. It may be a result of how we read the page or it may have something to do with most of us being right handed. I don't know how much work has been done on the subject, for example, do those whose script is written from right to left respond differently, as do left handers?

The point is that often photos have a direction to them, for example, if the theory is correct, a photo of a train travelling from left to right will have a flow to it that will be very different from one of a train flowing from right to left. In the second case there will be a compression that doesn't exist in the first. I have tested this by printing a photo twice, the second time by reversing the image. I'm inclined to think that there is something to it, only with certain images of course, horizontal more than vertical, smaller rather than larger perhaps.

I've been doing a fair amount of exploring but so far the only photos that I like enough to keep have been found within a few hundred metres of my motel. I'm glad about this because when I've come so far I feel I should get out and about to see the sights when I might be better off back in my room resting with a good book. So far on this trip I haven't even been to Milford Sound. Or Doubtful Sound. I'm just going to have to come back.

I did a long hike yesterday through some beech forest, near a Lord of the Rings site, but didn't find anything that I wanted to photograph. Rainforest I find immensely difficult to work with.