What serves the same purpose as Kissas in our own family:
My grandparents’ house served the same purpose as a Kissa in my family. We all came together as a family and returned to this place multiple times a year for different events. That house was a constant and more or less unchanging aspect of our lives. There’s a lot of history in that house just simply by virtue of it being so old and occupied by the same people. Place in this way seems to serve as a unifier for my family. It is a physical manifestation of shared experience and history. My dad and aunt grew up in this place so they have memories of it then and I have a long experience of Christmases and holidays there to draw upon so we all have a shared history with this one place and usually with the same group of people.
In this photo story Craig Mod uses a lot of interesting strategies to convey the feeling of place. One thing he seems to use a lot are leading lines. He generally picks one main subject for each photo but surrounds it with elements of the place that convey its character. The leading lines put our focus on one particular subject but they also encourage our eyes to roll over the scene and pick up other elements in the periphery as one might experience it if they were actually in the place.
2. Tourist or photographer tips:
- What about the scene excites me, find the story in the scene. I’ve already been thinking about this somewhat especially in my second set of photos but It would be helpful for me to focus more on the story and less on the cool imagery.
- Depth and mystery, are things that I can definitely utilize in my photos.
- Have a subject, the story is happening to the subject, what do you want people to focus on. Again I’ve been trying to do this in my photos but I could afford to think about it a lot more.
- Rule of thirds/what can be left out. Simple bold Photos.
- Simple subjects, simple colors, try to limit compositions more because some of my videos are very deep but too busy.
- Symmetry supports placing subject in center, When to place subject center vs rule of thirds.
These are the ideas/tips I’m going to be thinking about most when I go back to take more photos.