Dot, age four, unstaged, the image grabbed quickly before the composition fell apart, the focal plane accidental, and yet, with the luck essential to street photography, giving the image a delicate sharp spine. I don’t think Dot had heard of Noah when she arranged these animals, so chalk one up for archetypes.
I find feet very expressive, and quite neglected relative to faces. I’ve followed my daughter’s feet through childhood. I hope to follow Dot’s feet the rest of my life.
Photography is inherently an analytic discipline. Where a painter starts with a blank canvas and builds a picture, a photographer standing before houses and streets and people and trees and artifacts of a culture imposes an order on the scene -- simplifies the jumble by giving it structure. He or she imposes this order by choosing a vantage point, choosing a frame, choosing a moment of exposure, and selecting a plane of focus.
Dot, Ocean Park
--Stephen Shore, The Nature of Photographs