Found Photos and Rimshots
By Dan Beauvais
Sometimes, great photo opportunities just happen. Too many times, my camera was at home when I stumbled upon a perfect image, and I’d have to settle for recording it in my mind’s eye. I’ve never found that to be a satisfying substitute. Have you?
I now try to bring a camera and a lens or two with me every time I leave the house. Even to buy shoes. How exciting a photo can you make on a shoe buying trip?
Sharing the building with the shoe store is vacation equipment rental agency, stocking everything from blenders for that poolside margarita, to beach umbrellas. And right next to where I parked my truck was a rack of rental bicycles. The rack forced the bikes into a pattern. Not being perfectly aligned, and some suffering a little “use” by tourists, the pattern of bicycle headstocks and tires had an organic feel to its rhythm. But there, in that long row of orange and red bikes, somebody placed the green one, breaking the pattern. A cool tone among that pattern of warm tones. A rimshot in the rhythm. And it’s what made my image catchy. It just wouldn’t have been the same without that break in the pattern!
Sing along with me.
One of these things is not like the others.
One of these things just doesn’t belong.
A perfect photo found me. And this time, my camera wasn’t home in the closet.
