I mentioned in an earlier post that I would discuss the various visual devices I use to try and make my pictures a little more interesting, so here it goes.

Yesterday I attended a carnival in order to capture a few more images for my "Another Day Off" series and was pleased with what I came away with, however please note that I said attended not photographed as I shot very few pix of the carnival itself because a carnival parade is exactly that and few visual surprises are thrown up by parades because we expect outrageous outfits, behavior and mass colour as that is the format of such events .

Once the parade was finished the picture opportunities I was anticipating started to reveal themselves as the participants could be shot in isolation against backgrounds that did not tell the full story and made the "context" ambiguous and in some cases surreal.

This is a much used device in SP as a guy wearing a unusual outfit in a parade is not unusual but as soon as he arrives in what appears to be a everyday scene a level of humour or mystery is added to the work that makes the viewer search for context and explanation.

The lesson here is is to realise that what is left out the frame is quite often as important as what is included, it is not a bad thing to make the viewer ask why or how ?

In short it is not a bad thing to only tell part of the story.

The picture below was taken at yesterdays Gloucester Carnival, the background suggests that it may have a religious context.