Wednesday, March 22, 2006
Dia de los Muertos
Photo by Julia Robinson
A photographer is always on the hunt for three elements: light, composition, moment. The zen underpinning of photojournalism is that you can’t control all the elements all the time. Even after you’ve mastered the craft you need good instincts, divine inspiration or luck to get the photo. You might have heard a photographer refer to the Light Gods or hear their awed intake of breath when they see a Decisive Moment in print.
Sometimes you work hard for the frame and sometimes you’re given a gift. That collection of gifts is your vision. It’s what you are open to seeing and the often-unpredictable way the world has of spicing it up. Sometimes you’re ready for it and sometimes you go home with a handful of what if’s.
At the Dia de los Muertos parade in San Francisco, I was surrounded by spinning Aztec dancers with full headdresses and jingle bell anklets. I spent most of my time, 200+ frames, trying to capture their movement and the emotion of the dance with slow shutter, rear-curtain flash combinations. At the end of the night it was this lone frame that survived the edit. One quiet moment in the melee.
