Tragicocomedia

Nuns with Pizza, Broadway, Sydney, November 2, 2011

Nuns with pizza, enjoying themselves, say no more. This was one of those fortunate moments when one is thankful for all the time (and energy) spent carrying a heavy camera around. I’ve probably said something along these lines before, and would hardly be the first person to say it, but one of the things that makes photography so enjoyable is when everyday life offers up a scene with artistic potential that is entirely random and neither planned nor expected. I’ve often doubted my ability to create compositions, in a studio, for example, and tend to be more reactive than proactive when it comes to taking shots. This can be as frustrating as it is pleasing, for often there is nothing worth shooting in real life, or a scene which might be worth shooting is too poorly lit or interrupted by something – usually a car. Have I mentioned how much I hate cars? The bane of urban photography.

Yet, even worse than failing to capture a scene that was fleetingly there for the taking, is not having a camera with which to shoot it. Sure, one likely always has a mobile phone as back up, but no matter how much phone manufacturers bang on about their cameras, the lenses simply aren’t good enough and suffer tragically when attempting to zoom. Surely I’m not the only person who finds the photos presently advertised as “Shot on iPhone 6”, a little underwhelming. They’re nice landscapes for the most part, which pretty much any camera could capture adequately. Just as one might struggle to take a bad photo of say, Anne Hathaway. Having said that, I don’t mean it pretentiously, or to deny that people do take amazing photos with phones. It’s simply that given the choice between a phone and an SLR, surely no one in their right mind would choose the phone.

This photo was just another case of being in the right place at the right time, with a camera. I’ve always found it mildly ironic that the man is the one lit by the afternoon sun, and not the nuns, who seem to be, somewhat contrary to their supposedly sober nature, having a very good time. This was shot on Broadway, Sydney, on a late spring afternoon.

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