BIRD ON WIRE

Ahmed, Salman. Birds. c. 2009

There is a very frail yet vibrant quality to this photograph of birds on a wire. The beauty may lie in the delicate nature of the composition. The contrast is stark, for there is much light and little dark and what little dark colour is present is composed of birds that are mere dots of black when viewing from afar and barely recognizable as birds when viewing up close. The interplay of scale makes this composition fun to look at, quite honestly. Luckily for the photographer much uniformity is achieved since almost each bird happens to be facing forward; this makes the forms similar and accounts for the obscure appearance from a distanced perspective.

Something else makes this photograph very pleasing to the eye: the diagonally horizontal wires split the photograph into three sections, however the upper most section just happens to be -- when the area of each space is visually averaged -- proportionate to the bottom two sections so that it is 50% of the space while the middle and bottom sections are each 25%.

Another thing. This photograph would not be striking without the five birds in flight. Why? They give it a great amount of balance that helps direct the eye to the middle of the wire. The amount or weight of black of the two birds on the left is equivalebt to the weight of the three smaller and lighter birds on the right. And they do help establish the subject matter as birds.