W.M. Hunt

 #somereallygoodones, #alexwebb, #color, #magnum, #havana

There aren’t many photographers as expert as Alex Webb when it comes street photography in color.  This Havana playground is a riot of shape and movement and color managed smartly and exactly.  Every element seems to have been perfectly located , the colors coordinated, especially blue against blue.  

Webb seems to be able to disappear when he is working.  He sees color and in color just as seamlessly.  He can manage the most discreet shifts, and this was long supported by the ravishing Cibachrome printing.  The composition is still and resolved.  Your eye can move easily through the scene, directed by the graphic perfection of it and the complex but undeclared narrative. 

As I look at Webb photographs, I believe he sees them in quadrants.  This differs from some great practitioners — Henri Cartier-Bresson specifically — who worked in thirds.  You could literally fold this photograph into quarters.  

Webb likes scale to change so there is a full sized young girl on the left looming dramatically larger than the boys in the center of the matrix or, here, spiral.  There is real rhythm too, going from the stillness of the central boy with his feet planted firmly on the equipment, next to a whirl of curves and body parts.  You imagine a Nike “whoosh” accompanying this.

I asked the artist about finding a scene like this and if he was incredibly lucky or what.  He said it took him days of walking around waiting, knowing it was there, waiting for the elements to line up “just so”.*1

There is even the silhouette of the standing boy in shadow at the base of the image acting as an entry point for the viewer and as a stand in for the photographer.  

Slow down and breathe.  

*1 Conversation with the author, (date?) 

©2021

#somereallygoodones, #theunseeneye, #wmhunt, #collectiondancingbear, #collectionblindpirate, #greatphotographs, #howilookatphotographs, #photographsfromtheunconsicous, #collectingislikerunningaroundinathunderstormhopingyoullbehitbylightning, #aphotographsogooditmakesyoufartlighting, #photographychangedmylifeitgavemeone, #alexwebb, #color, #magnum, #havana