In Michael Freeman's book 'Black & White Digital Photography' he talks about one of the traditional roles of B&W images being reportage or documentary. I wanted to explore the boundaries of this, so here is a piece of reportage of a local event today, that isn't quite what it seems.
The 'power of suggestion' in the title is not what is being suggested to these people, but rather what is being suggested to you the viewer. A less misleading title for this picture would be 'Sunday Afternoon Village Dance'... and now we see something completely different! But the 'seriousness' of B&W makes it easy to suggest something other than the real action pictured here... and all done without Photoshop!
Very Very clever shot and title Richard - I must admit when I saw it I thought it was a Sunday morning worship session somewhere. Just goes to show....
That is so interesting, reminding us how powerful an image can be put together with a certain title. I agree, in colour we probably would have seen a local dance session more readily. It would be interesting to know what we would have all seen had there of been no title. I like the busyness of this.
