Cliche

It's a simple enough shot. The pier with its converging parallel lines leads the eye out towards the straight horizontal of the horizon. The hard, artificial edges complement the soft, billowy shapes of the clouds and their reflections. There is a kind of solidity in the wharf which accentuates the plasticity of the still water. I know, the horizon might have been a bit lower, but I was really after those reflections. It's a shot I like, but I know it's a cliche.

A minute or two on Google and you'll find a hundred, maybe a thousand like it. Wharf. Still water. Horizon line. Yada, yada, yada. Yep. Seen it all before.I knew it wasn't very original before I pressed the button, and I guess that's kind of the point. Cliches (visual, or linguistic, or musical or culinary or architectural or theological...) get repeated because they work, and when I am trying to capture the stillness and colours and warmth of a New South Wales sunrise, I know this composition will do the trick.

When learning to take photographs cliches are also excellent teachers. Before you have developed a style of your own you can shoot one of the cliches (wharf on still water, boat floating ditto, skyscrapers with a plane, palm tree silhouetted against the sunset, all that stuff). In the same way that a learning painter copies one of the masters, you'll learn what's required to make the shot and be left with either a picture that will impress your friends or that most valuable of questions: "why didn't that work?"

Cliches fail us when they stop us thinking. When they channel our vision into some preconceived pattern they will prevent us seeing the possibilities which lie before us. That is, they will stop us from seeing the truth. It's then we should avoid them like the plague (sorry) or do our best to subvert them. But when we know why they work we can revisit them, and make them our own and they will speak to us and to the people we share them with.

Photos: Nikon D750, and either a Nikkor 24-120 f4, or a Tamron 70-200 f2.8. Small apertures to give depth of field, so longish shutter speeds. There were handheld, but a tripod would have been sensible. I used highish iso, confident in my camera's low light abilities.

Comments

Steve Mitchell said…

12 bar rhythm & blues is also a cliche, but you can find it in most popular music!!! Nice Pics!

6 May 2019 at 16:18

BrianR said…

"cliché" means photograph in French, so it's entirely right that you give us a photo! - which I like, along with your analysis of its composition. I remember also your comments on the proposed and rejected flag for New Zealand, why it didn't work compositionally, which I thought were on the mark. You should give art appreciation classes, Kelvin!

11 May 2019 at 06:14

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