Thank you for your kind comment on my photo - it prompted me to look at your amazing portfolio.
This is a striking image, and I noticed that I had an immediate and strong reaction to it. I think that's for a number of reasons. To begin with, it has a surreal quality to it: the high viewpoint makes it seem as if the water is held back, above the Sleeping Man, by some protective force field. Also, the rocks and frothy surf portray a sort of fury and uncertainty of which the sleeping man seems blissfully unaware. I subconciously asked myself, what will happen to him? And being homeless, that is a real and important question, not just one of a trick of perspective that my eyes are playing on me. If I cover up the sky portion of the image at top, so that it looks like this feeling becomes even stronger.
At another level, your image is an allegory for the precariousness of the human conditon, balanced by faith.
The composition is beautiful - three successively taller horizontal "bands" formed by the sky, water, and beach, each one relatively uniform across its width - and contrasted by the figure of the Sleeping Man in his vertically curved posture.
The neutral colors of the three horizontal bands provide a "focusing effect" that makes my eye zero in on the Sleeping Man because of the little bit of color in all this "non-color."
What a remarkable and heartbreaking shot. Extremely well done...composition, color, exposure. Award winning capture. I've been here many times..not far from me. This went into my favorites.
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{K:30599} 11/25/2004
