A Picture Paints a Thousand Words

The picture above was taken in New Delhi, India.  I was on the bus when I noticed this guy riding his scooter with a cool mask on.  I snapped the photo and was glad to see that the guy I wanted to capture was in focus.  Technically, I liked the picture because I was successfully able to use the auto-tracking auto focus feature of my Lumix LX5.  This feature allows you to keep moving subjects in focus while you compose your shots.  I never realized the full potential of this picture until I snapped this specific photo.  This fact alone made this photo great for me.  However, posting it in Facebook revealed a much more intriguing concept that made this photo even greater.  Read on to know the full story.

While I posted the picture in Facebook to show to my friends the cool rider with his awesome mask, a friend left a comment on something that I totally didn't realize until she pointed it out.  According to her, what makes this picture great aside from the technical aspects of the photo was the story that it paints.  She said that a lot of stories can be derived from this single picture.  Before I reveal to all what stories she pointed out, you might want to take a second look at the picture and see what stories you come up with yourself. 

Were you able to think of any?  This friend of mine is quite imaginative as she was able to see a whole lot more:

• There's the story of the modern bike racing against the traditional bicycle but ironically, the bicycle appearing to be faster than the bike as depicted by the blurriness due to movement.
• There's the take on how old technology can still co-exist with modern technology. 
• The picture also somehow depicts the gap between the rich and the poor in India.
• But my favorite of all is her take on how the picture depicted what modern technology can do to us humans.  She captioned it "Progress comes with a price."  Pointing out that the guy on the bicycle is slimmer than the guy with the potbelly who owns the modern bike.  

In the end, what makes a good photograph is the story that you try to paint with it.  Strive for meaningful photographs and your audience will surely adore them.  So when you do become a professional photographer, stop fussing about the technical details, concentrate rather on telling the story.  Sadly these days, a lot of wedding photographers have made wedding photography about them and not about the subjects they're taking.      

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