The Great Banini
by
jperez1690Comment by jperez1690: Schoff, and anyone else who wondered about the red pepper...
I had considered doing the shot without the pepper, but felt that for the perspective I was after, it needed something else to balance the shot in a few ways.
1.) Color. The black background with the yellowish fruit had good contrast, but didn't offer the brilliant splash of color I thought a circusy theme would need.
2.) Odd number. I tend to believe that when there are distinct objects showing in a composition, that an odd number is better than an even. That's not always the case, but here, I really felt that the peel and the banana/melon combo needed a third party. So in comes the pepper.
3.) Layout. The peel and banana-melon looked a little flat by themselves, and I thought the pepper helped add some punch and dynamics to the composition.
If I had shot this on something other than a flat black background, I think that all 3 of these preceding reasons might not have been as big of a factor, since background items could have provided other compositional bits to satisfy me.
Finally...4.) Story. Since my metephor was a human canonball, I thought that having The Great Banini fly through a hurtling ring of fire (or in the fruit world, a red bell pepper) would add to the 'daredevil' part of the story.
Of course, I know a lot of this is a matter of taste. And based on a couple of comments, that the red pepper was more distracting than interesting for some people's taste. I think I still personally disagree with that, but I DO appreciate that people brought it up, because it did make me consider other ways I might handle the shot were I to do it again. Thanks again to everyone for all their thoughts!
Photographer found comment helpful.
