Thursday, December 17, 2015

Man By The Sea

Man By The Sea, Maine, 2011

I find the waterlogue effect compelling in this photograph, but the reason why is unexpected:  We had stopped to get gasoline and cold drinks on our way to Acadia National Park, and I saw this young man sitting on some rocks near the shore.  He seemed distressed, perhaps he'd had an argument with someone, I don't know.  The thing is, I felt as if I'd intruded.  The original photo of this is very good and stands on its own merit, but I never used it for anything, or shared it anywhere.  This watercolor effect blurs his features just enough to make him unrecognizable, thus rendering him more of an 'everyman', representative of human anguish in general, as opposed to his specific suffering. 

2 comments:

Julie said...

Did this come from the same app as the horseshoe crab? This one is much better. I like the way the water looks. And it's a good scene to begin with; the image itself might be a little blurry, but the man's pain is perfectly clear.

Poor guy. I hope his day got better.

jennifer from pittsburgh said...

Yes, the same app. I'm going to post on this blog reworked watercolor pics until I'm sick of them.
And yeah, that guy was having a rough day - and why with the regular pic I couldn't help but feel as if I was intruding. Plus, I always had the nagging feeling that maybe I should've spoken to him, but then was concerned that that would just make things worse.