Broken bricks in a wall in Victoria make an interesting composition. Canon EOS 7D EF-S 10-22mm f/3.4-4 at 15mm f/6.3 1/20 ISO 400
The man in the hat was not at all concerned with how late he was, he didn't care if the caretaker's daughter had to wait for him. He moved with the kind of unstudied grace that came naturally to a man of certain years and with a certain confidence that came with having made one's way in the world. She would be there and she would be ready. As he rounded the corner into the alley the caretaker's daughter stood with her hands on her hips looking angrily at her boot as it shuffled in the dirt. On top of the wagon loaded with barrels crouched her workman. She moved towards the man in the hat quickly, anger flashing in her eyes and started to berate him in a quiet voice seething with rage. The man in the hat reached out and pushed her back slamming her into the other wall of the alley. As he did this the workman jumped to the ground, his coat catching on the wedge that held the barrels in place. For just a moment he hung there inches above the ground, the wedge holding his weight, and then it all came down. The wedge pulled out, the workman fell and the barrels began to fall and roll, crashing and bouncing against the walls of the alley. The woman was lucky, she had been pushed out of the way. The two men...
The stories of the city that are rubbed into the bricks has, in places, worn away the sharp edges and left a softened rounded edge. In other places history has broken and torn at the walls leaving gouges and cavities. The bricks tell the story of the city, not in words but with an unspoken feeling, a hint and a whisper.
I was walking through downtown Victoria and I saw this corner where a couple of bricks had been broken out. I felt as though there was an image there with a wonderful story behind it. Victoria's old downtown has a lot of brick buildings that were built in the late 1800's and I kept wondering to myself what could have caused these two bricks to be broken out. I took a few photos angled straight on to the corner and shifted just a little when I saw that down the alley was a very interesting repeating pattern to draw your eye into the background. It gave the image depth and context. I am using a very wide angle lens here that plays with the perspective enough to really emphasize the broken bricks and yet it almost pulls your eye around the corner and into the background. One of the great things about wide angles lenses is that they can really emphasize the item in the foreground but also include a lot of background information. I also wanted to make sure that I included the shadow on the left side of the frame as it provides a nice visual boundary.
-Russell Berg
