Photo taken from the Shimogiku-hashi, the bridge one upstream from the Sakura-bashi, which is whited out in the top of the frame. Maybe about 15 or more years ago, I was attracted to patch of blackness in the bottom of the frame and then was lucky to have the lone figure walk into the negative space. The footprints are a nice bonus, something that I could never quite get right when I printed it on silver-gelatine photo paper.
The image fits my mood. I have that sense that I am walking into a vast bleakness without a clear path in front of me. Maybe it was just a rough work week. Actually, with the annual university admission related duties, I had to work 12 days without a day off. I aim to decompress over the weekend.
The act of forging a path reminds me of the concept of desire lines, which made it into a conversation with an old acquaintance earlier in the week. Paths take a while to be beaten into existence, but there has to be a frontiersman who makes the first trek. Desire lines actual show where the designer didn't do such a good job, so the concept is not really applicable if you are walking into nothingness. And that brings me back to what I was pondering in the last post about how I have been feeling that I need to spend some more effort on investigating the systems that define me. But it could just be that part of that system is to put desires aside and drift for a while.
I also like the simple composition of the photo. The idea of studium and punctum have been floating around in my head and may get around to a post about photo composition one of these days. Until then.