Combo: Go low and background first

This is a photo from the Washington Post’s very talented Matt McClain. He’s inside the U.S. Capitol, at a news conference with Senator Schumer, the majority leader. It’s a daily, even hourly occurrence at the Capitol. A ho hum assignment for an ordinary photographer. He has to get Schumer into the frame, but what else can he do to rise above the humdrum? 

Here’s the what else. An ornate set of vaulted ceilings and ornate hanging light fixtures, marching in convex order from lower right to upper left of the image.  It’s a riot of geometry: trapezoids, curves and triangles. And just at dead center of the image, the light fixture points down like an arrow – or maybe it’s Damocles’s sword – onto the senator’s head.  So yes, he’s clearly the subject of this composition, but what a background!

How did Matt get the shot? I don’t know him, but you can see from the humans in the image that he’s well below butt-level, probably sitting on the floor, angling his lens upward. 

And I’m sure he didn’t just happen to be sitting on the floor and then looked up and said to himself, wow, look at that ceiling! No, he likely scouted out the location first, then waited for his opportunity. 

So this shot embodies two of our previous blog posts: Set up your background first, and go low. 

So simple. So powerful.