Men walking by Planet Parfum – Liege, Belgium (2015)
Life is full of absurdities and contradictions. Unfortunately, for most of us, our brains ignore these and “tune them out”. It’s just too difficult for our minds to keep finding unusual ways our world around us has arranged itself. Many of these absurdities and contradictions are fleeting moments which only occur for brief instants of time which makes it difficult to notice.
For me, finding those momentary absurdities or contradictions is a challenge. Even though I’m looking for them all the time, I’m only able to capture what I notice a small percentage of the time. Most times, I notice the event too late to make a photo or I just don’t happen to have my camera handy. I’m sure even the times I notice those absurd events, are just a small fraction of what is actually happening around me.
The photo above is one of those fleeting absurd moments I was able to capture. I was in Liege, Belgium to see a street festival. I noticed the pile of garbage piled in front of the Planet Parfum signs. It looked like an interesting combination so I snapped a couple of pictures. It was late in the evening so my ISO was really high (ISO 6400) with tons of grain. But then I noticed some people walking into the frame. I managed to make maybe six pictures. Of those, only one had the people in the exact location I needed them in order to make an interesting composition. What I love the most in this picture is the fact that the two men are completely oblivious to the fact that they are walking past a pile of garbage and the large signs for the Planet Parfum store.
There isn’t any magic formula to seeing these types of contradictions and absurdities. I wouldn’t consider myself anywhere close to being an expert. But if you make an effort to look for these types of events, you’ll find that they are more common than you thought.