Taken during the downtown Phoenix Festival For The Arts.
The featured image is a portrait rather than a wide angle, and gives a great example how framing can create a different mood and feeling with the same subjects. Here he seems empty and alone, maybe even ignored. In the portrait there is height, perhaps something to climb or aspire to. But in both he seems to be soldiering on, pounded out his own beat regardless of audience.
Something we should aspire to.
Whether the viewer wants to add an empathetic emotional layer of foolishness, sadness, grit or something else is up to them.
In reality, the steel drummer could have set his drums up the other way, facing the rows of food and market tents set up on the street behind him, facing any potential audience, but he didn’t. And I could tell you about any audience, but I chose not to by shooting this picture instead.
Steel yourself for anything, and march to the beat of your own drum.
—–David
P.S. He was pretty good.
P.P.S. Taken with my Galaxy Note 4 that I don’t want to replace yet, with a little cropping and edit in Google Photos.
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