Finding the Snag that Will Capture a Viewer's Eye

 

Font names—cloister black, baby italic, and undertaker—names found on an old printer’s cabinet in a museum on Deer Isle, Maine, had indicated to the typesetters how a particular kind of story or advertisement could be set with a font to create the right atmosphere. (“Undertaker.” A font stalking a grim finality.) By the time the typesetters laid rows of words with inky hands, the story had been gathered and written; the ad worded and illustrated. Their job was a simple one, almost like the placing of a period at the end of a sentence. And yet, it was the snag that could catch a reader’s eyes. 

When I take photos, I work the opposite way. I look for the snag in images, the detail/s that will make a viewer think they might know the storyline, even when there is no one in the image. I look for what is incongruit, silly, evocative of a feeling, a character, a story.

Dock End, Stonington, Maine

Did you imagine yourself gripping those ladder ends and with a mite of trepidation while descending unsteadily to a boat bobbing far below or did you find yourself waiting, thinking someone or something was going to throw a leg over the last rung and come toward you? Were you confused a moment by the water being the sky? I took the photograph of this dock and bay a dozen different ways, but the main snag ended out being the viewpoint, the intimacy of being at arm’s length to the ladder. The wooden beam across the edge of the dock is just visible, a tripping hazard. The ladder handles are gray cold metal, unpleasant to the touch. The water seemingly sky-wide boundless, could swallow you. All snags.  

Here is another photo. End time at the dog park?  Dog gone. Leash remains. Last supper, bowls empty. The high view of this scenario from the Grand Bridge in St. Paul, Minnesota, places the viewer at an omnipresent vantage point. The snag is the lofty viewpoint.

I loved that someone had a great sense of humor, putting a “Pull first with Dry Hands” sign on a paper towel dispenser. But this is serious. In order to dry your hands with one of those paper towels, you HAVE TO DRY YOUR HANDS or the paper tears as you try to pull it out. So, sheepishly you dry your hands as told—on your pants, on your shirt, on your jacket—before pulling with dry hands. The snag in this photo for you, the viewer, is that you don’t see anyone, so you go through your reactions to the sign alone like in a typical gas station bathroom. The clerk who wrote the sign isn’t there, you don’t see me. You get to experience this thought process all on your own. The mirror adds to the image with its no-no signs; in this restroom you are expected to follow the rules. I could have taken a photo of just the paper towel dispenser, but the mirror and the sink add to the feeling of reality. Do “Pull first with Dry Hands.”

Church in a Small Town in Nebraska

Wandering back roads, I saw many abandoned churches or ones reinvented as historical societies, antique stores, or an occasional house. This one stumped me at first. No church spire. A side door that upstages the boarded-over original main entrance with its funny bleacher-like steps. Had it been a school or the home of a fraternal organization? As I took the photo, I tried to capture the bulkiness of the building, its former grandiose facade. When I edited the photo, I pulled the building closer so the reader could more clearly see the two bikes leaning against the wall, the blank T.V. and the mattress on the lawn. The last iteration of this church was as a home of an evicted tenant. Many transformed churches have fallen from their mission of tending to the poor; this one has fallen a couple of bleacher steps further.