PhotoPlay: Jabber, scream, whisper … Do as you please. Just talk.

 I don’t particularly long for school days, but I do miss two things: poetry discussions in English class with Mrs. Maas and the quarterly school debate.

Take a peek into the door: Her cropped hair dances atop her head as she balances on the side of the table, makes her way down the aisle, leans against the cupboard in the back and then perches on the window frame. Always moving, alive, hands flailing about in orchestrated motion, English was no period to be asleep. She knew how to keep your ears unwaxed and at their most alert. The words of Sylvia Plath’s poetry still ring in my mind.

The quarterly school debate was a whole different kind of conversation. It was tense; two-sided and in a school hall of 3000 women sitting on the edges of their seats. I crossed the floor many times and always stood amazed at how succinctly the winner came to her conclusion.

Conversation is an art. Capturing it is also an art. 

Three elements become prominent when capturing a conversation through photography: background, angle, distance.

In the image below by Paolo Margari, the pavement setting is established by the cars in the background:

In the following image by Susan Sermoneta , the low angle emphasizes the debate taking place within the conversation:

In Phool Proof’s image, the removed distance the photographer has chosen establishes the conversation as a private moment:

For this month’s PhotoPlay challenge:

1. Capture a conversation.
2. Use background, angle or distance (or all three) to establish the context of the image.
3. Convert your image to black and white.
4. Post it in the High Calling Focus Flickr group.
5. Tag it with ‘photoplay 16’, ‘conversation’ and ‘High Calling Focus’
6. Post your offering by Wednesday, July 27, for links and a possible feature.
    

Are you willing to stretch your creativity further? Join our poet friends in the creation of a sestina – a poetry form conducive to conversation. Learn more about it from L.L. Barkat and David Wheeler here and here.

Image by Kamau Akabueze. Used with permission. Sourced via Flickr. Post by Claire Burge.

• Tags:  
• conversation
• culture
• photography
• photoplay
• random acts of poetry

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