When I look at this photo of Beck by Anton Corbijn, it immediately brings a feeling of new beginnings to mind. The road that the boy stands on, in a seemingly grey town is abandoned except for the young boy in the worn clothes hoping for a way out. The presentation as well as well as line composition and color has great influences on my feelings towards the photograph.
The presentation is very simple, but obviously carefully chosen to construct the right background. How the subject is pushed to the bottom right of the photograph would be thought to create less attention to him, however because his arm protrudes from him it proves otherwise. My eyes are immediately drawn towards the boy because of the contrast in motion. All of the motion in the picture is moving away- the buildings and the road in particular. When the arm is added it brings a sudden and drastic change because it contradicts the prominent motion. This correlates to the meaning of the photograph to me.
The line composition works very well in this photograph and adds to the emotion as well as bringing a strong movement to the picture. The most smooth and eloquent lines of the picture are the buildings, and street on which the boy stands. The next most prominent line structure I saw occurred in the lamp post that vertically obstructs the picture. Following the dark line it brings my eye to the arm, and eventually to the subject of the picture- the boy.
The uniqueness of this photograph is in the color choice. The boy and the entire physical landscape are all a dark brownish-black color, where as the sky takes on its normal blue color. I think that this adds to the effectiveness of the photograph by adding lightness to it from the rest of the gloomy darkness.
The message that this photograph brings to me is that the boy, the subject, is striving towards a new beginning. He stands at the side of the road with his essential belonging, his guitar, and protrudes his arm (hitch-hiking) in hope that he will leave the desolate environment in which he currently resides.
