Gray

Cleveland pier. This was the grayest freakin' day you could imagine. Bizarrely, oppressively, unsettlingly gray. Man it was gray. And, as my family would readily attest, I made note of this fact, ahem, "several" times.

So gray.

To capture the spirit of the day, I turned these photos into black and white photos. Both are depressing, I think, but one is more bleak than the other and better captures the spirit of the weather. What I'm interested in is whether we agree. The only difference in the two photos is the field of focus.

Tell me: Which is the more depressing of the two photos, top or bottom?

Let a brother know.

My answer: My answer is that I'm a complete bozo. I have the artistic convictions of a roulette wheel. I spin round and round and what you get depends upon where I've landed at the moment. So when I originally posted these, I thought the bottom photo was significantly more depressing. However, when I looked at them again the next day, my feelings had shifted. Originally the "chainness" of the lower picture was defining, and as such it simply connoted restrictions for me. However, after a day, that image has a far more abstract, less literal, feel to it to me, and now it's just a composition. The top photo, in contrast, originally did point my eye further out, opening up the space. But Julie L has influenced me here. I do now see the horizon line on the bottom photo as an escape, whereas the top photo completely tethers the viewer to all this damnable grayness. So when I posed the question, bottom. But now, top.

Don't hate me. At least for this.