For the last four years, my buddy David has lived in the world of photography. He has an awesome Instagram and has become a great photographer while running his company, Death to the Stock Photo.
On April 20, 2016, he posted this photo from Ohio State’s Thompson Library.
I was totally enamored with this photo due (in part) to nostalgia but mostly the way it represented symmetry.This photo at first glance looks neat and symmetrical, until you notice the books. I thought the symmetrical frame with the inner chaos of the books leaning all over the place is a sort of representation of someone who looks to be holding it all together.
I hounded him for months to send me the original high-res image so I could get a canvas print to hang in my apartment (which coincidentally happens to be his old apartment).
It’s hung in my apartment for a year now, and just this past week I was explaining to someone the history of this photo and why I liked it. And when I mentioned the asymmetry of the books, she jumped in.
“Oh, because of that one gray book?”
I had never, not even once, noticed the single gray book nearly dead center on the top shelf in this photo.
It’s another case of getting too close to something and the benefit of zooming out. It’s the power of getting outside perspective and receiving an entirely new way to look at something that I thought was so familiar.
What else am I missing?