From visual famine to visual feast

Sometimes graphic tableaux announce, "Take my picture!" I had just been covering a forum on social security reform in a darkened auditorium at the University of Massachusetts in Boston. After struggling in the murky interior light to make speakers at a podium flanked by illuminated charts somehow "sing" photographically, I was transfixed by these crisp shadows outside. The shape of the driveway, a cluster of cars, and the orderly row of trees seemed effusive in their visual abundance. Whitecaps scudding on Dorchester Bay spoke of the freshness of the moment, in contrast to the dismal projections of retirement benefits.

Zooming in and out, framing the scene vertically and horizontally, I wondered what I could do to give the scene extra zing and depth. Lining up a lamppost with the apex of the triangular shadow was what I decided upon, in hopes of creating a slight visual dissonance.