Embroidered Collage

One of the pre-birthday party events was a trolley ride through historic Edenton, where my grandmother has lived for the last couple decades.  I must admit I chuckled a bit at the very idea, but it turned out to be quite interesting.  I'd never known that this little town on the coast of North Carolina had been an important colonial port, home of a signer of the Declaration of Independence, and remained active until the canal bypassed it in the 1800s.  My husband, mother, and I went back to the waterfront area to take a few more pictures before we headed back to the hotel to change for the party.  The image above is my absolute favorite.

It was interesting to go through the resulting images after I returned home and look at them as sketches and not as photographs.  On their own the left-hand photograph is rather boring and the light on the right-hand photograph is oddly distracting.  For example, if I created an artwork to take advantage of the repetition of the poles, then I would base the overall composition on the left-hand photo, but include the bird on the right.  I might also shift the relationship of the pier to the pole line, separating them further into completely different elements. 

My husband spent his time focusing on the birds and captured a few really nice ones.  I squared off my two favorites to make it easier to think about them as structures for Footsteps.  The colors of the ducks overlaid on the three background textures intrigue me.  I might shift the lower duck/green spot over to the right a bit though, so there's less of a straight line.  I like the out of focus background compared to the sharply in focus and detailed bird in the foreground.  There's also the subject matter echo of the background bird to the foreground bird.  I probably wouldn't interpret this one as anything resembling a bird, but instead use the abstract principles underlying it.