Riding the line

Fujifilm TX-1 / Super-EBC Fujinon 45/4 / Kodak Gold 400 / Epson V550 

This one's very simple.  A bicyclist is quite literally riding the line (well, visually; if you look closely I think they're an inch or a few to the left of it) between the bike lane and the general street.  As far as early shots with the Fujifilm TX-1 go, I think this one still acquits itself quite well; tricky format or no, there are many panoramic opportunities in a city.

I could look into the specifics, but this was probably taken within the first week or two of ownership-- on the fourth roll I put through the camera, from the looks of it.  As with the "Child & Guardian x 2", I was still digitizing images at this point with my V550, so there's a bit of fuzziness to be had here.

As far as how this image presents, I think it's pretty clear that the bicyclist is the first thing to jump out.  Viewers might initially lock onto the bright orange of the traffic barriers, but the foreground/background effect draws you pretty quickly back to the subject.  At that point, the striped concrete and painted dividing line serve to guide the eye along the direction of travel.

From there, the centered and very foreground painted bicycle attracts attention, after which I expect the viewer will keep sweeping the rest of the frame until reaching the (empty) end.  Only then would I expect someone to glance up over the green construction fence (which is nicely colored to offset the orange and white below it) and see the surrounding buildings.

Many compositions benefit from being "balanced" in terms of what I'd call visual "weight"; when you have such a clear directional element, however, I think this is a lot less necessary.  It makes sense that the bicyclist is not about to plow into a whole bunch of junk, so the clear roadway ahead fits our expectations.

Between the number of perfectly parallel lines in the bicyclist's direction of travel and the painted indicator, this photo still works for me; there's not a whole lot different that I would do even after nine years.

Well, maybe scan the negative a bit more precisely.