I was in Paris last week. Part work, but mostly fun. Eating, drinking, being merry, and of course, snapping photos my iPhone–as I do everyday–with no end goal beyond staying creatively engaged.
I was just now kicking through photos from the trip and stumbled on a couple of snapshots I thought were interesting for various reasons. I’ve posted stuff like this before and was really excited by the resulting discussion, so I figured I’d throw it out there again… These are of course just snapshots, but even snapshots have merit. AND these photos are VERY different from one another…. So, simply put, I thought I’d ask for your thoughts, which is better, A or B? And why?
Vote in the comments. Also love to know ‘why’ if you care to explain. 500 px wide images after the jump…
[ASIDE, since Paris reminds me of good food… if you like chasejarvisLIVE, I’m bringing in 2 special guests TOMORROW (Wednesday) at 12 noon pacific/3:00 eastern time. The goal is to combine a few of my passions and share them with you: photography, food, the internet. As such, join me tomorrow to welcome….
Guest #1 Penny DeLosSantos: Food/Lifestyle/Travel and National Geographic photographer Penny DeLosSantos (@pennydelosantos). Well talk about photo, food, and travel…photographing in the world’s most suicide bombed markets in the middle east, travels to more than 40 countries, and the art of combining your passions into a career.
Guest #2 Barnaby Dorfman: Barnaby is a legendary tech guru turned entreprenuer who recently founded Foodista [@foodista] – the world’s leading online food encyclopedia/wiki and an overall amazing site. Combine food, tech, and storytelling and you get a thick slice of Barnaby. Hope to see you at http://www.chasejarvis.com/live tomorrow ….]
Now go vote on those photos below. Tell me what you think…
Here’s Photo A:
Here’s Photo B: 
Which is better and why?
I like photo A the most.
It’s because of the simplicity and yet the complexity of the photo. I’ll try to explain.
First of all I chose A from a ‘gutfeeling’. But when I looked closer I saw why I liked it better; it intrigues me. I can think of stories with it. I like the fact that nobody is paying attention to what might be a man in pain. The photo just points the finger at the problems in todays society.
Photo A is more interesting, not better. Photo A makes me think about what’s behind the photo, photo B just makes me realise the position that you are in when you took it.
The correct answer is “Ed Ruscha”
As a man who convulses (in a good way) over symmetry I am surprisingly going to have to go with A. It’s the subject matter that took the cake.
I would say that A is a better picture to me. Why not B? I didn’t choose B because there doesn’t seem to be much happening. Looks like a snapshot taken on Rue Saint-Roch facing Rue Rivoli that almost anyone standing on that street could do. It didn’t take a lot of effort to figure out where the picture was taken (thanks to Google maps) and what’s happening in the picture. Photo A makes the viewer think more. Where was it taken? Why is that person lying there? Why don’t people seem to care? You want to imagine the story that leads up top this image or what will happen next. I like the pattern in the stone with the diagonal lines crossing. I like the fact the the image is kind of monochromatic except for the red jacket.