Continuing with this Same Place — Different View series from Belize, at one of our lunch stops, several of our group went inside to chat with our hostess who was making corn tortillas for our lunch. No, different lady from our tortilla-instruction hostess, but the process was the same. Pat the tortillas into thin, round disks on something akin to wax paper. Flip the paper over so the uncooked tortillas drop neatly onto the comal to cook. Handle quickly and carefully to avoid burning fingers as the tortillas are turned.
Arnie and I took our turn, Arnie chose to photograph down on our hostess and the tortillas, showing one of her sons in the background. Sure enough, wider view! I got down quite low and shot across the cooking tortillas as a lead-in element. And yes, I purposely put them out of focus so your eye wouldn’t rest there but continue on to my real subject.
One day, we headed to the village of our wonderful guide, Antonio. Before we walked into the main village, Antonio set out a picnic down by the river. We walked down the steps you see in Arnie’s photograph. We were both taken by the cayuk tied up to the small dock at the bottom of the steps. Arnie used the steps as his lead-in with the boat far below. I love boats, particularly classic wooden ones, so I concentrated more on the dugout canoe, using a corner of the dock as the anchor as I also pointed my lens down.
An iron bridge spanned the river high enough so that rainy-season floods would not cut the villagers off from their homes our outside world. Most of us went up there to see the view, and as often happens, Arni and I came up with essentially the same photograph, but with totally different accents. We both featured the fallen tree, but for Arnie, it was the main subject, nestled in the river and surrounded by thick vegetation. On the other hand, I used the tree as an element to lead your eye down the river. You can see from the snaggle of branches beyond the tree just how close our vantage points were — no more than a couple of feet, but what a difference it made in the end result!
Another day, we went down to the Gulf of Honduras to a Garifuna village. As we were walking around with our host, Alvin, we walked by a church with wonderful, muted colors. Arnie did a shot to show our group how one could make an elegantly simple photograph. A less-is-more lesson. From the time I was eight and started photographing. I’ve always been attracted to doors and windows and loved The Green Door when it came out a few years later. True to form, I walked right up and did a detail of the wonderful textures. Same Place, different view again.
Keeping in mind the Same Place — Different View parameters, do your own. Different vantage point? Different lens or focal length? Different angle? You name it, but come up with two different views of the same scene.
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