Sittin’ in the mornin’ sun
I’ll be sittin’ when the evenin’ comes
Watching the ships roll in
Then I watch ’em roll away again, yeah

Writer/s: Otis Redding, Steve Cropper
Publisher: Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC, Universal Music Publishing Group
Lyrics licensed and provided by LyricFind

We were on our way to dinner at a local restaurant and we passed this dock to enter the restaurant. I saw this couple, an older woman and adolescent child sitting there having a quiet conversation as the sun lit up the sky with some gorgeous pastel colors.

Otis Redding’s song (Sittin’ On) The Dock Of The Bay popped into my head. And the lyrics fit perfectly with the image — a couple spends a quiet moment enjoying the sunset and watching the water ebb and flow through the bay.

The planning

I have been a huge fan of Henri Cartier-Bresson’s street photography. While he carried a Leica film camera in the 1950s, 60s and 70s, my Fujifilm offers a similar form factor — wide-angled lens with a rangefinder format.

In his book The Mind’s Eye, Cartier-Bresson describes his approach to photography:

For me the camera is a sketch book, an instrument of intuition and spontaneity, the master of the instant which, in visual terms, questions and decides simultaneously. …to “give a meaning” to the world, one has to feel oneself involved in what one frames through the viewfinder.”1

Cartier-Bresson finishes that paragraph with, “One must always take photographs with the greatest respect for the subject and for oneself.“2 [Emphasis added by author]

The gear

I had my trusty Fujifilm X100T with me. I love carrying that camera when I have a chance to do some street photography. It’s small. It’s quiet. And it takes amazing images.

What went wrong

Absolutely nothing.

The shot that came out

When I travel with my Fujifilm camera, I think about Cartier-Bresson’s sketchbook — studying the light, the shapes, the moment, the emotion.

I find that silhouettes can produce very powerful images. It’s the negative space — the role of the subject is reversed. When we take a normal photograph, we want to light the subject, make the light flattering and falling in ways that highlight facial features. The background is just that — background. We often take advantage of a shallow depth of field to blur out the background.

With silhouettes, everything is reversed: the subject is dark, often deep black (Zone II or III) with just a hint of detail. The background is bright, illuminating the scene but not overpowering it.

The dark sides of the image flow toward the horizon and vanishing point, drawing the eye into the central negative space.

Cartier-Bresson’s emphasized last line ran through my head as I composed the image. They were very focused on their conversation and didn’t see me stop to make the image — and it was just a single frame. I didn’t want to break that concentration and derail their conversation. The image was about respecting the stillness of the moment, shared between two people at the quiet end of a day.

The muted pastels on the water almost look like it could be a painting instead of a photograph, with the reflections of the pilings distorted by the small waves.

You don’t need to have any sound to know that it is quiet — just the lapping of the water and a quiet conversation between two people.

Now I’m just gon’ sit, at the dock of the bay
Watchin’ the tide roll away, ooh yeah
Sittin’ on the dock of the bay
Wastin’ time

What I learned

The photographer is as much a part of the image as the subject being photographed. Be willing to experiment and use the environment to tell your story.

1. Keep your eyes open to the moment.
2. Use your camera like a sketchbook — experimenting with the variables to bring out an image that speaks to you.

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Camera: Fujifilm X100T
Lens: 23mm fixed lens
Exposure: 1/160 at f/2.2, ISO 3200
Location: Madeira Beach, FL
Captured: 2021-03-06

Prints: If this image speaks to you, it’s available as a fine-art print on my SmugMug site: LINK

Footnotes

1. Cartier-Bresson, Henri. 1999. The Mind’s Eye: Writings on Photography and Photographers. Aperture Foundation.
2. IBID