A reworked photo from some years ago that I liked in part because of the first choice creating the composition: the drain.

After the photo began there it was the obvious choice to take further photos of the road and the street. This is what created the tumbling effect of the row of houses at top right. It would have been simple to rearrange it and have the houses vertical except this way it is a reminder that 'vertical' is a tradition. It isn't how we see things in all circumstances. Usually a photograph is specific to an object and therefore we don't have to tolerate the other things it changes. For instance, a photograph through a microscope. What if we continued that photo out of the plate and into the world? Specificity allows us to hide confusion.

So, for me the fun of this one is having the lowly drain as the main focus, and the surreal nature of drawn yellow lines on a road be an artificial boundary pressing out to include other things. The colours and contrasts were twiddled with to get that gritty dark and bright thing. It is also a story of materials. the single metal grate and a series of surfaces of brick and stone and tarmac.

Between the first version and this one the thing that has been changed is a filling in of blanks. The original had this daft shape around it so it wasn't a regular shape. Much as I respect the idea of bursting the rectangular bubble, it has too much artistic angst going against it. If it isn't a regular edged shape it brings in too many questions with it on a wall. That reminds me. I have a space under the stairs with a picture and it bothers me because it doesn't satisfy the shape of the space, the stairs above creating a 45 degree slant. I've thought of making a frame for a picture so that it has a 45 degree slant on the left top corner just to satisfy my irritation and find a suitable composition to put in it. But I suspect I would then be irritated by the non-regular shape of the frame. Might do it one day just to see.