The Postcard
Postcards over the past twenty years have gone from images that looked like proletarian snapshots to sophisticated photographs. When we see a really old postcard, from the early 20th century, there is a feeling of a simpler time when perfection was not the normal expectation. These old images from around the world would tell the recreant that this post was from an exotic place unimaginable to the flocks back home.
The image here works on this nostalgic level not because it is technically good but because it breaks the normal graphic conventions. It has the look of an image that may have been taken a hundred years ago for popular consumption, a time when any photograph of an out of the ordinary local would do for a postcard.
Some of the rules that were broken that give this image its charm are; too much empty sky in relation to the rest of the scene, the buildings in the foreground with extreme tilt to the right, the boat in the foreground to close to the edge of the frame. But these flaws are what make this image interesting and nostalgic. When you break the rules sometimes it works.
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