Thank you for explaining! There is actually an odd connection to The Third Policeman (which everyone should read), in that I cannot fathom where the room is that the lady is standing in. It seems to be hidden in the walls of the light well.
He’s just talking about the 'battle' between form and content — and in great photographs like this one, neither truly wins; they coexist. A photo that focuses only on form risks becoming 'cold geometry,' while one driven purely by content can still be powerful (like Diane Arbus’s crying baby) or risk with failure. But when form and content connect, the result can be exceptionally compelling like the photograph above.
On the contrary! Don't know how to explain it well, so again I resort to the words of my teacher about him
"Kertész offers us yet another lesson: that a great photograph does not have a subject — it is its own subject. And the further a photographer distances themselves from the surprise caused by real events, the more likely they are to create surprise through their photograph. Even further, this repetition has nothing to do with the typology so common in our times. The photographs of the square do not constitute related variations of a recognized subject. They are not offered for conceptual exploitation. Each one is a new attempt at something entirely fresh.
Once the sensitive viewer grasps this lesson, they can then comprehend the essence of this great photographer’s entire body of work. They realize that Kertész made real what we all dream of: to turn the whole world — consisting of squares and streets, snowy and sunny days, children, women, and men, plates, forks, pipes, eyeglasses, tulips, or chairs — into a photographed world, that is, an analytical world, and at the same time a world of our own, a synthetic one. Thus, transformation and revelation occur simultaneously.
Kertész managed to infuse his photographs — sometimes in one, sometimes in another, and sometimes simultaneously in the same image — with tenderness, playfulness, surrealistic approach, and daring composition. His photographs, regardless of their individual subjects, embody the adjective "Kerteszian": something that seems like a description but is also a suggestion; something recognized as real but at the same time feels as if it belongs to the realm of imagination; something perceived as natural, yet strikingly staged; a playful mind's creation born from simple observation."
Platon Rivellis - André Kertész: A Belated Confession
Can you explain in words that may be understandable for others what appeals you in particular in that image? Not saying it isn't nice, but for me, it doesn't really stand out in particular in his works, so I'm curious to see what's in it for you that makes it special. What I'm seeing is a central composition that strikes me as conservative and somewhat mundane. A technically good photograph of a well with a pleasing sky. From a viewpoint of composition or emotional charge, I'm not seeing much to relate to. If I'd come across this I'd say "yeah, that's OK" and then leaf through to the next page.
And I somehow know that photography is something that gives a lot of joy to you too
Actually I think you wrote about that image better than the author of that book.
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