Thanks for introducing me to John Free. It has been a long long time since I look a hard look at what I have been shooting and what I've been looking at. John Free has openen my mind to what I have been doing without really thinking. He has put into words the elements of images I've been working on. I now see what works and what doesn't in my photos. What is kept and what is cut out has always been a hard choice. I just took a look at images I've recently edited and now understand why it works, as it has a story to tell.

••quote•• He told me his grandfather is sufferg from dementia and has forgotten his entire past and does not recognize anyone in his entire family. Of course, I sympathised but thought to myself "now I have something to look forward to"! ••quote••

Not to discourage you....I do understand the point you have in your "SICK sense of humor", as you referred to it. However, be aware, there is no certainty that the things you desperately want to forget will also be purged from your memory if you should fall victim to the effects of alzheimers/dementia.

I have friends and have worked some around those who are afflicted with this.

One fellow in particular comes to mind when reading your comment. On some of his worst days, his troubles were so connected to the flooding of memories and disturbing things from the past that he was very combative, uncooperative and angry against the caregivers who were supposed to assist him, and he was bound and determined that they only meant to do him irreparable harm.
In a somewhat odd way, we found out that at those times he did not actually recognize me as an employee of that facility, but he thought I was a former co-worker of his from his working years 40 or so years ago who had come to visit him.
We found we could get him calmed down for a while if everyone else would just leave his room and let me put my work duties aside for a while, then just sit and visit with him playing along that I was a former co-worker and we could reminisce about the good old days on the job back then.
It varied from episode to episode how effective that calming would remain when it reached the point I really had to leave his room to return to my duties. Sometimes he remained pretty calm, happy I was a person from the past who had taken the time to make a trip to visit him.
Other times, he returned to his agitated anger when I had to excuse myself to leave his room, because he 'knew' then that I was 'just like them' and did not really mean him well, otherwise I would get him out of there instead of leaving him there 'with them'.

It can be very bitter/sweet sometimes being related to and/or working around those whose brain is suffering the ravages of aging, disease and horrible memories.

Best of wishes to you.

Thanks for introducing me to John Free. It has been a long long time since I look a hard look at what I have been shooting and what I've been looking at. John Free has openen my mind to what I have been doing without really thinking. He has put into words the elements of images I've been working on. I now see what works and what doesn't in my photos. What is kept and what is cut out has always been a hard choice. I just took a look at images I've recently edited and now understand why it works, as it has a story to tell.

Rongnongno
Regardless of all the rules of composition and framing you are looking for, the first requirement is to gain the attention of the observer. If they don't look at your image, nothing else matters. The strong central figure, aided by all the compositional elements does exactly that, gets you to look at the image. The image also tells a story or suggests one. What are those girls doing underneath, who is that woman sitting there, how are they all related. All these things go through the observers mind whether he thinks about them or not. I think it's a great image and obviously a lot of the viewers whose attention you got also got up on the wrong side of their beds.