Corvallis, Ore. 3/25/05 - Army National Guard soldier Chris Kent shares a long-awaited embrace with his three-year-old daughter Sophia, who he affectionately calls his 'monkey." Kent and the rest of Bravo Company returned to Corvallis on Friday, March 25th after an 18-month deployment in Iraq. Photo by Justin Runquist
What makes a great photo? Sometimes it’s hard to define. You can make a list of the attributes of a successful photograph- moment, light, composition, color, impact, significance, style- but when it comes down to it, if an image makes you feel something then it’s done it’s job.
This week’s photo by Justin Runquist is fairly unsophisticated but it has a huge wonderful moment that elevates it above its problems. Justin did a good job of getting low and isolating the father and daughter against the gray sky of an Oregon spring and by placing the bare tree in the background Runquist further accentuated the backward body lean of the dad while providing a small bit of context to the where and when of this shot. I think though that I would have liked this to have been either shot a little looser, to provide a bit more information or a reinforcing secondary layer, or been composed in a way where the subjects weren’t smack dab in the middle of the frame. Despite those nit-pickings, I can’t deny the universality of this reunion photo and the warm feeling that it provides the viewer.
