A Red Floating Crate

This was one of those photographs that almost didn’t happen. I walked past the red pot twice before realising what caught my eye wasn’t just its colour, but its suspension—hanging alone against a heavy, over-textured wall, oddly weightless. It looked like it shouldn’t be there. It looked like it shouldn’t stay.

The light was low and indirect, which helped. A stronger contrast would’ve killed the subtlety of the textures. Instead, the stone’s relief held together—old, porous, grimy—but still distinct. The soft light allowed the red to vibrate just enough to isolate it from the grey-brown backdrop without turning it into a gimmick.

Framing was tight. I didn’t want to include more context than necessary. The arch in the background forms a soft curve that mirrors the pot’s round shape—visually sympathetic, even if historically unrelated. And the rusted metal rod suspending it provided the only linear tension needed. I left the negative space dark, not to dramatise, but to let the object exist as if in its own plane.

Technically, the challenge here was metering. I exposed for the red—knowing it would hold saturation—while making sure the shadows behind the arch didn’t collapse into featureless black. There’s detail there, but you have to sit with it. The depth of field is shallow, and intentionally so. Focus is centred at the midpoint of the pot, not on the wall or the background textures.

This isn’t a symbolic photo. It’s not an allegory. It’s just an encounter—between colour and surface, between a leftover object and a space that seems to reject it. But sometimes photography is about noticing those small contradictions: a pot made to rest on something, now left to float.