Red Tears

I’ve always been drawn to the small, almost accidental pieces of abstraction that appear in everyday life. This photograph began as nothing more than a patch of painted wall, but the way the red pigment bled into the pale blue beneath was too evocative to ignore. The streaks felt like gravity-made brushstrokes, each drip tracing its own irregular path — a literal record of time and viscosity — and yet, when taken in as a whole, they resembled something far more visceral. Hence the title.

Compositionally, I chose a tight, horizontal crop to emphasise the division of the frame into two bold blocks of colour. The hard upper edge of the red area grounds the image, while the downward movement of the drips pulls the eye into the softer blue below. There’s a natural rhythm here — some drips are long and thin, others short and stubby — and that irregularity stops the image from becoming purely geometric.

Technically, the shot demanded careful handling of exposure and colour. Red is notoriously difficult to capture without clipping or oversaturating, particularly when shot in bright light. I worked to maintain texture in the painted surface, resisting the temptation to push the saturation too far in post. The contrast between the warm red and cool blue is naturally striking, but I wanted the tonal gradations and small imperfections in the paint to remain visible.

What I like most about this image is its ambiguity. It could be read as a minimalist study in colour and texture, or as something heavier — almost an unintentional commentary. In either case, it’s a reminder that sometimes the most arresting images aren’t staged at all; they’re waiting, quietly, for someone to notice them.