“The Right Time”
West end of Library Park in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin
May 10, 2024
I will make a public admission: This photograph bothers me.
I made the image on April 8, 2007, at the west end of Library Park in downtown Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, and the scene looks east. In one respect, my intent was to capture the skyline of the city by the bay (with apologies to San Francisco and the 1978 mega song “Lights” by Journey).
Of course, the trouble is Lake Geneva cannot claim much of a skyline, at least not from this angle. And, whichever perspective is attempted, it always will be dominated by the Geneva Towers building, as evident here.
The aspect of the photo that annoys me most is the darkness that prevails in the upper-right quarter. How I wish a full or even a partial moon had been rising that night to fill the void. If clouds hovered near the moon, that would have been divine!
In embracing contradiction, the photo has appeal due to the large negative space of the darkness, as it serves to draw that much more attention to the other parts of the photo. So, the tension I feel actually is good and makes the photo memorable.
As an aside, one way to kill a potentially interesting scene is to split it in even halves or quarters. I would say putting the horizon line in a photo at the halfway point is a cardinal sin. If, for example, that photo is a sunrise or sunset and the sun is in middle, a photographic god will let loose with a lightning bolt for another mortal sin. Mercy!
I can make peace with “The Right Time” due to the mirror-smooth water, the light on the tree, and curvature of the sidewalk. The white line on the left is also interesting, formed by vehicles passing on Main Street during my time exposure.
If you must know, I lifted the photo title from the name of the song “Night Time Is the Right Time.” The fabulous blues tune was written by Roosevelt Sykes and Jimmy Oden, and Sykes first performed it in 1937.
American musicians Nappy Brown, Ray Charles, Rufus and Carla, James Brown, and Aretha Franklin also recorded the song. All the versions are good, but I favor Creedence Clearwater Revival’s recording on the group’s 1969 album Green River.
What I do not favor, however, is “Night Time” being two words. That drives the copy editor in me bonkers, since I always use “nighttime.” That is what is in Webster’s New World College Dictionary, which is the official dictionary of The Associated Press Stylebook, the bible I have used in my journalistic profession ever since I absorbed the contents of the book as a journalism minor at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater in the 1970s.