Thanks for all your comments as usual. You would see this picture in a rather different light if you were a member of its intended audience, the steam railway "anoraks" we call them over here in the UK. For them, the large number on the cabside will have an almost mystical significance, so that's why it gets prime billing in the frame.
Not that I'm expecting you all to care less about that, and quite rightly. The thing which surprised me was that nobody took me to task for one obvious transgression - the driver looking out of the frame right at the edge of the picture, which I was always taught was a cardinal sin.John
No, John, just more nonsense from the photo intelligencia. If you look at the 1970 Pirelli, you'll find that Francis Giacobetti has put Alexandra Bastedo right on the extreme left of the horizontal 135 frame, sitting down, sideways to camera and facing out of the frame, filling the height, holding her knees, the shot cropped close up to the body so as to lose both the knees and much of the arms; she's also looking downwards and the top of her head's been chopped, too. Two-thirds of the frame, the area to her right, is empty beach and ocean. The shot is stunning, which is why I remembered it at once on reading your post.
I used to do a lot of fashion photography for a large store in Glasgow. One day, I was delivering prints to the art department when one of the directors happened to be in the room. He looked at one of the shots and told me: 'that's not a good fashion picture - the model isn't looking at the camera'. The head of the department looked at me, almost pleading with his eyes that I say nothing... I said nothing. Not much later, the business died. Stamper may know them - they were based in Candleriggs...
Rob C
