I chose this photograph as a competition entry because I liked the composition and the colours. I saw how the crosswalk and the direction of the light source both draw your eye to the crosswalk signal, and how the green man stands out from the monochrome yellow of the photo.

After entering the photo, I was reading “Vivian Maier: The Color Work” and came across this passage:

“This view of a grand white house with its roof and front yard covered in snow has what the late critic and philosopher Roland Barthes called a punctum: the single errant detail in certain photographs that gives them their power. In this case, the punctum is the one spot of warm, yellow lamplight seen beneath the overhang of the front porch in an otherwise blue, cheerless scene.”

When I read this I recognized that it applied to my photograph, with the green man acting as the punctum.

The photograph by Vivian Maier described in the passage is below.