The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly: How Spaghetti Westerns Inspired My Photography

Rama1337

The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly: How Spaghetti Westerns Inspired My Photography

Photography is about telling stories through images, much like how films do through moving pictures. For me, one of the most powerful cinematic influences on my work has been Sergio Leone’s iconic film The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly. This classic Spaghetti Western, with its intense drama, wide-open landscapes, and gritty close-ups, made me fall in love with movies and changed my photography forever. 

Leone's compositions were revolutionary for their time. I loved the way he often used just three people in the frame throughout the films. He broke the rules of conventional framing, positioning characters off-center and using foreground and background elements to create layered compositions. The tension between the elements in the frame—whether it was a character dwarfed by an expansive sky or standing at the edge of the shot helped create a visual narrative that deepened the drama.

One of the most iconic is the use of concentric circles in The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly which occurs during the final Mexican standoff between Blondie (The Good), Angel Eyes (The Bad), and Tuco (The Ugly) in the vast circular graveyard. Leone's framing intensifies the drama, drawing the viewer into a vortex of tension with every shot. The circular layout of the cemetery and the characters’ positions within it symbolize a ring of fate and death.

In my photography, I often experiment with rule-breaking composition, placing subjects at unexpected points in the frame. This creates imbalance or tension, drawing the viewer’s eye across the image. The rule of thirds may be a guideline, but bending or breaking it can add layers of intrigue to a shot, much like Leone’s dynamic visual style.

But it’s those concentric circles in the final scenes that my eye or my brain has clung onto all these years. 

It was my first thought when I saw the circle on the beach in my "Lifeguard" photograph. I thought of Tuco, Blondie and Angel Eyes’s standing in the circle. The image is also a good example of how circles can be used effectively in photography. The circle draws focus, creates balance, and evokes emotion. It brings your attention towards the lifeguards and their role in safeguarding life.

My award winning photograph of Cheddar Gorge was also inspired by the wide-angle shots from Sergio Leone’s masterpiece. Cheddar Gorge is one of England's most iconic natural landmarks, offering breathtaking views of limestone cliffs, caves, and a rich geological history. The movie helped me envisage the wide angles to capture grand, expansive environments and convey the vastness of the setting and the isolation of the climbers. Using the cars for those concentric circles again creates a sense of depth and perspective and opens up a raft of symbolic interpretations.

We are always influenced by the books we read or the art we see, but it’s The Good, The Bad and The Ugly which I think has influenced me the most…which is a good job as without the movies influence I might have never taken these images or won those awards. If that wasn’t enough inspiration from Sergio Leone, I went and called my British bulldog Tuco after one of the best characters created in any movie, brought to life by the wonderful Eli Wallach.

This probably wasn’t a wise move, as she’s a little naughty - like her namesake.

The Final scene - The Good The Bad The Ugly (Sergio Leone) 1966.