#s4e17

On second thought, I really like the way the people are arranged in this scene initially when the girls are present. Some background: in this episode, the rancher, Vance Caldwell, has returned to his ranch after years away after the death of his wife and daughter. He encounters Favor's daughters, Gillian and Maggie, who are traveling with their aunt Eleanor to meet Favor on the trail. Eleanor and Caldwell sort of fall in love, and he wants to marry her, but she doesn't want to give up the girls, so he proposes to adopt them, reasoning that it would give them a stable family life while Favor could see them just as much as he usually does... once in a long while between drives.

In the top left cap in the set above, the girls are working with old yarn that belonged to Caldwell's late wife or daughter, but's it's moth-eaten, and I think Caldwell wants to buy them new yarn or something. He's already given them two horses before this.

Anyway, in this scene, Maggie and Gillian are in the center of the composition, and Eleanor's seated to the side, with Caldwell near her, crouching to speak to the girls. The girls are turned toward Eleanor and Caldwell, and they're illumined in a self-contained circle like a family.

Favor, on the other hand, is not just standing to the side and watching his daughters having a nice day visiting this rancher (who is about to tell Favor that he wants to adopt Favor's daughters). His posture's not cohesive with the group - he's turned away and in shadow. Thinking more about it now, I can't help but see it as an intentional choice in positioning Fleming - he could be leaning against the wall or seated while watching the girls, but the natural way to do that would be with his body facing the girls, making him part of this "family circle." I think someone made a choice - maybe Fleming, maybe someone else - to have Favor face his body away like this to detach him from the "family."