Thank you for the comments, Markus.
Yes, the baristo is about a foot shorter than I am. And, for this casual environmental portrait, I both had to shoot over the glass cage and wanted to include his surroundings ... Looking level or up at him would have been a very boring surrounding (the walls and a couple of pictures). Note that it was also taken with a 24mm lens ... a wide angle on the *ist DS ... the perspective and eyepoint were chosen quickly but deliberately.
The light was from directly overhead. Can't really change that without changing the casual environmental portrait into something completely different.
In my portraiture, not every picture needs to encapsulate the full static subject in a classic composition. I intend my photos to lead your mind out of the frame while allowing your eyes to rest within it. This compositional style may not be to your taste, that's perfectly all right with me, but the responses I've gotten from a lot of folks on this series are much more interesting than I was expecting.
I'm sorry if I haven't answered your prior query yet. If you want to ask me something specifically, it's best to send me an email rather than respond to the list ... the PDML generates several hundred emails a day ... I filter them into a subdirectory for reading when I have the time and I often simply don't have time to respond to as many of them as I'd like to. I do read every response and comment to the photos I post, and I archive all of them. I'll review what you last sent and work on a response.
best, Godfrey
On May 15, 2005, at 11:51 AM, Markus Maurer wrote:
Hi Godfrey
I enjoy it too when I meet another photo lover or even a Pentax user, thanks
fir the nice story.
On your photo, something with the light on the face irritates me: I see a
shadow just below the nose going over the mouth and
down to the neck which I do not like at all. I would like to see the hands
too. Are you bigger that this man, the shots
seems to be taken slightly from above?
And I have a general question Godfrey:
You never responded to my comments and other emails including some questions
so far, why?
I would like to learn from your answers and get a feedback on my comments
too. Otherwise it's just a one way street and quite boring for me.
greetings Markus
A nice story:
Went out for a walk in the beautiful, soft light of this overcast
Sunday morning, about 6:45am. It's a fifteen minute walk to the nearest
local Starbux coffee house. When I arrived at the coffee house and
placed my order, I casually snapped a picture or two of the baristo. He
looked up and asked about the camera ... turns out he has a Pentax ME
Super and a few lenses, was very excited to hear that a relatively
affordable DSLR body was available so he could use his favorite old
lenses with a digital camera. It was nice to run into someone casually
and find that they were both knowledgeable and interested.
I decided to work with two lenses ... fitted the A24/2.8 for the walk there, fitted the A50/1.4 for the walk back. Got a lot of good exposures to work with. This is the first I've rendered:
http://homepage.mac.com/ramarren/photo/PAW5/19.htm
Godfrey
