Hi Paul, I've looked at this shot several times, and, on the whole, I don't think it really works. Paul's eyes are lost. Eyes would make the shot come alive here, but being half closed and not looking specifically at you or at the passers by, or completely closed as if he were "lost" in the music while the world around him goes on about its way, diminishes what could have been a better shot. Likewise the passers-by. They're not looking at Paul, which is OK in and of itself - there's no need for them to be looking at him, and one can (as I may have above) make the point that they are in their own separate world. But with them AND Paul not connecting to any one or any thing, you've got a ho-hum photo here that, IMO, misses the mark. It certainly could have been more.
A few years ago I took a weekend seminar with Baron Wolman who, in the late sixties and early seventies photographed a lot of musicians for Rolling Stone magazine. He told the class something that really stuck with me - shoot for the peak of action. There is no peak of action in this shot, and if you want to expand his comments to include an emotional peak, well, that's missing here as well. For me, there's not much retro look with flash and digital. Maybe it's the new flash units that are used today, but whatever it is, that "Weegee look" is certainly not there - certainly not in this pic. Maybe it's the format of the camera v the format of larger negs and the way film reacts differently to light. Maybe it's the greater DOF, or perhaps the idea that we can "save" a lot of shadow detail. Whatever it is, the retro look eludes me in this shot. Anyway, that's my two cents, FWIW. Shel PS: What's the worlds shortest sentence? ... I am. What's the worlds longest sentence? ... I do. > > I wasn't going to post this until next week since I already posted two > > shots this weekend. But I see there's a shortage of conversation here > > anyway (longest sentence? :-), so I figured what the hay. Anyway, the > > guy in the pic is named Paul Miles. He's a Michigan Blues singer who > > works the Birmingham streets on busy days. He's also recorded a couple > > of CDs (my pic on the cover of one). He's appeared in a number of blues > > festivals and various other venues around the country. He's quite good > > and a very nice guy. I shot this with the FA 35/2, converted to BW in > > PS using the channel mixer. It was quite dark when I shot it, so I > > tried the on-camera flash at ISO 800. I have some other pics from > > slightly earlier without the flash, but I sometimes like the retro look > > of BW flash pics. I tried several different crops and settled on > > retaining the cut-off figure on the right. I think it helps the idea of > > a passing crowd. I wonder how others feel about this partial body. By > > the way, this prints rather nicely on the Epson 2200 with the standard > > ink set. I'm printing more BW inkjet these days and liking the results. > > http://www.photo.net/photodb/photo?photo_id=3410319&size=md > > Paul > > > > > >
