The shot is okay. Composition is excellent. But
the more I look at it the more annoyed I become. I
am obsessed with detail and I like to see
everything there is in a picture like this: read
road signs, see the spokes of bicycle wheels, read
car number plates and so on. For this kind of
picture I would either have used a very small stop
to gather as much as possible or opened up wide to
try losing everything in the background altogether.
By the way I think this old guy might be the owner
of the remnants shop which is narrower than two
bicycles. Very small frontage -- this has to be a
very large city for such little places to be
viable. New York? The book is one of many that
have been lying around the shop for years.
I think this is the first picture I have commented
upon and I hope you take it the right way.
Don
keith_w wrote:
Shel Belinkoff wrote:
Hi Frank ...
I like this shot because it's very real - a nice snap of a street scene
with everyone going about their business. It's not a great photo in the
sense of being well structured or composed, or one that carries great
depth
or meaning, but it captures a bit of everyday reality. It's balanced -
cropping it (especially like Igor's crops) totally destroys the photo and
creates something other. Cropping should, IMO, enhance a photo, make it
stronger, not butcher it and change it completely. The perspective
and the
depth work well to provide the viewer with a sense of being there,
being a
part of the scene.
This would be great as a part of a series - a group of street scenes
taken
on the same street at different times, say within the span of a few
blocks
or so (or something similar). As I write this I'm reminded of Auggie
Wren's photos, taken of the same Brooklyn street corner at the same time
every morning. It took the viewer some time to get it.
Pics like this actually have the effect of slowing us down, as if we, the
viewers, were walking along that street, on our busy way to or from
somewhere important. How often have we walked down a street and not
really
seen the scene and the life around us? Pics like these stop time for a
moment, and let us see our neighbors and the neighborhood a little
better.
[...]
Shel
Thank you for that, Shel.
I rather expected all the other comments on the technical aspects of the
scene Frank has captured, but they all miss the salient point of street
photography. In my humble estimation...
A good street photo should be a little slice of life on the street,
which this certainly is!
It doen't have to be a significant and serious statement about the human
condition, but all shots like this have such content, if you look long
enough.
Not glance at but really look!
Check out the book the bearded gent is reading.
Now, either he's a slow reader (look how battered that book is!) or it's
a book he has read again and again, for whatever reason.
What could that be? In a paperback?
Might be a bible or some other book people frequently refer to. Like
dictionarys and thesauruses, if used often enough they end up looking
pretty ratty, just like the book he's reading. Anyhow, that book has
been around for some time!
Why is he there? Waiting for a friend or relative - or his wife - to
finish shopping in the pants store? Maybe that's his "waiting book."
Maybe he slides it in his hip pocket when he is asked to accompany his
shopping partner, knowing he's in for a wait somewhere along the line.
How many of us have done that before.
It's a familiar pose, isn't it...
On the other hand, how about this ~ maybe it's not his book after all!
He was merely strolling down the street, not due anywhere, for any
purpose, and he spies this beat up old paperback on the window sill.
Curiosity gets the better of him, and he picks it up to thumb thru it.
He sees an interesting paragraph and leans back to read it.
Could happen. You might not do that, but for some reason he did. And now
he's engrossed.
Interesting.
One can go thru a scene like this, if they're so inclined, and somehow
*forget* about the technical aspects of it! Who cares? See it for what
is really is ~ an instant in the life that passes in front of that pants
store on a Saturday morning.
Something to look at and think about. To observe... ;-)
keith whaley
[Original Message]
From: frank theriault
Nothing Big or Important, just a slice of street life, I guess. I'm
not sure how I feel about this one. Sometimes I like it, others I
don't, so your comments will be especially useful to me.
http://www.photo.net/photodb/photo?photo_id=4048050&size=lg
--
Dr E D F Williams
_______________________________
http://personal.inet.fi/cool/don.williams
http://www.kolumbus.fi/mimosa/index.htm
See feature: The Cement Company from Hell
Updated: Print Gallery -- 16 11 2005
