Long painful wait at the Amtrak Station.

[AlanXpro]

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X-Pro1. XF 18-55mm ISO 800. f10. 55mm. 1/60

 

 

[citral]

Maybe the admins could make a sticky "Read me first" post about how people should first post in the right thread if it fits (like street photography open thread for this one, could be stickied as well so it's easy to find) ) and avoid starting a new subject every time they want to share a single image?

 

If it was a project or collection, why not, but a single picture is not worth a new thread really it just clutters the section IMHO.

[AlanXpro]

citral.

 

So sorry this upsets you. Street photography is not literally just on the street and I have been doing it for a very long time.

 

Does the thread run out at some time, don't believe so. One decent image does not clutter the section, 20 crappy images might.

 

So, instead of being negative about my post, maybe you could have made a comment about just the image, any comment will do. By the way, there are many single image Pulitzer price winners out there. Every image counts.

 

http://erickimphotography.com/blog/2013/08/07/what-is-street-photography-2/

 

The following is from the above link.

So once again– let’s not worry about definitions about what street photography is or isn’t. What is important that we are all drawn to photographing humanity and society around us– rather than just pretty sunsets and flowers.

We all have different reasons why we photograph– whether it be for historical, personal, or socio-economic reasons. Some of us want our photos to affect people on an emotional level and have others reconsider their lives, some of us shoot for ourselves for the challenge and to release stress from our everyday existence, and some of us want our photos to be a record of our society to show our future grandchildren.

So rather than arguing whether my photo is “street photography,” or whether your photo is “street photography”– let’s collaborate and not argue. Let’s aim to make beautiful art and document the human condition together.

[citral]

Oh, this doesn't upset me one bit. It was just a general reflexion and questionings I made at the wrong place, I plead guilty, sorry.

 

I think your photo belongs to the "street photography open thread" you have probably misread me? I said it is, street photography.

I don't know what to say about why you think I have a narrow definition for street photography either. For me, it is about documenting life. Even if everything looks absolutely boring and normal because it's just people walking in a street, it will be interesting in 40 years (look at pictures of the 70's it's really funny now how people were dressed, the haircuts, the colours of that era).

I personally like when the "document" has something special to it, composition, expression, absurd situations, irony or everything together but nonetheless I don't discard anything as being not worth looking at. (I find most of my pictures not worth publishing, that doesn't mean it was meaningless to take them, nor do I think people should do the same. Bandwidth is basically free, if people want to saturate their audience with more of the same it doesn't affect me).

Anyway, if you like an opinion on your picture, while I would not have done better, I think I would have thought afterwards that it has either too much, or not enough context.

I like odd numbers so here we have only a man and a bank, I would have preferred either the whole frame filled with the man only, or a third element, be it a thrashbin or a pigeon. Or from further away, the silhouette of the man with a bigger picture of the place. Anyway I don't think I would have done better on the moment as it's not yet automatic to compose for me, it's always when I review that I think gosh, why did I include this ugly car in the picture or what made me think a picture of 2 people discussing is interesting, 2 and 4 are boring I like 1,3 or 5.

Also I don't think 55mm is a good choice for this, I'd have used 23 or 35, and I might be mistaken but it looks cropped to me which looks further "zoomed in" and maybe almost too perfect on horizontal lines and the bottom left corner? Also it's kind of very tight in the top of the frame. This is a personal taste, no offense, and I might be wrong.

 

But if I'm right it would be a pretty good example of why I think zooms are not a good thing, because people tend to zoom in instead of moving towards the subject to get the picture, and as they never have enough reach anyway, it ends up cropped and feels "unnatural" (been there, done that, it always ended up with an "almost" picture for me, but never a "YES! YES!" picture)

 

I suppose you won't like my answer but since you asked ^^

[AlanXpro]

Thanks for your opinion, we can all do better after the fact. The reason why I cropped tight at the top is because I did not want anyone else in the image, I wanted it to just be a lonely injured person waiting in the Amtrak Station (it's not in a bank) and there was one other person seated over by the wall with her little head sticking up over the back of his seat in my image, it looked terrible and there was no other viable position to get the quick shot I wanted before he looked up.

 

I hope you don't judge and ponder all your own shots to ultimate perfection with this and that and what should have been, street photography is not a perfect form, it's full of imperfect shots and whatever floats the photographers boat. You may have dumped a lot of good shots by being so fussy. Street photography is all about getting the shot, one should be careful about not upsetting the public. Certainly cell phones have not helped street photographers many of the public are fed up with having them shoved in their faces everyday and I try to be as discreet as possible on very close encounters with a member of the public.

 

Bottom line, don't take ones self to seriously.

[citral]

You see this is kind of contradictory, because you say I'm way too much trying to reach for perfection, yet you have cropped a head out of the picture because it was too imperfect for you

 

I am not hard on myself for imperfect pictures at all, I'm hard on myself regarding editing because I have a pretty hard definition of what looks interresting to me and what does not. Yet I don't have the skills so far to achieve what I want, but I strongly believe that hard work (vs waiting for inspiration to suddenly strike) and knowing what I like and what I don't will eventually make it possible.

 

I would be interrested to see the original, uncropped picture and would probably like it more, with its imperfections

[AlanXpro]

A small head was the only thing I cropped out it spoilt the whole image. There was nobody or anything else in there to make the image more interesting. The subject is what's interesting and the empty bench beside him. Still not a perfect shot.

[CRAusmus]

I like the position of the man.  It makes me wonder what he is thinking.  Is he upset?  Where is he going?  Is he going home defeated? Is he leaving defeated in hopes of starting fresh somewhere new?  It's a lot of bags, is it everything he owns?  The processing pushes me towards this line of thought.  Great image.  This is one of the things I love about street photography.

 

The cropping at top bothered me at first as well, until I read your process for the crop.  I though for a second, could we not move to the right to hide the head behind the man, then his head below the back doesn't work.  Could we shoot low and try and hide the head?  But then how would that effect the feel of the image? I would have probably just cropped  that out too.

 

Street Photography is so hard for me because I would have analyzed this situation to death until the moment passed.  I really don't know how you guys do it.  You just see these moments unfurl in front of you, and you frame and shoot.  I truly respect your form of photography and I continue to try my hand at it, only to fail so far.  I will keep trying because I love the form so much.  Perhaps when I get my 35mm, it will open up a whole new perspective for me.

 

Keep up the good work..

[AlanXpro]

CRAusmus

 

Thank you for your kind remarks. I could not have explained it any better about what I was thinking right before I took the shot.

 

 

An opportunist.  This has to be is the mindset of a good street photographer.

[Robin]

Knowing how hard it is to do street photography I recon you did a good job, it has a story, and its interesting to look at, job done.

There is a growing custom to try and find fault rather than just enjoy what is shown, we all have different tastes and likes.