Another Man off the Street

[Glycerol Sound]

I found this guy behind a fancy thai restaurant in Dayton, Ohio's Oregon District (basically our bar, food and art gallery neighborhood), taking a break, having a smoke. He seemed pretty pleased to have his picture taken, and I'm pretty pleased with the result:


Smoking Chef by Dan White Photo, on Flickr

It was originally in black & white, but I felt that the blue green tint really brought out the texture in his skin and the overall character in his face. Hope you enjoy it and I'd love some critical feedback too! Thanks!

 

[UnderThePink]

Love it! I love this kind of photography. Candid, and just capturing random people at random moments. I think it's great....my only thing is that the cropping feels a little too tight. Maybe leave a little more of the arm on the right side (if you cropped it out). If that's how it is, then maybe next time try to get more of the arm in. I'm still a newbie so I'm no expert....but just my opinion. Great photo though! =D

 

[Compaq]

Ahh, how I envy those who do street photography of random grey people with cigarettes and smoke and wrinkles in their face with awesome expressions! I can almost smell his nicotine filled cigarette!

I like it. I imagine it must be hard to compose properly these shots as the moment doesn't last very long. The arms doesn't really bother me, I'm just drawn to his nose, actually. Then his eyes followed by his cigarette. I say well done.

 

[GreatPhotoRace]

Reminds me of something Steve McCurry would shoot. (Huge compliment)

-GPR

P.S. Afghan Girl on Cover of Magazine, Photos, Wallpapers - National Geographic

 

[iPhoto17]

very nice

 

[Glycerol Sound]

As much as I love hearing compliments like these (thank you so much guys!), I should add that it wasn't entirely candid. I did ask him for the shot, and took 3 or 4 till I got one I liked. Hence the clean cropping and "perfect moment" shot. I prefer to shoot like that over true candids because it allows you to get up close and talk to and know the person, to peer into their eyes, all that deep bs. But thanks a lot everyone

 

[v1c70r]

I like your thoughts on approaching/talking to subjects. Plus, I love the photo. Very well done!

 

[Glycerol Sound]

I'm glad you like my technique, v1c70r. I found that if you just ask someone for their picture, often times they free up or get uncomfortable, so I took something I learned from my grandfather, who did a lot of portraits of ordinary people in his studio, all of which seemed to come out looking very natural, as opposed to posed and/or fake, and I just took it and applied it to my street photography. I also often carry a pack of cigarettes with me and if someone seems like they'll be there for a while, I offer a cigarette and sit and talk with them while I shoot. Not that I would encourage smoking at all, but it seems to be a common activity with the types of people I shoot.

Love it! I love this kind of photography. Candid, and just capturing random people at random moments. I think it's great....my only thing is that the cropping feels a little too tight. Maybe leave a little more of the arm on the right side (if you cropped it out). If that's how it is, then maybe next time try to get more of the arm in. I'm still a newbie so I'm no expert....but just my opinion. Great photo though! =D

I like what you're saying here, and I did have some shots of him with more arm, the problem with photos like that is that they leave a lot of what I like to call (and maybe other people call it this too) 'dead space'. I almost always shoot these with a fairly shallow DOF (f/4.8 here, and pretty close, to boot), and this was against a fairly plain wall (it looks flat and white here due to how I exposed it, but it was actually a cream stucco), so the dead space would have been even more 'dead'. I hope that all made sense.

And there's nothing wrong with criticizing as a newbie, I'm still a newbie (only 1 year in) and I love critiquing hahah Thank you again.