Homelessness in B&W. I am just getting into photography, tell me what you think.

[unpopular]

Aaron - it's the generic for depakote. You should inquire about it, it's very effective for a lot of people - i'm kind of surprised that he didn't since you don't have insurance. PM me if you want to talk droogz.

 

[unpopular]

Are you seriously comparing dysthymia with schizophrenia and schizoaffective?

If you are schizo to a point you are not a productive member of society, you need to go to state awarded treatment.

In my case, that's completely untrue and shows a total lack of understanding about the condition and a very limited idea of what a "productive member of society" entails. However, I'm not about to justify my life to you.

--

As for the homeless, that's not how it works at all. Trust me. It just isn't. In an ideal society, that is what we'd be doing. Unfortunately, that just isn't the case at all. Even state facilities are intended to stabilize and release, sometimes into group homes, sometimes just back onto the streets. Even in supportive living, people get disoriented and just wander off.

 

[AaronLLockhart]

Pm sent, now back to the original photo... After telling you all my life story lol

Sent from my iPhone 4S

 

[unpopular]

anyway, yes. the image. it seems flat, especially in the coat area. The content and composition doesn't bother me, though I am not a fan of the black death hole on the left side, but, at the same time I don't like areas without any detail. As I am sure it has been mentioned, the focus is missed, drawing the eye to the coat.

I do not think that this image is unethical, nor would I even if it were a true candid. Taking candid photos of homeless people is OK, provided that the image is not being used in an exploitive way.

 

[503Amateur]

Haha, well I have just been reminded about how many opinions there are on internet forums, and how eager people are to share. And if I exploited Ray by taking a few pictures after talking with the guy for a long time about his life and mine then I guess I'm going straight to hell, because I would do it again without a thought. I have had plenty of embedded photographers follow me around in Afghanistan waiting for me to get shot at, so they could get a good "action shot", but we all see these in Time and call them good photojournalism, and no one complains of exploitation there when the dude is pulling in serious money from the images he gets.(I was taking this for a project for community college class, no money to be made here, and I paid the guy for helping me out) Ray was more than willing to help me out with this project, so much so that it was nearly impossible to get him to stop posing and get back to what he was doing. So, I don't really care about if people think this image is ethical, because I know the entire story behind it, and other people are just wasting their breath/keystrokes in typical internet forum fashion-without knowing what they are talking about.

Back to the picture, thank you to those who have given your thoughts. Under this bridge was a really hard place to not get some random awkward thing in the background protruding into the picture. In addition to that I was right up against the curb with traffic at my back for most of the time, so I had a little box to work in. I don't have a single verticle shot from this position, so I don't think that I could get him all of the way into the frame with what I was working with.
So, composition seems to be the main complaint in this picture. Would cropping it down to just a headshot of him work better, since I did not get this in a vertical frame? I have seen a lot of people say that the picture looks flat. What would help that?(keewp in mind, I've only been going at the whole photography thing for a little over two months, so I'm a noob in every sense of the word.

I know this image wouldn't have conveyed the story in this one picture, but if it was a part of a longer set, what would be your criticisms about the photo if it were cropped down to this?

 

[JAC526]

I don't understand how ethics has any involvement with this photograph in the first place. Photographing him is no different than photographing a complete stranger. You all say ethics comes into it if he is taking the image to be artsy, on the grounds that the man is homeless. That's hogwash. Photographers take photographs of people all of the time because they are beautiful, yet I don't see anyone calling that exploitation.

The man is homeless. It's not a disease, and it's not a sickness. He's homeless because of a decision that was made somewhere along in his life. In fact, that same decision may be what's causing him to remain homeless. We are in America, not Africa. Being homeless here isn't a misfortune, it's a choice.

Sent from my iPhone 4S

Wow. Not really sure how to reply to that one. Kind of like Republicans wondering why the people of New Orleans didn't just "pack up their Land Rovers and move on" when Katrina hit.

So ignorant.

 

[Alex_B]

If you want to transmit a message connecte with this person being homeless, there should be some indication he acutally is. But in the image he seems taken out of context. Also the perspective composition appears a bit awkward, not giving any tension (you caught him looking straight into your camera, almost looking like a police image of a person just arrested ).

BTW, my avatar images shows a homeless person. Treat them as humans and talk to them normally, and they might be interested in what you do, and even be proud that you want to take an image of them.

 

[SCraig]

Back to the picture, thank you to those who have given your thoughts. Under this bridge was a really hard place to not get some random awkward thing in the background protruding into the picture. In addition to that I was right up against the curb with traffic at my back for most of the time, so I had a little box to work in. I don't have a single verticle shot from this position, so I don't think that I could get him all of the way into the frame with what I was working with.
So, composition seems to be the main complaint in this picture. Would cropping it down to just a headshot of him work better, since I did not get this in a vertical frame? I have seen a lot of people say that the picture looks flat. What would help that?(keewp in mind, I've only been going at the whole photography thing for a little over two months, so I'm a noob in every sense of the word.

Look at the photograph you posted above. Specifically his hair in the upper left corner. There is no separation between his hair and the background. Same with his right eye. The pupil of his eye and the white part of his eye on the right completely disappear into his eyebrows. It is a very high contrast image with no white anywhere in it (look at the histogram). The eyes are very important in a photograph but his are barely visible because of the deep shadows and high contrast. You have the makings of a good photograph here but it needs some work.

 

[503Amateur]

SCraig- On my monitor(a laptop) I can see the contrast in the hair and eyes just fine, but I got the same issue that you are talking about when I viewed the image on the Macs at school, and it was even worse on a projector. Is there any way to ensure that the picture looks relatively similar over multiple displays, or should I just ease up on the blacks in general?

 

[Ysarex]

http://www.xrite.com/product_overview.aspx?ID=1454

 

[SCraig]

SCraig- On my monitor(a laptop) I can see the contrast in the hair and eyes just fine, but I got the same issue that you are talking about when I viewed the image on the Macs at school, and it was even worse on a projector. Is there any way to ensure that the picture looks relatively similar over multiple displays, or should I just ease up on the blacks in general?

On my monitor (calibrated) I can barely see some difference right on top of his head but the area above his right ear is nothing but solid black.

As Ysarex indicated you can use a colorimeter to calibrate your monitor however laptops are notoriously difficult to calibrate. Calibration assumes that the light falling on the screen will remain consistent and that cannot be assumed with a laptop. Where it is placed, the angle of the screen, the angle of the laptop in relation to the lamps, all affect the ambient light falling on the screen. Your best bet is to do one of two things, both of which require a colorimeter: Either outline a spot on your desk with tape to insure that the laptop stays in the exact same place, and come up with some method to insure that the screen is always angled the same way, or get an external monitor for your laptop. Once that is done calibrate it and you should have relatively consistent colors. Again, though, laptop screens are still notoriously difficult to calibrate.

Also, when you save your image insure that the color space is embedded within the image. Most web images use the standard sRGB color space but there are others. This assumes that your web browser and operating system are "Color Managed" so that they display colors properly.

 

[PinkDoor]

I love the photo - really, I think it tells a story, its raw, and I love it!

 

[unpopular]

We have a rather large homeless population here, and some of them truly are by choice. One local television news crew interviewed a number of them several years back. I remember it because one of the people they interviewed had a masters degree in something. He just decided he was tired of working, didn't want to do it anymore, and would rather live under a bridge.

I swear, you "homefull" people will believe anything a homeless guy says. Let me guess, he was also making $200/day spangeing outside wal-mart? Did it occur to you or the reporter that maybe this guy was full of it? If you've spent any time with the homeless, you'll hear all sorts of tall tales.

One guy I knew studied magic with Harry Houdini.