Morning Smoke

PixelRabbit · Sep 27, 2013

I saw this fellow when we were sitting at a stoplight in a small town yesterday, I'm a little on the fence about it, I was trying to get a horizontal orientation on it to get the intersection in but cars were in the way starting with pieces of our own so portrait it was. I like the arrow pointing at him and the store name in the background and how they contribute.

Would love to hear your thoughts, thanks for taking a look!

KenC · Sep 27, 2013

Interesting. You seem to have captured something of the guy on the bench and I love the arrow pointing to the hand holding the cigarette. For me, this should be a horizontal shot. I don't know what was to the left, but it may have been more interesting than the windows and the other stuff above the storefronts. As it is, I would crop quite a bit off the top.

ronlane · Sep 27, 2013

Hey PR, moving into street photography too, huh? What lens were you using? For me I like it but I think you could have taken a few steps forward and filled the frame a little more with him, it wouldn't matter if the street light was in there or not. Understand?

tirediron · Sep 27, 2013

Nice! Might be worth hauling in Photoshop (if you have it) and trying some perspective correction just to get the verticals vertical (or buying that tilt/shift lens).

ronlane · Sep 27, 2013

tirediron said:
Nice! Might be worth hauling in Photoshop (if you have it) and trying some perspective correction just to get the verticals vertical (or buying that tilt/shift lens).

I came back in here to read your comment and before reading it, I then noticed that it could use straightening. Good catch John.

PixelRabbit · Sep 27, 2013

Great feedback guys, as I said I wish I could have gotten more left but I was already out the car window to avoid our own car being in the frame and there were two cars in front of us that were at a bad angle and just made a confusing blur

I shot this frame then as we moved up one car length he stood up and tossed his butt on the sidewalk, I got more camera left and caught the butt in the air but his body position is bad

booooo!
Ron, lol! Hence PixelRabbit hopping all over the place, little of this, little of that lol

I was using the 18-200.
Straightened and cropped, better? I think I'm finding it a little too "harsh" now and perhaps a different b&w conversion...

ronlane · Sep 27, 2013

PixelRabbit said:
Great feedback guys, as I said I wish I could have gotten more left but I was already out the car window to avoid our own car being in the frame and there were two cars in front of us that were at a bad angle and just made a confusing blur
I shot this frame then as we moved up one car length he stood up and tossed his butt on the sidewalk, I got more camera left and caught the butt in the air but his body position is bad booooo!
Ron, lol! Hence PixelRabbit hopping all over the place, little of this, little of that lol I was using the 18-200.
Straightened and cropped, better? I think I'm finding it a little too "harsh" now and perhaps a different b&w conversion...

too harsh? maybe so in this crop. After looking at them both, I am dead wrong, so takes John's advice and just straighten the original and totally ignore my bad advice.

PixelRabbit · Sep 27, 2013

Thanks Ron, I just can't make up my mind on this one lol Maybe it is destined to be an almost

ronlane · Sep 27, 2013

Honestly, it's a keeper. It may not be a portfolio shot but it is a solid photo.

PixelRabbit · Sep 28, 2013

Thanks Ron

Tinderbox (UK) · Sep 28, 2013

I like the crop better.

John.

sashbar · Sep 28, 2013

I feel that as a street shot it lacks some action around this guy. The subject is interesting, but, as already mentioned, there is a lot of space in the left/upper half that needs to be cropped. Cropping it the way you did in your 2nd version immediately springs to mind. But then it becomes too square and straightforward with very little information apart from the guy himself. It loses the balance completely. And it is not working as a street portrait either for obvious reasons. So it is a tough one. I think it is not a bad shot, but for this shot to be successful you need something or someone interesting in the left-upper part of the picture to balance this guy. A figure looking from the upper left window would be, of course, ideal. But, well we are not living in an ideal world

To salvage this shot to a degree you can do this (the guy becomes an "ANT" near Cobwebs - so you actually telling the viewer that a shop is like a spider's web waiting for an ant to spend its last dollar, and the ant is just contemplating, smoking his cigarette and thinking - shall I go there? - at least there is some meaning or an (invented) story):

Tinderbox (UK) · Sep 28, 2013

I wonder when her baby is due :mrgreen:

John.

PixelRabbit · Sep 29, 2013

sashbar said:
I feel that as a street shot it lacks some action around this guy. The subject is interesting, but, as already mentioned, there is a lot of space in the left/upper half that needs to be cropped. Cropping it the way you did in your 2nd version immediately springs to mind. But then it becomes too square and straightforward with very little information apart from the guy himself. It loses the balance completely. And it is not working as a street portrait either for obvious reasons. So it is a tough one. I think it is not a bad shot, but for this shot to be successful you need something or someone interesting in the left-upper part of the picture to balance this guy. A figure looking from the upper left window would be, of course, ideal. But, well we are not living in an ideal world

To salvage this shot to a degree you can do this (the guy becomes an "ANT" near Cobwebs - so you actually telling the viewer that a shop is like a spider's web waiting for an ant to spend its last dollar, and the ant is just contemplating, smoking his cigarette and thinking - shall I go there? - at least there is some meaning or an (invented) story):

<img src="http://www.thephotoforum.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=56614"/>

Thanks Tinder.

Sashbar, thanks for your thoughts, I can agree that while he was a great subject it needs a little something else, I did get a total of about 5 shots of him, in two there was extras, one a kid going past on a kick board and one of him standing and flicking the butt away but both shots his body/face were at bad angles, mostly looking away from me

. I will carry what I've learned forward for the next fellow I find