Portland

[SamSpade1941]

I was in downtown Portland the other day and shot these images that I thought were interesting.





A homeless man panhandling for money in front of Powells City of Books.

A mother and her child leaving the infamous Voodoo Donuts with a box of the prized pastries after an hours long wait to purchase. When I saw this scene I was shocked at the length of the line and the amount of time that people will wait for a donut. I am sure they are good, I am just not patient enough to endure the line to find out.

 

[timor]

Interesting pictures, but they seem to me to be a good deal too dark.

 

[Tim Tucker]

I don't understand why the images are so dark. If you look at the histogram you have barely any tone above mid-grey and no tones above 180.

Some say they do it for mood, but consider this:

I take an image of a brightly lit summer day and display it on my monitor. The image on my monitor still conveys the impression of a brightly lit summer day, but if you were to measure the actual light levels you would find it to be considerably darker than the actual scene it represents.
Conclusion - You've already made the image considerably darker than the original scene without affecting how it looks, do you really think making it a little darker still has much effect apart from making it more difficult to see?
As long as you maintain the relative values in an image it's appearance remains largely unchanged, making it darker just makes it more dependant on the environment in which it's viewed. I can achieve exactly the same effect by turning the brightness of my monitor down (and negate it by turning it up). I don't because all it does it make things difficult to see.

However it is shocking that we should be queuing for luxury items in this world of plenty, but it hardly constitutes hardship... (It being displayed as a 'moody' shot alongside someone begging).