1st Year @ Street Photography.

[alberto botella]

One year has gone by since I got hooked on Street Photography. Some of you in

this forum gave me some invaluable advice and suggestions that I took on board.

Now, 1 year after I would appreciate your evaluation on my efforts.

I have had a lot of fun and have learned a lot in this year.

Thanks to you all for your time and interest.

The photos are ere: http://www.photo.net/photodb/folder?folder_id=677887

[sitemistic]

Wonderful work! I assume this is digital; but, the B&W is fantastic.

[alberto botella]

Thanks Jim. Yes, all digital mainly Point and shoot. My D70 is too bulky

and noisy for this type of work.

Cheers.

[spanky]

I'm just on my out the door so I'll have to take another look later when I have time but what I did see looks great. Take it from me, no camera is too bulky or noisy.

[amuz]

Nice body of work Alberto , I enjoyed your Street photos very much.

I share a similar philosophy of shooting and try to reflect the world around me with as little embellishment as possible. I am presently stuck between my past use of film and my future commitment to a decent digital camera. An old borrowed P&S serves me for now.

I miss the quality of a good tool but appreciate the simplicity and freedom the little Kodak gives me.

[orvillerobertson]

Impressive work, period, no matter how inexperienced you are. My biggest refrain is to

remember that strong editing is a genius.

[Brad_]

Nice collection of work there with many excellent pics. Congratulations!

[neilambrose]

<p>I'm going to offer you a slightly tougher critique than you've had so far.</p>

 

<p>I see a lot of similarity between your stuff and mine - not least because we're

obviously photographing in the same area with some of the same themes. But I echo

Orville's comments regarding editing. Some of your images are strong, but a great many

of them are banal. The more successful ones have some form of tension - either graphic

tension between strong lines and the frame, or tension between elements in the image

and the principal subjects. Where this tension is missing the picture is not as interesting.

And a few of your images should probably be in your reject pile.</p>

 

<p>I'm very sympathetic with the challenge of compiling and editing work, as it's a

challenge I face myself, as I too am into my first year of street photography. But I studied

as a photographer in another discipline, and think that has helped me a little in terms of

composition and figuring out the interest of a picture. I also got some great advice from

Richard Bram, who gave me the benefit of his experience and helped me become less

satisifed with what I was shooting. I now keep very little of what I shoot, and I feel that I'm

starting to make progress.</p>

 

<p>I've got a small amount of work that I think is good, and a large amount of work that I

am no longer happy with. The best advice I can offer you is along the same lines that I

received myself, which is to be continually looking for reasons to keep a picture, rather

than reasons to reject one. I think if you edited your work to a smaller set with this in

mind you'd have something much more significant.</p>

 

<p>All the best -<p>

[sitemistic]

I didn't find any of Alberto's photos boring (nor obvious, for that matter). Campbell's soup

cans I find banal. But clearly I'm wrong about that, too.

[alberto botella]

Orville, you are quite right ?to remember that strong editing is a genius.? I?m obviously not one as I find so difficult to edit my work (in my old days in Fleet St. I would shoot X number of rolls take them to the darkroom, take the contacts to de picture desk where a few ?some times just one- would be selected and then taken to the Picture Editor who with a yellow wax crayon would crop if necessary. Me, to the next assignment)

 

Neil, your critique is not tough at all. It?s fair comment that is welcome/needed in my case.

 

I seem to recall that one of the greatest Street Photographers of all time (Strand, Frank, or Adams -can't recall) once said the 12 good photos in a year was a fair yield.

Or perhaps I should follow the example of Garry Winogrand ?who shot thousands of rolls in is life- He would leave his rolls undeveloped for a year as he thought that looking at his pictures with the perspective of time changed his selective instincts.

 

I find editing time consuming. My commitments keep me away from the streets and every available moment I have I prefer to spend it taking pictures rather than editing them. I know, I know, I should make an effort but???..

Perhaps this winter I will find the time and inclination to do it, but in the meant time I shall continue shooting.

 

Thanks to all of you for your comments and time. They are truly appreciated.

[lmnop]

Though your photos aren't titled, I think I can describe the one I thought nicely and amusingly summed up the times we live in: there's a woman crouching to take a picture of a manikin or woman in 19th century dress. Both the women have all the tell tale signs of the eras they're from. The tones are nice in that photo as well. Thanks for sharing them.

[michael s.]

A very good first year, Alberto. I found a number I really liked.

[johan_greenhorn]

I agree with these who say you need to edit that folder, keep only perhaps 20 images. Most of current selection are quite usual and boring, but a few like the first one are very good.

 

Also I see you crop your images. If you feel you have too many "good" shots when perhaps next year try not to crop anything. Cropping is for weak, it is going the way of less resistance. IMO one is not good photographer until he can shoot images that look good without cropping. Everyone can crop something out of nothing and present that as the picture he took (in fact he lies).

[frank.schifano]

"Cropping is for weak, it is going the way of less resistance. IMO one is not good photographer until he can shoot images that look good without cropping. Everyone can crop something out of nothing and present that as the picture he took (in fact he lies)."

 

What a load! Good cropping is a skill too. It's not as easy as it looks.

[Brad_]

>>> Everyone can crop something out of nothing and present that as the picture he took

(in fact he lies).

 

Do you mean after the lie when choosing what to include/exclude in the viewfinder at the

time you click the shutter?

[johan_greenhorn]

The composition you chose when you pressed shutter release was the picture/motive you made. Everything you do later is just something else. When you later need to change cropping, that means the picture you made was not good enough (you failed). If it was not good enough and you needed to change it, why present it now to other people as the picture you took? Trying to look better than you really are? Making great composition on spot requires much more effort and skill and thus these picture should get more credit, but in fact are now behind piles of "cured" pictures that pretend to be as good.

 

Did Henri Cartier Bresson cropped his images? No. He just nailed them on the spot. And that is what gives them much more value. These are pure images, no gimmick.

 

If we admire work from guys from Magnum agency then we should play by the same rules as our "idols" (no cropping).

[Brad_]

>>> Did Henri Cartier Bresson cropped his images? No.

 

Do I care what Henri Cartier Bresson did with his images? No.

[Brad_]

>>> Trying to look better than you really are?

 

 

I'm not trying to "look" any particular way to anybody. I just do what I want to do. I wouldn't

be shocked if HCB had a similar attitude...

[michael s.]

<< ... If we admire work from guys from Magnum agency then we should play by the same rules as our "idols" (no cropping). ... >> <p>

 

HCB's insistence that <u>photo editors</u> not crop his photos was widely reported. However, even that "rule" has <a href=http://agency.magnumphotos.com/about/faq.aspx>been relaxed a bit over time</a>, and Magnum now provides that photos "... cannot be cropped (or copied, or reproduced) without prior consent." [see paragraph 3.] <p>

 

But that policy addresses only whether someone buying/using a Magnum photo may later crop it, not whether the original photographer may crop it.<p>

 

Cropping of news/editorial photos no doubt presents legitimate concerns, discussed thoughtfully <a href=http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/09/weekinreview/09bott.html?ex=1263013200&en=387ef0f13bcd0d6a&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland>here</a> and elsewhere.<p>

 

For me, these policy discussions are interesting, but usually beside the point. I'm not shooting news photos. If I believe I can improve a photo I took by cropping it, I crop it. Then when I look at it, I like it more, giving me a feeling of <i>success</i>, rather than failure. :-)

[mark_ehlers]

Alberto, I just spent several minutes perusing through your gallery. I've only been shooting street for about 6 months now, so I'm not sure how valuable my input will be.

 

I would agree with the others here who suggest that you get more critcal with your editing. But if I may, I would try to develope a sense of predicting human behavaior, working towards a moment when your image provokes the viewer to ask a question. I'm not sure if that makes any sense, but there was one image that REALLY did this for me and stood out beyond all the other images. This one:

 

http://http://www.photo.net/photo/6367068

 

 

I hope to see more of your work.

You can find some of my street here:

 

http://www.pbase.com/marke

[alberto botella]

Since the recording process is instantaneous, and the nature of the image such that it cannot survive corrective handwork, it is obvious that the finished print must be created in full before the film is exposed. -Edward Weston

Now we have Photoshop and others........