first street photography comments critiques welcomed

[jdemoss99]

<p>these are some photos I took tonight at our local friday night live we have every month here in our great little town. I will let you all tell me what you think of the picks.</p><div></div>

[jdemoss99]

<p>next</p><div></div>

[jdemoss99]

<p>classic car</p><div></div>

[jdemoss99]

<p>classic 2</p><div></div>

[jdemoss99]

<p>last one, they are beautiful curves, and I am talking about the bikes</p><div></div>

[jtk]

<p>Handsome objects, but nothing about your "great little town" ...it's not clear why you made the images...in other words, did you see something someone else might not have seen and is there something going on in those images other than the passive objects someone else made? Why simply record an object? The people seem to just clutter your images, are not interesting. </p>

<p>If you intended to show beautiful objects, I think you'd crop more tightly and make a point of shooting them without the clutter of uninteresting people. If people's interest IN the objects was the point, I think you'd crop more tightly on them along with the object, or with them and a dramatic part of the object, and I think you'd choose a moment in which they seemed to be strongly expressing interest.</p>

<p>Yes, those objects are handsome and interesting, but "street photography" implies that the photographer is doing something more than recording objects. I wonder what others think about that?</p>

[jdemoss99]

<p>let me see if I can do better on my pics. I didn't mean to phrase the title wrong my apologizes. I thought I would take some shots of the free get concert and show our town has every month. I had seen some nice bikes and cars and thought I would try and capture some nice images of them. But evidently I failed at that. so here are 2 images one is of the band that played and the other is of a little girl who liked this tricycle better than hers she had at home so I ask her to pose with it.</p><div></div>

[jdemoss99]

<p>here is the band</p><div></div>

[markus maurer]

<p>I agree with John, this is not what I expect from street photography and showing only the bikes needed much more care for the disturbing backgrounds and people and the overall framing. I'm also not happy about the saturated colours, but others might like that. The photo with the little girl goes in the right direction but could also be executed more carefully. </p>

[markus maurer]

<p>taken from eye level would have made a great portrait of that girl!</p><div></div>

[jtk]

<p>If the face of "rocker" was lighter and contrast was higher (post processing), and if he was cropped to a much more narrow vertical, he'd be a knock-out.</p>

[jgredline]

<p>Jordon, Don't be afraid to get down and dirty. I agree with others comments by the way and Markus that edit works very well! Amazing what an eye for framing will do....More on this later...</p>

<p>Jordon, Take a look here http://www.photo.net/pentax-camera-forum/00ToXz<br>

There are a few recent street shots in this thread.</p>

[morgan lee]

<p>LOL! Well Jordan, if your friends aren't honest with you, who can you trust? You wanted a critique, you got it! I agree with a lot of what was said above. My own take;</p>

<p>First, I love street photography. Your first three photographs, unedited, were not it. They were more like casual tourist photographs. Sort of a , "look at the cool stuff I saw downtown" snapshot display shown on a lot of Flickr posts or someone's cell phone shots shown to you Monday at work.</p>

<p>The last two shots, MUCH better and much closer to what is known as 'street' photography.</p>

<p>Whether you wanted to show cool machines (difficult at events like this) or street photography, I'll run down my take on all your shots:</p>

<p>"old school" had a lot of potential. Don't need to see the adult with the little girl waiting to cross the street in the background. No interest in the guy in the horizontal-striped shirt standing to the right. Could not care less about what is going on at 7pm on the sign at the top of the picture. The guy closely examining the motorcycle peering into the engine is, potentially, a great shot. Below is a simple crop and blurring of the background but I could not get a lot out of this file because it was small already and, I think, if you opened up the aperture and zoomed in/stepped closer to the focal point of your photograph before you snapped your shutter, you may have been on to a nice shot with this one.</p>

<p>"old school 2" you are 'bullseyeing' where you are simply putting the main subject in the center of the frame without regard for composition or background. You have great material for a background with those other beautiful bikes and I would use it. From the angle you are shooting, you could put the red tricycle in the lower left hand corner so the other motorcycles run diagonally to the upper-right corner of your photograph. There are lots of things you could do with a shot like this. Play with it next time.</p>

<p>On "classic" you are pretty much screwed with both lighting and background. You can focus on the car some by doing a direct side shot and blurring the background with aperture but I would have a hard time getting a decent shot of this car in this environment.</p>

<p>"classic 2": Closer to the engine and commit to an angle instead of just standing there and taking a photograph.</p>

<p>"beautiful curves'": I see what you were trying to do; it is technically not a bad composition by framing your shot so the tire is in the lower right hand corner and the three people in the background fill out the upper left hand corner. It just doesn't work with the busy background. Maybe walk back and forth for a minute, look flustered, and say, "O.K. If you guys are going to insist on standing in my shot, then you need to BE in my shot!" and having them pose as if they are modelling the bike or something. I don't do this as often or as well as I would like but, when I do, I have never regretted it. People like you finding them cool enough to be in your pictures.</p>

<p>I see you have what it takes to do this because of your next shot with the little girl with the 'tricycle'. I don't necessarily agree with everyone else about the angle. Kids are cute and fun to photograph because they are short, tiny and uninhibited. They look up at us adults and this melts our hearts and does not necessarily make for a bad photograph but can be a very good photograph. I do agree with the cropping and would add that if you are going to photograph the girl with her favorite tricycle, then have her <em>with </em>the tricycle: leaning against it, a hand on the handlebar, sitting on it, whatever. Not so much with the posing in front of it.</p>

<p>Same with the "rocker". Events like this don't light their musical talent for us photographers and it's a pain. I'll bet someone with that vibrant a personality would have happily posed for you between sets, though and he has a great look that would have made for an awesome street portrait.</p>

<p>All of that being said, I am no ones photography guru. The reason I commented extensively is because I shoot a lot of events like this and have shoeboxes, along with gigabytes of hard drive space, taken up with photographs of them that do not work for one reason or another but they are very rewarding to shoot.</p>

<p>I hope at least some of this helped and look forward to your future efforts.</p>

<p>~Morgan</p><div></div>