Light my fire

Like the mood and the scene... Even like the clutter.

 

I have a serious problem with the transition from highlight to shadow on the arms and face. Very unattractive and distracting. If it were one of mine - I'd have liked the photo but would have put it in my reject pile for technical flaws.

Have to agree with Mary on this one. Looks like the photographer adjusted the shadows to open them up and the color just broke up. Unlike Mary though, the clutter is just too much. My eye takes too much time wandering and when I do the tonality of the image is too distracting in it's own right.

 

If this is just an 'off the cuff' capture I do like the spontineity of it. It has a 'set up' feel to it though...

 

This should be a great image for discussion...

Technical floors or not I like the high contrast of tones on the model. It looks right with the unidirectional lighting from the windows.

The thing that detracts for me? That it was posed. Somehow it just seems to take the edge off and places it in one of hundreds of staged magazine images.

Beautiful image.

This couldn?t be B/W! It?s nice in colors. My unique critique is about the crop. I think you could crop where finish red color on table. Nice anyway

There is a good sense of feeling created by the subject looking out the window of the shop. I like the composition as well, but the highlights seem just a bit too light. The cluttered look gives this, in my opinion anyway, the feeling of a busy day, which lends a feeling of credibility to the shot. Very nice work with this one.

 

- Randy

The color, light, moment captured, and model are nice, but the photo doesn't appeal to me. A 50mm lens with approx. 1.5x field-of-view crop = aprox. 75mm, and gauging from how much the subject proper fills the frame, it looks like the photo wasn't taken from close range, and hence (for me) intimacy and immediacy are lost; I feel like a detached observer, almost a voyeur, sitting a cafe table or two away. Personally, I think the photographer would have had a stronger picture had he used a shorter lens and photographed closer to his subject, or even if he had used his existing 50mm lens to shoot his subject as a head-and-shoulders photograph (which would have resulted in a vastly different photograph, but which I still think would have had much more impact than the existing photo).

I stumbled across this shot in Jochen van Eden's portfolio page a few days ago and it really jumped out at me then. The color (which I think is beautiful) and the clutter is what makes it! Sure it's a posed model, but in the vast majority of posed model shots the policing of coffee drips, sterile white balance and textbook lighting ratios squeeze the humanity from the scene. That it might lack the clinical approach appropriate for 'lifestyle' advertizing (thankfully) makes it a picture of a real person in a real setting.

Congratulations for this touching shot.

 

Reminds me Edward Hopper's portraits. Many of his paintings bear this subtle, implicit

loneliness, the relation between indoor/outdoor and the bright sunlight. Even the colors

are "Hopper-style" - albeit a bit brighter.

 

Once again - great shot!

To reply to Dino D'Agata and to be more explicit about what I poorly wrote above... The blue, the red, why not, but that's it. What actually really bothers me is the Yellow and red on the model mostly, and the feel of over-saturation all over the place - including in the far background. To paraphrase and agree with what Mary Ball wrote, what also bothers me is the transition line on the arm between the red and the yellow...

 

And here is a guess: this might have been achieved by: duplicating a layer, then going to the layer's options and choosing "Color density +". This is something I use sometimes as well, but only in combination with other effects and at a low opacity - never on a model's skin at high opacity. I can't see what the destruction of her skin and the jarring colors add to the photo, in this case.

 

PS: If this picture was posed, I think it's pretty well posed ! Very believable to me, since I used to seat exactly like this when I was a student. :-)

The subject has a great expression. The contrast between the ruby table top in the foreground and the blue girders in the backdrop, give a feeling of depth. The ovals in the girders and the window seem to be rising up from the table and from the subject.

- Simmering !

I don't know Marc, Mary, but I'm not as bothered by that transition line. I think he was

going for contrast here, no? But then again, I'm somebody with a very big taste for

dramatic color, so... Mary do you really think that is so distracting? Possibly I just don't

have as discerning an eye...

Fitting surrounding for a restless brain.

bravo atmosphere!!!!

Make a horizontal image by cropping off the upper half of the photo, which strongly distracts from the generic blonde's faint expression and the important black hat in the background.

 

Nice light, pretty girl. Badly framed.

Considering the composition and the elements, and the idea that this should be a "street" candid, I'd love to see this as a B&W, even a bit grainy. It would look less staged and more spontaneous.

I really like the mood of the photograph. As some others have said, street photography is not simple, and kudos should go to those who do it well, especially in an age where it is becoming more difficult in some areas for weird security reasons. My only critism is the position of that suspended shaft that points towards the model's face. It gives a slight sense of discomfort! Since there was a little "setting up" maybe the angle could have been different to get this object out.

In particular it is NOTHING like Hopper! Hopper didn't paint standard issue, carelessly beautiful blonde girls in trendy environments, lightly smirking or lightly pensive.

Any better? Not sure. It does bring the tonality back to it a bit and helps focus the girl a bit more. Definitely looses some punch though...

One more try...

I have not seen a better illustration of the word "banal". A totally banal photo, a model for banality.

 

I cannot say whether this was actually intended. But if it was: well done. If it was not, so be it.

 

But -- unfortunately -- I never liked banalit. A throw away shot from my vantage point as I prefer to find meaning in photography, of telling a story (worth telling, mind you), not drab disillusionment, a sterile stare, or banality in excelsis!

 

But "Light my fire" in a dead face? How banal and morose.

 

There is nothing there there that could ever catch fire. Poor soul.

 

Sorry.

I tend to agree with Frank, though the woman is not to blame for her own beauty. The photo is aesthetically pleasing. But overall, it is long on trendiness (attractive, young, blond, cafe, upscale) and short on any interesting story or meaning. The title is unfortunate. If this is a candid, I think it suggests a trivialization of the woman and her feelings.

I am not sure whether this is a posed shot or not. But if this is posed, the photographer could have done much better - as many other indicated here - balancing the light (using a fill on the shadow side), adjusting the clutter a bit and finally a more thoughtful composition, etc etc. But if this is not posed, but a spontaneous shot - then I will give full credit to the photographer for pulling this off. Congrats

Uch, i don't think that i could stand this komplex Diskussion with my poor english words. What i want to say about the posing. It was a nice conversation with the model. During this, i told her only to watch out the window and think about what ever she wants, but in a strong way only about this thinking. I've give her a few minutes before i take a picture, ...again a minute and take this picture. Sure it is posed, but only in the way i've told you. So i think it is nearly a unposed situation. However the colours are such as i want and the space over her is needfull to let the picture breath, also it was a high ceiling and reflects better the place. Please excuse again this form of english. Thank you all!

@Frank: Warum gehst Du nicht vor die Türe und malst ein paar banale Striche auf die Strasse, anstatt mein Model anzugreifen? Verbitterter alter Mann!

The whole scene does seem too cluttered. A tighter crop could result in a

nicer image. I think the expression is okay. It is obvious she is thinking about

something. The question is what.

I like the photo as posted. The cropped version that was posted has much less impact that Jochen's original. I get a feeling of aloneness in the original that is missing the the crop. If the lighting was balanced, the shot could look more like a studio study. A reflector adding a small amount of light while maintaining the mood might be ok.

 

I think the way John Alton used light conveyed emotion.

 

http://www.celtoslavica.de/chiaroscuro/dop/alton.html