$selling papas peruanitas$ This man sells peruvian potatoes and uses his voice to attract customers from the street. The woman on the down left corner is also selling coke leaves. More photos on the o

Thanks! More photos on the ongoing $mAkiNg$a$StReeT-

LiViNg$ProDuCTiOnZ$ project in my portfolio.

Please view larger version!

sometimes i think about the effect of photo captions. i guess it's pretty important and the viewers' impression is very much affected by it.

i would change the caption like, after the word "Unfortunately", "she ignored him", and you could've added some fictional things like "because they hate each other" or "because they were married before but divorced now" or something like that, for example. (of course if you're seeking so called "documentary", just forget what i'm saying)

 

some people may say "it's not good telling lies on captions" but who'd know the truth? in a way nobody can know the truth. and as long as it can enhance the power of the picture, what's wrong with the lies? what's the difference between using Photoshop to change the impression of the pic completely and telling lies on captions? i guess this's a very interesting thing to think about, don't you think?

Taisuke,

You made an interesting point. If the creator's intention is to create a fictional story then there is nothing bad with it. It is the same thing with films. In a movie we are seeing consequent images of people acting in a fictional story. We know it is not a true story but we enjoy it. Totally fine with me. On the other hand if the film is declared to be a documentary or letting to be perceived as such then I think is unethical.

 

In this series of photos "making a street living" I am doing documentary photography and I try to keep my captions as close to my perceived reality of the situation. I use minimum PS treatment and have no intervention during the scene or interaction with my subjects. Afterwards I will go and talk to the person and find out about him but never before. He will be unatural in some way when I will photograph him. I want him unaware of me in his natural environment but. This is difficult. Generally even in documentary photography like my favorite photo/documentary book "flophouse**" there is interaction, interviewing and photo shooting...

 

By the way the "flophouse": check it out or even better if you like documentary photography buy it, amazon has some free images of the book to look at and 20 used & new books available from $0.81, (No! I am not associated with amazon in any way, lol :-)

 

http://www.amazon.com/Flophouse-Life-Bowery-David-Isay/dp/0375503226

i understand, you shouldn't be lying on the captions. i just wanted to share my thoughts. and thanks for the URL, it looks very interesting, i'll check the book out.