Rue Becquerel

Nicely composed, and an excellent choice of subject matter.

As for the choice of film, exposure, and development, they could use a little work. There is a loss of contrast in the background indicating a need for more pull in development, a better compensating developer, or a super proportional reducer. The film choice is not a particularly wise one, because the delta (T-grain style films) are very fine grained but suffer in giving a full tonal range negative; they also (as with T-Max) tend to block up on the high lights, as is evidenced by the gray (Read as over burned) street lamps in the foreground. Also, I wish I knew what paper this was printed on, so I could steer clear of it in the future. What I expect to see a paper do on a night time picture is give rich deep lustrous blacks (read as a good thick layer of silver) and have crystal clear dazzling whites. The above print has only a few dark grays and the whites are less than stunning. Just by looking at this print I would guess it was developed in Dektol, I prefer Ansco 130 for my night time shots. The 130 renders stunning tonal gradation and breathtaking contrast, while still having a good shelf life and being cheap to whip up.

Otherwise this is a perfectly fine first attempt.

i love this image. and yes, i think a single photo can capture the soul of a city....as can a little portfolio. maybe a single image has trouble capturing a particular city....but it can certainly capture CITY.....metropolis, vibrancy, and lots of people.....even if only shadows in the image or the city is empty.....william klein is a great city photographer. louis faurer. and many many images on photo.net

maybe we shld have a CITY category? elsa dorfman

A very nice photograph, it reminds me of Brassai

I like the soft contrast on this shot, as well as the sweeping view of the horizon and its lights. I get the sense that this could have been made at any time of night in such a city as Paris, and one does gain a sense of the vastness and variety of the city, given the usual pictures that one sees of the various well-known landmarks. The ghost-like figure captured on the long exposure does help the picture, I think, as does the view down the long stairs to the street, as well as the sense of looking through a corridor of buildings toward the horizon. In a word, it is a composition with good, soft tonalities. Whether it captures the "soul" of the city I cannot begin to say, never having visited the city, much less lived there, and I tend to think of such subjective "senses" as belonging to individuals rather than to places.

Mark, this isn't [surprise surprise] a 'print' that you are looking at and dissecting. It's a digitized reproduction, and considering the numerous possible results from various scanning applications, settings, post process editing, personal preferences, and the infinite array of monitor callibrations, then I can only assume you are having a little chuckle to yourself, and your expert judgement of the resulting tonal range and contrast has at least amused one person.

The tones and contrast look great for my taste (darks are dark and lights are bright) on my PC, yet on a Mac it looks generally too light and lacking lustre.

Basicly Mark, paper is made of paper and if that's what we were looking at then your very informative wet room knowledge could not only be applied, but also be found useful. On a monitor however, I can only dismiss your feedback at best as a poor joke, and at worst not worth the 'paper' it was written on.

This quarter has streets named after scientists - Antoine Becquerel discovered the phenomenon of phosphorescence of radioactive elements & this picture captures beautifully the spirit of that discovery.

I probably would have been kinder if the manipulated box had been checked as no.

I was in this case only left to assume that the image had been digitally manipulated before submission, and therefore what I was looking at, was the finished product, which had been scanned. Keeping in mind I submit many comments at the end of a long work day (at a really dull production job) and sometimes I seem a bit curt.

To be more constructive, I will give how I would have approached the capturing of this image. Please keep in mind that I almost never expose film in the light of day, and have taken somewhere in the area of 200 sheets of 4x5, and 75 rolls of 120 at night in the last year (I don't own a scanner otherwise I would share). For this scene I would start with the now unavailable Verichrome Pan, meter the shadows, and the distant highlights, record both of these for later use (pull 10% for each stop difference). Set the exposure for the shadow reading and bracket one stop under and three stops over in 1/2 stop, increments. Yes, I get cold standing around for all that time. On camera setup, I would probably have used a sun shade, maybe a 1X UV haze filter, leveled the camera, and made most adjustments keeping the cameras as level as possible.

In the dark room, I would have looked at my notes (sometimes I write information onto the roll, other times in a notebook), and determine the amount to pull the development. I like either Micordol-X, or PMK-Pyro, because they give the most printable highlights and the most shadow detail. Times and agitation are by the manufactures recommendations. Despite mentioning a super proportional reducer, I rarely use such a chemical, with the massive amount of bracketing they are usually not needed. Once the negatives are dry I select the exposure that has the least blocked high lights, and the best shadow detail, this is usually in most cases, 1.5-2.5 stops over exposed.

In printing, I use only graded fiber based paper, usually gravitating to a warm tone emulsions such as Ektalure, Or Portriga Rapid (which I purchase used at swaps and off ebay, since neither of these is in production), usually a grade 2 is as contrasty as will print well, but sometimes the 2.5 of Ektalure is more pleasing. The Ansco 130 I mentioned is way too contrasty in stock form so I have found it to be best 1-3. For exposing the print, I take a full sheet of paper (not a strip) and expose it in 10 second increments at f:11 for 2.5 minutes; develop this as you would the final print. The full page size allows me to judge the amount of time to give each part of the print, foreground, sky, etc. If the times for the test print are okay then I make two more exactly the same way to be used to judge tonal change for Sepia toning and Selenium toning; this really takes the guess work out of toning prints. I allow these to dry overnight and then, press them in my mounting press to allow me to totally judge dry down. Once all this is done I am ready to print the final image and get the final result I wished.

I hope this has cleared up some of the mystery of nighttime photography.

Thanks to all for your comments and congrats.

Brassaï: don't compare this picture with Brassai's work. On this point, I agree with Andrew Lee (see above).Comparing to Brassaï is like saying "It's an Ansel Adams class picture" of a good black and white landscape picture.Please, look at Brassai's work and you'll see the difference.On some Brassai's pictures I saw a more black ambience, more feelings about the night (beeing alone, afraid, in the cold, etc ...) that this picture doesn't have. Also, Brassaï's night pictures often have a nice haze that diffuses the lights.

About the POW theme: when I uploaded this picture, it wasn't on a "big city" theme, but more on "night work". For the "big city" theme, I would rather choose Manhattan sunset (3) or East New York (3)."Rue Becquerel" was more an exercise on night photography and (digital) masking.

About the soul of Paris: I don't think 'Rue Becquerel' captures the soul of Paris.

For first time visitors, Paris is a romantic city, so for them a picture with lovers on the Seine could be a picture capturing the soul of Paris. And for others, a picture with night lights could be a better definition of the soul of Paris, "la ville lumière" (city of lights).

I think big cities have many different aspects that could lead to "many possible souls". I don't think a single picture could capture the soul of a very big city, except capturing "clichés". But a portfolio can.

About the blue hue of the picture (André Cortès): yes, it was added a slight blue cast. Congratulations, your screen is well calibrated ! ;-P

To Henri Manguy: I didn't use filters on this picture, except UV filter. I always have an UV filter to protect my lenses, and sometimes I use a polarizer (night + rain = playing with reflects). I used to play with red filters, but I prefer now to shoot in color films and filter in post-processing with the channel mixer (it makes possible the "nagative" filtering, which is impossible to do with glass filters; an example here: Manhattan (4) where I used "negative" gray and blue mixing). Although I love much more b&w than color, I shoot in color for the ease of use (easier for using IR dust removal on filmscanners, for filtering, a little cheaper than b&w film developping, ...).

To Joel Alfaro: for a 50mm Yashica lens, you'd better subscribe to the Yashica mailing list. They should have an answer to your question. I sold my Yashica one year ago, but I know a good shop in Paris 14ème that could help you. Email me if interested.

About the processing of night pictures: Mark Hansen's remarks about T-max and papers are interesting. But my process is actually different: I shoot on color films (Fuji Provia 100F is my preferred, sometimes Reala, Kodak EPY 64T or E100VS for night work) and scan directly the film on a film scanner. Then I make prints on photographic papers from the retouched files.

This gives me much much more control for a very little work time. Ten years ago, I would have to work hours and hours to obtain the same result in a darkroom. Two years before I thought a lot about buying all the darkroom stuff, but I preferred the "digital" stuff, as it's easier for me (I'm a little lazy).

Mark Hansen: I probably would have been kinder if the manipulated box had been checked as no.

When I uploaded this picture, the "Manipulated" check box didn't exist. As I scan all my pictures on a filmscanner, you can assume that all my pictures are more or less "retouched" by masking zones and controlling contrast of different zones. But that's the same thing you do in a darkroom: masking.

Very ominous and beautiful...

 

The glow of the lights and figures and range between white and the shadows is very mysterious. I'll bet sinking those blacks down might give the photo an even more film noir feel. The position of the camera, which strengthens the 'S' is strong.

 

Cheers!

Christian, thanks for your responses and info. As I suspected this picture is film scanned & digitally edited, quite nicely for my perception (or monitor). You also assert your individuality, and I like that too. Inspiration may be one thing, but results are another. The best thing I enjoy in your comment is that it is as you intended. For me at least, a photograph is successful if it qualifies right there, and although others perceptions and interpretions are most interesting, it takes nothing away from the aim and result. When those two things match - touché!

oops - "two things" = intention & result.

First of all, let me say that I agree with Rod M. when he wrote that "everyone has their own interpretation of the soul of a city which is defined by their experiences with it."

In fact, it so happens that I have walked down this rue Becquerel quite a few times in 1991 and 95, though I'm one of those French people who didn't really live much in France since 1990 - and before that I grew up in Nice, not in Paris. This street and similar streets in Monmartre are actually about as famous for French people (and visitors) as the Mesa Arch is to others. In that sense, this picture's SUBJECT is really nothing new - to me. This goes a long way to show that the "originality" criteria is a fairly useless one, as it depends very much, in cases like this, on where the viewer comes from.

So, to me, this isn't an original subject. I'd even say that I have seen a fairly large quantity of similar pictures of these streets taken of course from the top and "looking down" into Paris City. Now does this particular image bring something new to the theme and more importantly, does it somehow manage to "touch me" ?

Well, to the 1st question, I have to say that there isn't really anything very new here in the approach of this common subject. The motion blur is a reasonably common thing in this type of photography as well. Nevertheless, yes, to some extent, this picture does manage to touch me.

I like what I see. It's in fact beautiful, and a beauty that has a lot to do indeed with the Beauty of this area in Paris. I would quickly add that this area is really a nightmare for me during the day, but at night, yes, it has indeed a certain "flavor" which I find difficult to describe, especially in English.

I have walked miles and miles by night in Paris, many times, sometimes right through the whole city. Around midnight, most places are still quite busy, but around 3 or 4 a.m, I always had this impression that I was somehow crossing the tommy of a sleeping lion. :-) Paris at night is exactly the contrary (to me) of what most people imagine. Okay, there are of course some areas of the City that are buzzling around 3 or 4 a.m, but in fact, very few. And my walks through Paris remain in my mind as a walk through a huge and paradoxical - almost scary - silence.

I think this silence of Paris at night, that has been printed in my memory, is what makes me like this POW. I'd like to say that this picture is ABOUT this silence in a way... Most people leaving and working in Paris don't cross the City at night as pedestrians. They have to sleep early, or they have a car to drive home before the City gets really silent in some places. For me, this silence of Paris is the REAL soul of this city at night, and for some reason, I think it has been magically captured in this picture.

Has Christian captured THE soul of Paris ? I don't know. But he has captured what I INDIVIDUALLY remember as the strongest feeling I ever experienced in Paris by night.

Why ? Not sure. The motion blur seems to indicate*one last* late movement in the City before it all sinks into absolute silence. I think this suggestion is very important here, and that may be why a picture that is pretty much a cliche in fact managed to grab me beyond what I expected at first.

It's a beautiful picture, and that it would look even much greater if printed large, with really visible grain. I think it's a picture that will tell stories to some, other stories to others and no stories perhaps to those who have seen similar images too often or on the opposite, who aren't familiar with Paris at night. I don't think it's a really outstanding picture, but it is competent and quite subtle, and to my own surprise, it touched me, so thanks for this POW Christian... It was quite enjoyable for me: a moment of nostalgia that lasted about a week is probably more than I would have expected looking at "something fairly common". Very well done. (Au revoir.)

After seeing "Manhattan" & "East New York", I have to say that these 2 pictures are showing me "a big city", but I think this POW is much more likely to show me "the soul of" a big city. Any big city photographed as a whole, is like a giant hydra, and people who live in it are then invisible. The word "soul" is a reference to something human, inhabited by human beings. The "soul" of a city is how it FEELS, not how it LOOKS, which means: it's "how the people who are there feel at a certain time and place". No matter how many wide angle cityscapes you would show me, they will always be more soul-less to me than a little corner of a little street with little people living their little life...:-)

i looked at thew thumbnail on the front page and my very first thought about this photo was: Paris. and the big picture only conformed this.

not that i know this particular location or anything it's just that i think you have perfectly captured the feeling of the city. there are no obvious signs that would reveal the location for the first look. no street-name signs nor the eiffel tower in the background but anybody who has been to paris will immediately know in which city this photo was taken.

capturing the mood - i think that's what any city photo should aim for.

well done.

Love the depth, looking at this picture gives the impression of having the whole Paris sprawling at your feet!

Its to do with movement and the static nature of the concrete mass, a simple

and effective image interesting only for its technical abilityand structure, the

content is a bit static and obvious i would like to see an original to compare

quality to the digi image presented as this would give a better inclination as to

the haze effect (which is possible by a 400 asa over a lengthy exposure) or if

it was a super imposed detail.

 

The quality of visual depth (not to be confused with d.o.f. )is nice although you

are drawn down and then through to the centreof the image to the top. I am

not drawn to this image for a lengthy period of time if i where it would only be

to answer the question of digitalisation and to conclude that you would need a

n original print .

 

do i like it or not ? I have seen this kind of image before- sorry m8 its an ok

from me (for what it is worth) so long as you like it that is what counts in the

end!(alegedly)

I've been to this spot before, and took a picture of my own. It's one of my favorites from my one and only trip to Paris. From all the neighborhoods I visited, this was my favorite, and I felt the most picturesque. Your image being nocturnal, and of course being in an incredible location, is quite romantic. Almost everyone agrees this is a very romantic city. This image because of it's composition, subject matter, great tonal range and strong diagonal dynamics,has a very cubist feel. Also very French! I don't know if any one picture can really do justice to the real soul of Paris, but this sure takes me back. I'll be sure to check out more of your work.

Not bad.

I was impressed by this photo, it left me with mixed feelings about city life, on the one hand the almost "cozy" feeling of the forground location, and then the feelings of "smallness" when you see the lights of the city beyond.

 

This photo does not necessarily shout Paris, but it gives the feeling of a big city, very successful.

 

Ira

I remember passing here at dawn for my first trip to Paris must be around 1978. It was snowing and my camera was loaded with Kodachrome 25... Too dark I didn't try the shot... I buyed my first tripod in the FNAC a few days later. I didn't rembered the name of street and never had the idea to go back there, this is clearly one of the most photogenic street of Paris.

Very nice image with very nice tones.

Rendered richly and the blurred figures don't compete with the cityscape. I gather that this is a motif shot. Nicely done.

I think the fact it is in Paris is irrelavent. I did not even ask myself "where" when I first saw it. The photo focuses attention to the light in the distance, and the high walls, and steep stairs the inhabitants cling to. The funneling focal zone, and the crisp edifices are contrasted to fleeting human moments...not paris. l'vie!

Superb exposure,use of space

La bellezza di questa foto credo che stia nall'atmosfera che sa rendere e nella precisa sensazione di "esserci" che da.

La profondità creata dal susseguirsi di piani diversi è davvero rimarchevole. Compliments