Bicycles, Yoyogi-Uehara, Tokyo

Photo of the Week, eh? I'm honored;I did think it was a nice picture, but notquite that nice. I suspect mycomment on theExterior Architecture tutorialand Philip's recent visit to Tokyo may havesomething to do with the selection. =)But maybe this willdo a bit to quiet all those people who thinkthat digital is just a toy and that Real Menonly take pictures with Nikon SLRsand $5000 lenses...

BTW, I had originally uploaded the 1600x1200original, but it was still unmanageably largewhen when scaled down to "Medium". The pictureabove is now 800x600 at "Large", the original isstill available on my own site at:

http://jpatokal.iki.fi/photo/travel/Japan/Tokyo/OldTokyo/Yoyogi_Bicycles_Large.JPG

One last request: might it possible for the photo.net elves to say a few words about why thepicture was chosen? And of course any comments from other photo.net readers are more than welcome.

Beautiful exposure, and an excellent toning job, even if it was photoshop;)

I do think though that those blazing white signs could stand to be burned down a little bit, my eye kept coming back to them and there's nothing there to justify it. I like the nature of this picture in that it makes me want more, as a writer I love using images as supplements to text and pictures like this, beautiful and yet very obscure, provide great potential. I think my favorite part of this whole image though is the shadow of the seat on the white panel. You've made a mundane scene beautiful to my eyes.

Was this chosen just for the fact that it was taken with a digital camera? I should hope not.

This does nothing for me. You would see a problem with color rendition if this was not converted to B&W. I went out and purchased A Nikon 880 only to return it the following week becuase I did not feel like spending over a thousand dollars to have a snapshot camera that could maybe go to a 8x10 enlargment with enough correction in Photoshop. But dont listen to me, I still prefer Vinyl over digital recording anyway.

I get the feeling Robert and I are looking at this in [very] different ways. If I were to look at it strictly limited to what was displayed upon my screen, I'd be a little less taken with it. Still a well executed, pleasant shot, but nothing too out of the ordinary. Perhaps it's just that I've spent far too many hours of the past few days finishing and editing an illustrated piece, but this strikes me very much as a photograph that has great potential as a part of a greater narrative scheme where an individual image or word isn't required to carry itself entirely, provided it serves as a link or enrichment to another point or idea. So yes, I am definately reacting as much to what I want to see done with this picture as what you did, but provided that's made known it seems to me equally valid (if different) a form of criticism. And all said, I still like the image.

I keep scrolling down to get the rest of the bicycle on the screen, and it's not there. That's a very distracting feeling, like an itch square in the middle of your back that you can't quite reach. Backing up just a few steps would have helped immensely. Overall, I like the feeling. It is vaguely reminiscent of shots my dad took in Manila in the early 1940's.

Were it not for my reluctance to age rapidly, I would wish that we could fast-forward to a point in the future when it is no longer meaningful to sniff out PhotoShop.

 

A valiant effort, and I must say I like the photograph a whole lot more after reading about it. I think you, Jani, and I see on the same level in our appreciation of this photograph. It is very nice, but we would've perhaps preferred one of the other photographs be chosen. I know exactly how that is (It's happened to me on countless occasions), and looking at the rest of your work, I know it must have happened to you either here or before.

 

 

I think the importance of this photograph is in the intent, and I am happy to see it here as a POW. It reminds me a bit of the photographs of an Indonesian Photographer Ferri (sp) in his Infrared series of Batvia (old town) Jakarta. It also reminds me a bit of Jacob Riis, minus the human aspect of social relaism.

 

 

Anyway, Congrats.

I was drawn to your photograph when it first appeared in the folder. Why, I wasn't sure. But I find frequently that reason is elusive when I like a photograph.

 

I agree with Eamonn that the signs might be darkened a bit. The composition is catching. The angle of the shot draws the eye through the whole scene. The tonal qualities add to the serenity of the photograph. The light reflected on the wall behind the nearest bike gives a hint of late afternoon.

 

I also enjoyed your rendition of the Motsuyaki chef surveys his domain, Yurakucho, Tokyo.

 

All in all nice work.

 

Thanks.

 

I likewise want for the bicycle wheel to be round ie. fully included. No, the "rules" don't say all round things must be shown in their entirety, however the omission isn't rationalized to balance with anything else meaningfully. And the composition seems to be about bicycles, in that setting, so let's see whole bike! If someone wants to shoot the gas tank, speedometer and front fork of a of Harley that's fine, but at least in this composition, I want the whole bike tire.

 

Perhaps pulling back a foot or two would have given the full wheel, and shown the bicycle in the setting of the rest of the street, panning left. (I'm wantin' to see more left frame down the street.) I'm also distracted by the shadow on the wall.... I keep trying to figure out if it is the seat with a low light angle, or the handlebar and cable from a very high light angle, and it distracts rather than flattering the composition.

 

Is the whole thing intersting? Yes. Love it? No. But I'm glad this is posted here for our study and exchange. I learn a lot from thinking of these things, and learning everyone elses thoughts, so thanks for sending it in here for us.

Maybe I'd better say a few words about the situationbehind the photo. First of all, buildings like the onein the picture are a rapidly dying breed, few woodenbuildings survived the firebombings of WW2 and new onesare no longer built due to the fire hazard, the exorbitantcost of Japanese wood, and their comparative lack ofcomfort in these days of air conditioning and electricalheating. I've lived in Tokyo for 4 years and I knowof perhaps ten poor, working-class wooden buildings like the one in the picture, scattered all over town, andevery few months one of them is torn down. Romanticism aside, you'd be hard pressed tocall these rickety shacks beautiful, but they areevocative and they appeal to what us Westerners thinkJapan should look like, as opposed to what it has become.As a reader correctly noted, the picture looks just uglyin full color (since 50 years ago a moldy wooden shack withtwo old bikes leaning against it would have been ugly!),but sepia-toned B&W allows us tosuspend our disbelief and think of it as a picture fromdays long gone.

So. It was indeed late afternoon on a cloudless day,the sun was setting behind the building and I was standing inits shadow, trying to take a picture facing the sun -- always a bad move, but I had no choice. This is why the sky is cropped out, and this is also why those white signsare glowing, they're catching reflected light fromsomewhere. Still,while I have no problems with cropping and reshadingfull pictures, I very rarely actually edit detailsand that's why I didn't touch the signs.The reflection behind the bicycle's saddle is from a windowin a modern building on the other side of the alley.

The bike wheel being cut off is indeed a mistake:the alley was narrow so backing up a few feet was not anoption, but I could probably have croucheddown a few more inches. Another thing that I don'tlike is that the dimmer sign behind the bright signsproclaims "Karaoke" in a modern Japanese typeface, theonly legible word in the picture and a bit of an anachronism... and if you look very carefully you canalso spot the odd plastic bottle in there.

Just for yucks, I put up a picture of the samebicycles in the same alleyway, but with much worsecomposition and no post-processing. Can you even recognizeit as the same scene?

As it happens, I live very close to that building, andI pass it twice a day on my way to and from work.Maybe I'll give it another shot someday...

A very nice photo. Against some previous comments, I like the fact that not all of the bicycles tire is showing. It makes the shot seem more like a fleeting glimpse than a stationary cityscape. And if you read about what Jani said about the old buildings being torn down one by one, the missing part of the wheel adds a touch of sadness to the picture. You can't see the whole scene cause it is disappearing.

 

A beautiful picture in my opinion.

Nice shot, though emotionally it doesn't really speak to me (but that is mostly experiential as I have never been to Tokyo). I can definitely see your point in terms of color vs. B&W (using your color version as reference), and the suspension of disbelief adds to my appreciation of the shot.

Beautifull use of line. I like the fact that nothing runs perfectly horezontal or verticle. The contrast between the grid like wall and the circular forms of the bicycles is what really brings it together though. My compliments.

That looks like the house I was about to rent in Yoyogi-Uehara, Jani! Alas, it was out of my price range :-)

 

But seriously, great picture. I must say the little slice of missing wheel does bother me, but the sepia does so even more, lacking the nuance and shading of a toned B&W picture. Had it been in grey tone, I'd have been bowled over.

 

Great composition, my preference would have been more squarely towards the bikes, though perhaps impractical in a narrow alleyway. It certainly is evocative of old Tokyo.

I have mixed feelings about this picture. When I saw it on photo.net's front page, there was no "wow" or "awesome" reaction as there was with some of the earlier pictures-of-the-week.

However, now that you have told us a bit more about the image and what it represents, I start to like it more. I definitely agree on the sepia toning; the colour version is "for yucks" indeed. This picture, I think, is well suited to go along with some article about old Tokyo.

I find that in a lot of pictures that I like, I like them to evoke or stir some kind of an emotion.

This one comes fairly close, but there is still something missing. I find it doesn't quite get through to me.

However, I admire your idea of photographing such quotidian items but rendering a unique perspective.

Not enough point of interest.

Consider: 1.A wider lens to have a distortion effect to push the atmosphere. 2.Consider not to sepia tone, and burn some highlight that might drags the viewers off the object, e.g, the white signs in the middle. 3.You can either move the bike further from the wall, or choose a foreground object that would slightly blurs out the noisy background.

Off course, this is just an IMHO, I could be wrong.

 

I appreciate the picture for Jani's ability to see what the picture could become using post photo manipulation. To see beyond the colors of the buildings, bicycles, and recognize the form underneath. I would have never taken a picture such as what was shown in the color rendition of the scene. Maybe she got lucky and was just playing around to see what if.. but even so, she recognized that she got something nice.

Unlocked bikes left in an alley, a strange and wondrous sight indeed for this American (they may be clunkers, but they would not last even a day in many american cities). I would not have selected this photo as POW, but now that it has been up a few days I am starting to like it more and more. I have a photo in my office that I took and a friend had printed and framed years ago. At the time I could not figure out why she choose that particular photo...but over the years I have become very fond of it, despite what I still see as some minor technical flaws. The toning job makes this POW...giving it that pre-WW2 look; it is not nearly so completing in color. Since your already in photoshop, and thus are not doing "real" photography anyway, you might as well just add the base of the wheel on rather than trying to reshoot an already nice photo (my apologies to the purists and Jani, if he cares, for the manipulation).

I've been following the discussion withinterest, but I find I have to take exceptionto that not "real" photography bit.Yes, I saw the quotes and I know you're notbeing entirely serious, but still...I'm a digital fundamentalist, so I can't pickand choose my films: my camera captures 1600x1200full-color, period. Any predefined filters inmy camera (B&W, sepia, ISO 100/200/400, etc)are digital effects added on after the pictureis taken, identically to Photoshop.. except that PS (or actually Gimp ,which I use these days after my conversion to the Linux religion, but don't like as much) probably does a better job.Still, is there really any fundamentaldifference between a film photographer choosinga B&W film and intentionally overexposing itwhile developing by hand, and a digitalphotographer selecting Desaturate and Contrast/Brightness in Photoshop?

A few people have suggested that the picturemight be better in B&W instead of sepia.Well, see for yourselves, just download thepicture and desaturate it again. The sepiatoning was done with Preserve Luminosity soit should come out more or less intact.I occasionally use plain B&W for pictures ofintrinsically beautiful objects, esp. people,but here I was aiming for the "pre-WW2" ageeffect and I think the (hand-toned) reddishsepia looks very nice on the old planks, whichare after all the background of most of the picture. Your mileage may vary.

As for extending the picture, the manipulationwas quite well done, but as you're adding something that wasn't there originally, it goes out of therealm of photography into something different.I certainly wasn't offended by it, in fact itwas fascinating to see how the picture wouldhave looked with the wheel intact... and I wassurprised to find that I still like the original better.

Incidentally, I'm a he, not a she. These funnyFinnish names confuse quite a few people, butJani is essentially the Finnish version ofJohnny.

Carry on, carry on... =)

It is a shot I may not have taken. Had I the skill to see it I would have. What I find about the pic of the week is the realization that from almost any position you can, with a good eye, compose a great shot.

Normally I'm too shy to leave comments, but I next to Yoyogi Uehara and walk through it every day, so I couldn't resist.

 

The things I like about the picture are the texture of the wood, and, of course, the bicycle. I definately prefer the version of the picture in which the bicycle is cut off. Strangely, I like the white of the signs and think it adds more variation to the photo. My eye is drawn to them, but then I find myself going back to the lower bike again.

 

Please don't give up your opinion about your digital camera. I don't have one myself, but if you feel that it is the best product for you than it is. I'm sure you have used a film camera before, and are able to make that judgement.

As to my not "real" crack, it was totally tongue in cheek from my end... although I am sure there are those who would agree with it. In fact, although I do not own a digital camera, I am so digitally oriented on the darkroom end of photography of late that I have not been in a real darkroom for years. Cheers.

The colour is a little overpowering IMHO. One suggestion is to desaturate by 50%.

 

The wheel: I'd prefer to see the whole wheel.

 

The rest: there is something of a documentary about this image, and while I don't view it as "art" to admire on a wall, it certainly has an interesting story in it. I like the bright signs, they're part of the story - a component rather than a distraction.

 

This POW might make people think about what they photograph and why, and that can't be a bad thing.I took some photographs with a similar approach during a 3-day trip to Dublin, Ireland, last year - took just two lenses (24 & 50mm) plus an orange filter and snapped whatever I fancied. It was really enjoyable, rather than hard work. Some scans can be seen here.

I like the overall effect of the photograph, simply because it is an ordinary scene. My eye is constantly drawn to the bottle, specifically the white handle. The bottle seems to suggest that something is about to happen, or has already happened. Either way it leaves me with a nice feeling.

Okay, I just, repeat, *just* started shooting with an SLR this summer and maybe I have no taste but I really enjoy this photo. One thing that I enjoy, whether it be in writing or photography, is understatement and suggestion. I like the suggestion of the wheel and the suggestion of a continuation of the ally. Actually, in looking at the "complete" photo, I am really glad that you decided to crop out the end of the street. Having more in there leaves just that must less to the imagination and pulls the viewer (in my case) 'kicking and screaming' into reality. What you chose to show us in the original is a glimpse into a world that we have to create around the scene. In a way, it reminds me of a wise old woman who knows so much more than she's letting on... she just sits there smirking, teasing, knowing that one day, you'll know too.