my 1st photo here... some moment lost in time... wondering about... strangers lives...

for the emotional chord it strikes and for the simple originality of the shot and the perfect execution. many of us see similar scenes, maybe even daily, but not all of us are able to reproduce it on film in a similar manner. this is what photography is all about. its a fantastic moment captured flawlessly. hats off buddy.

I like it, too, but I have to disagree with the comments about centering. Symmetrical compositions are not "bad," they are static. Yes, lots of subjects benefit from more dynamic treatment; and, yes, static composition is long out of style as a general thing. But "static" is what this picture is about!

Very beautiful image. Gives me a sense of an everlasting quality of the relationship between the two of them, symbolised by this embrace, standing still in the face of time.

This is a terrific example of when centering the subject works! No "Robert's Rules of Composition" are going to help you here...you just have to feel it! Great Shot!

nort sure if photo of the week is merited. Great background motion, great foreground stillness - good forms, good contrast... However, the rail jutting into the couple's form bothers me and the emptiness on the right side of the image leaves me wanting another blurred human form there. It is very nice, but then again there are alot of very nice photos on photo.net.... just imo.

Dare I say it, this reminds me of a modern day version of the classic World War II-era photo commonly referred to as "The Kiss" (it depicted a sailor - theoretically just off a warship - kissing his girl as the world went by in the background).

 

Fabulous job!

 

Make this into a postcard, and homesick men and women around the world will be sending it to their loved ones for years (just like "The Kiss").

 

One question, though I'm not sure the answer really matters to the overall pleasingness of the photo, but has the blur effect been added after-the-fact in Photoshop?

To each her/his own, I guess. This is nice, but like the frog-on-the-frosted-windowpane image two weeks ago, the composition just doesn't grab me. It might not even be the centering as I said when I first commented on this. It might have as much to do with the vertical tightness, too.

 

The Big Idea at work here is of stillness and isolation of the couple against the frenetic motion in the rest of the frame. Having more to it on the top might undercut the intimacy, but it would have punched up this core idea.

 

Either way I approach the horizontal centering, though, I come up a little cold. Maybe if there was more balance (not symmerty, but balance of weight) on the left and right I'd like it better even with the centering. As it stands, the much higher density (from people and the stairway) on the left, combined with the slight tilt of the horizontal plane downward to the left pulls the whole thing leftward, keeping me from feeling the "static" quality cited above.

i think the centering works for this photo. cropped to put the couple in the left of the frame, you lose the motion blur of the two people on that side. (i tried that in PS, myself, and i don't think the image is as strong without the additional two blurred figures.)

 

i also like the glass stairway--it was that, before the moving train, that told me where this couple is. for me, where they are is a large part of the emotional impact of this image; having said goodbye to a lover at a train station before, this photograph captures the moment perfectly. the centering is also a part of that--when you're saying goodbye to the one you love, nothing else in the world matters.

 

just my $.02.

And the lesson is that we may centre again ... lol

Well just in this case I presume. What a strong medium photography is at this level.

nice job capturing this one. and i think that centering this one works. if you know the rules then this is a great example of when you can break them. congrats on the pow.

To make it even better, I'd suggest a nice and tastefull frame with the title somewhere so that you really get the whole message - just in case :)

I must agree with all of the positive energy in almost everyone's comments surrounding this one. This could be considered a classic reworked with just as much impact as it's predecessor. When I booted up today and saw this as POW I was pleasantly surprised. I disagree with a lot of the POW picks chosen by the powers that be, but this one deserves the recognition it is receiving. This one speaks to me. Not that any previous images chosen as POW haven't been of quality, it's just that this one really made me take a second, albeit long, look.

As well, to hear that this hasn't wonked in PS more than needed really iced the cake for me.

Nit picking aside, and God knows there's enough of that on Photo.net as it is, regardless of whatever fine tuning you think you could have done better, left center, right center, whatever, appreciate this image for what it is, and what it says to you.

This is one hell of an image, I would be proud to display this one in my home as a conversation piece as well in my studio as an inspiration to keep me clicking the shutter to try and capture a quality image such as this. This right here is why I became a photographer, to freeze moments of time worth remembering.

Well done, this kicks ass plain and simple.

I really like the moment that's been captured. Nice tonal qualities, too.

There are three elements, however, that weaken the image, in my opinion:

• the starway railing at left
• the dead space at right
• the centering of the subjects

I think dead centering would have worked work better in this shot if all elements were more symmetrical. Take away the railing and put in an even flow of people behind the subjects and I think dead-centering would have then been appropriate.

A slight crop to remove some dead space at right would put the subjects off-center, thereby correcting some of the imbalance in this shot.

Personally, I think this looks better.

For artistic merit, I think this photo deserves POW though in general I'd say it's not quite up to par. Rui, keep up the good work.

I couldn't agree more on the comment above that called this a modern "The Kiss". It's a very nice picture, the couple very sharp, alien to the moving world outside. I like the centered subject, I agree with the elves comment.

 

Congrats on the POW!!

People photography doesn't get much better than this. Really like the centered composition, even though the rail and glass closer to the camera are slightly distracting. This photo really deserves to be PoW.

It's a oft-done concept well captured here, especially compared to so many who try to emulate such "Doisneau-esque" shots and do so poorly. I do not like the centering no matter the "center of their own little world" comment. I personally think it suffers from it's static center composition--but at the risk of the photographer possibly losing the image by changing perpectives, in the end it comes off ok. I find the guy directly behind them (the guy they overlap) a bit cluttering and I wish somehow we had a more romantic, softer environment for the photo to really work. Otherwise to me it's a snap in a subway station--albeit, a very nice one. Modern-day "Kiss at the Hotel DeVille"? Far, far from it.

 

Congrats on POW.

I agree with the comment by the Elves - except for the last sentence... Yes, the contrast is great. Yes the motion is cleverly handeled... But, no, I do not believe that the centralization has any sort of excuse. It is, to me, a weakness in this particular image. I pretty much agree with Steve Koppelman and Jason.

I do not think that the railing is a good thing. It adds a bit of context but this context is unnecessary due to the strong context we already have behind the 2 kissers. The railing unbalances the image given the present composition. The photographer couldn't remove the railing of course, but he could have framed differently for an even better image. The railing and the people passing by at the back, all contribute in making the image heavy on the left side - which results in an improper balance. The man directly behind the kissers is imo too close and detracts from the couple a little.

The solution to all the problems could have been to release the shutter when the man behind the kissers was a tad further to the right... A kiss is not something that lasts only a second, and in such cases, I feel the photographer should use after the first click a little time to recompose more accurately, waiting for the crucial moment when people passing by AND the couple are just right in the frame.

Waiting for the persons on the left to be on the right was actually even better to have a perfect balance, and the camera could have included less railing then by placing the kissers at one third from the left edge.

One can of course always find the shot great as it is, or try indeed now cropping a tad on the right, but to me, looking at this, I feel quite a bit could be improved when the picture was taken. It isn't nit-picking for the sake of nit-picking, but I believe really great street shots are indeed extremely rare and extremely difficult. It is only by being more critical that one can see better faster, and become fussy enough to go the extra mile in less than a few seconds.

It is a good picture, and not an easy one for sure, but it is not optimal to me. Just some constructive criticism, hopefully. Best regards and thanks for sharing. And still, congratulations on POW.

Take two steps to the right to change perspective a bit and eliminate the railing from cutting into the figure and move the camera to the right to avoid the dead center composition.

 

A very nice photo, one that I wish I had taken, but improvable.

I am not bothered by the centering of the subject couple here. I am also not bothered by the railing; in fact, I particularly like how its diagonal element contrasts with the horizontal streaking of the train -- and how it also points right to the couple's kiss.

In my opinion the centering works fine, shame about the railing but then I wish that all the critics would pause and realise that dancing around the couple trying to find the best position wouldn't have worked, just simply, this photo was a split second oppertunity, it wouldn't have half its power without the spontineity!

First time in a very long period I can say the shot is worth the best-of-the-week recognition. I asked the author a long time ago if it was photoshop work - he denied that. Exemplary use of the motion blur.

Rui great shot. I think the stairway helps, not hurts the composition. My only problem is with the blurry man on the far right, Maybe if he was further right of the photo it would balance better. Still a nice mood here.

 

Congrats!

Agreed - Nice photo. Unless I missed someone else pointing it out previously, I'm glad the faces are not shown clearly. It further implies a timeless moment any one of us could have experienced. IMO, being able to see their faces would only personalize the photo and therefore make it not as relevant to the rest of us.

Sorry if I come across as stodgy, but this is a classic example of electronic focus crosshairs. The center focus makes the photograph clinical compared to the canon of HCB street photography it is clearly mimicking.

The picture plane is very flat, and there isn't a face - in or out of focus - to be seen. The anonymity makes it a good postcard-type image. The strong diagonal is unfortunately a visually distracting part of the picture. Take the staircase out and the picture is far better.

Many of the classic embrace/kiss photographs were staged. The irony here, is that this picture seems candid, but the composition is very static.

The single most exceptional thing about this picture is the subtle square halo (a train window?) framing the couple.

Rather disturbing is the 300mm focal length, which makes the photograph eerily voyeuristic.

An OK picture, but very easy to take as presented here (a lot more difficult if you want to do it expertly). There must be thousands of potential shots like this at thousands of railway platforms all over the world. Comparisons to Doisenau's The Kiss (which was faked anyway) are a little generous, except as to genre.

To make a potentially cliche picture like this a real "money shot" you need to get everything perfect. Otherwise, keep it in the neg file, or expect yawns.

So, for a start, the empty space at the right would have been nice with something vertical in it (even an advertisment on the side of the train.... anything). A lot is said about "negative space", as if it was something in itself, as if it's a profound photographic element without any further need for discussion. Well, "negative space" is just like any other photographic element: it has to work within the framework of the image. In this case the right-hand third of the picture just looks... empty. If you want to see how "negative space" is handled by a master, look at any of Ian McEachern's pictures on this site.

Granted that the train wasn't going to provide any convenient vertical filler any time soon, and granted that Captain Kirk and Spock weren't going to teleport into the scene to fill the right hand side, the photographer had to work with what he had. What did he have? A moving train, five people (two of them stationary), a tiled platform, a stairway with bannister.

Perhaps the photographer should have waited that extra split second for the three people to move a foot to the right (providing a human "slot" for the embracers to fill) and panned the camera a little to the left at the same time. The diagonal bannister, continuing downwards to the left, would have given some counterpoint, filling the newly-generated "negative space" at the left, while the man with the cap, plus the pan would have eliminated the space to the right. The whole thing would have been better balanced, but in a different manner to this version. It would have involved all four people together in a photographic montage of which only the photographer (and us, his viewers) was aware. The motion blur of the train's aluminium siding would have then become an appropriate background, adding to the story, rather than an annoying artefact, featuring too prominently as I believe it is.

All this would have needed to have been accomplished in...oh... about the two seconds the photographer had to realise there was going to be a gap in the "crowd" as it came along the platform. The stairs were always there. Two seconds is an eternity in this type of photography, and very do-able. By the way, none of the above suggestions would guarantee a "money shot". But I think the chances would have been improved.

To the apologists who say, "It was a fleeting moment, he had to use what he could, and that was limited...", my reply is, "True, and he had more than he thought he did." He could have waited and reframed, all without moving an inch or without needing a different set of five people to accomplish his image.

Because a photograph is classed as "candid" or "street" (hate that word) doesn't mean that perfection, or near perfection, cannot be obtained. Street, studio or whatever kind of photography all have "excellence" as their end goal. If the photographer thinks ahead and is experienced enough to appreciate the challenge of a scene, apparent "miracles" can be worked.

On a brighter note, the tonality is excellent with a "realistic" range from black to near-white. Well exposed, in a technical sense, but could have been much better framed and timed.