faces in the crowd London Tourists

Very Magnum/Elliot Erwitt. Fab picture.

 

It looks like it was taken a while back - can you tell us the year or decade?

 

Thanks,

Bruce.

David...maybe, just maybe, there is a God (of photography) after all.

In the photo.net world God and the Elves are sometimes one and the same. The elves after being threatened by that damn squirrel, threatened with loss of life, limb or conjones raised their heads above the parapet and show jejune aint on this weeks menu.

And what is on the menu? One word...LIFE. And all the bloody little imperfections that make life so wonderful (and so horrible!).

And its one of those wonderful imperfections I will beak off about, the guy in the background. That guy is as important to this shot as the guy in the dark glasses is to this one.

Move the guy? Right, I can see David now as he screams;

FAMILY...HOLD THAT POSE!

SIR...YES, YOU SIR; MOVE, MOVE, MOVE!

FAMILY CONTINUE YOUR LOOKS OF MOTHS OPEN IN FLY-CATCHING AMAZEMENT...NOW!

Lets face it folks life aint a studio shot.

Well Done David!

Wonderfull shot!! I would love to make this picture. This is the

best POW from so long time. A tipical Henri Cartier-Bresson...

congratulations! I loved to see this picture.

This has always been one of my favourites on photo.net. I've rated it before so I won't do it again, but I will say that it really doesn't get any better than this. This is one of the finest examples of street photography EVER.

This photo is great!

 

As much as I am annoyed by the presence of the fellow in the background, his 1970's style and the fact that he's going about his business make the proper subjects seem all that more like fish-out-of-water. Suppose it wouldn't hurt to blur him a bit tho, so he's not so much in the foreground.

 

That you captured this moment is a little miracle! :)

 

Congrats!

Finally, a POW I can really rave about! Not the others were bad, just this speaks to me more. Classic look, and dress of subjects makes it really hard to tell how old this photo is. I don't mind the PS blurring at all - I agree it really pops the subjects. I also respect the fact that this image was taken with a heavy Mamiya C3 -- bravo!

There is a 'Tatiesque' dimension to that shot, David
These tourists agape at the spectacle of London streets are quite a sight!
I like the way they look around them in every direction, as if their eyes weren't big enough to absorb everything.
The light coming from above enhances their expressions, like saints transfixed by an apparition on those ancient pictures.
Good contrast with the background, visible enough to set the picture as a street scene.
An exceptional composition.
Marie-Hélène

I hate to be a naysayer, especially in the face of such widespread acclaim, but after the initial humor wears off, I frankly don't see that much technical expertise manifested in this shot. Not only the passerby, but the blown-out forehead of the tall man, and other elements that are out of focus in the hands, etc., keep this from being for me more than a lucky catch. I cannot comprehend a 7 for aesthetics in a shot like this, and even a 6 for aesthetics is more than I could honestly give.

thats lovely work at first l thought it was stolen from some world war files then l realised that lm not the only one who enters a new city and be captivated by morden age .Now l know l have to close my mouth even if lm shocked beyond words great work.

It's the details that make me appreciate this image. The crooked collar on the girls overcoat, the way the boys sweater is buttoned and the button it, the fathers crooked teeth, and the mouths agape at the sights before them. That being said, the passerby with the pork chop sideburns is a bit too prominent. I would not PS him into bluriness, I would just live with it. This is a very good image, one that I would have loved to have taken. It would be large, framed, and on my wall. But every time I looked at it, I would have said to myself "I love that phoot,but damn that guy in the background!". The printing is handled very well, the light that day must have been excelelnt to render the tonal range that you have here. You talk about a thin negative, was it a lack of light or an exposure or processing goof that caused it? Either way, you have handled it very well.

After reading that this was photoshopped, I had a closer and more detailed look at the large image... And I found something quite unpleasant next to the girl's right arm - left of the frame... Basically, there is a non feathered separation between the blur area and the sharp area near the arm - a technical flaw.

I don't really mind it that much of course, because it's small and easily touched up, but I thought it was still worth mentionning...

WOW! That is a great composition you can pose them like that! I to noticed the anomaly right away, by her arm, but that is a quick fix. Excellent work there my friend!

Well, being totally unqualified as I am, I am still curious as to why the man's forehead is burned out if it's late afternoon. Seems to be some kind of light coming from above. And maybe we could give them the benefit of the doubt and say that they had just stopped to impulsively sing their national anthem. The girl is watching her Dad to get the words right.

Best,

Barry

I've been taking photo's for 20 years now, I have fun with it and I have a fairly good life in spite of not knowing or caring about non feathered separation. Christ in a handbasket do you think WeeGee worried? Winogrand? I bet they wish they were dead cause they didnt. Marc this is not one of your superbly lite, posed, and produced shots (which I would love to be able to do but I have not 10 percent of your talent & vision). No; this is a shot full of flaws...technically it would might get an 8 in Ilfords yearly competition but Blind or not I can see it would get a 10 for its ability to convey the magical capture of a moment in time.

A really amazing shot. My only complaint would be the guy in the background. Although he does add a touch of reality to the photo. But you must have done something right as no one has croped it for you and posted it back.

 

MG

A Few Answers......

You're right , Marc, about the unfeathered section, and it was cleared up for printing-I somehow missed it when I uploaded this.....The date is 1970, not 1990, a slip of the key..A couple of reasons why the neg is thin - it was the last frame on a film which contained shots I had taken of a friend's child.I had already decided how I would develop these for the optimum quality, so the last frame came out a little thin because I was struggling with the fading light with a 125ISO film in the camera. The fact that I was shooting at maximum aperture (F2.8) might answer Lannie's complaint about lack of sharpness on the hands....and it was lucky take, even though I had the presence of mind to grab the opportunity.

What else to say?. A typical subject perfectly executed. I will start to develope my Ilfords on Rodinal (mmmm..., those gray tones...)

Awsome photo. I'm one to take a photo even if I know it will be a bit underexposed...you never know, you might be able to pull it off such as you did here. Great job.

A shot of a lifetime!

 

Its shots like this that remind you that IT CAN BE DONE. Keeps you going after years and hundreds of rolls of near misses.

 

This is a street photograph rather than a creative photograph, so image buggering with Photoshop would be a lie. The photographer would be a liar.

 

At first the man in the background is a distraction, but on second glance he adds an energetic additional visual element, plus more confirmation that this is a real versus staged shot. At first I wished he wasnt there, now I wouldnt change a thing. Plus, you obviously expect pedestrians on a busy street.

 

We assume these are three family members, because of the subtle facial resemblances, mainly nostrils and nose lines. The out of focus background is a strong composition. The photo would lose 50 % of its power if it the background didnt work. The background MUST have credibility, because it is part of the environment that evokes such awe on the faces of these tourists.

 

Great shot!

I did this to your photo. (see attachement) I am not for eliminating people, but, as the godfather said this is business.

 

By the way, if somebody does such a thing to one of my photos is a dead man

Nice shot. I remember it as a spotshot* from one of the POW's a couple weeks ago.

Would including the middle man (awesome sideburns) in your definition of background be a good thing because I can see the photo benefiting from his being blurred, or otherwise subdued. In the words of Martha Stewart, it would be a good thing,

Also, Would a thin negative produce such a blown highlight on the head there? Is that maybe a scanlem?**

*Spotshot: An image linked from within a thread, especially, (but not limited to) one that has nothing to do with the thread itself. Also, Spotshotting, the act of placing spotshots within threads, especially for (but not limited to) purposes of self promotion. Not to be confused with Thread Buttons,which are visible images loaded within the thread, or Linked Buttons, which are too large to be within the thread proper, but are accessible through links, and generally appear nowhere else on Photonet. From advertising terminology, as in a TV spot, meaning an advertisement on television.

**Scanlem: A residual Scanning problem not inherent in the original image. Also: Scaneffect.

Then, there's POW-COW: POW-COmment Wasted: A POW comment having no relevance on the POW at all (What this would be if I hadn't started out talking about David's shot.

and POW-POW: POW comment that is shot down (deleted) by the POW moderator. Also, what this will probably be: A Spayed Post or a Neutered Post, which are comments that have been edited, but part of which still remain in the thread.

Call me a spoil sport, but one could wander through any major US city and catch this same general reaction from countless tourists. In that respect, it's not unique.

The individual nature of the shot though puts me in agreement with everybody else, including the comments from the elves. The fact the composition isn't perfect, and the rather obvious hasty nature of the shot makes it work. This is obviously not a set-up shot, and that's it's beauty.

Back to my nitpicking; There are many, many times we have a great shot, but end up screwing up the exposure, or processing, or some other exposure/camera SNAFU that makes us wish we could go back with a different film, or lens, or just pay attention the the light meter. Most of us are are lenient about those things in critiquing images... as long as the photographer is aware of it at least.

There is a point though when the photographer needs to fess' up and leave the image alone. We know this was conventional B/W film, and we know it's on the thin side - No big deal. However, the rather obvious effort put into cleaning the background grain and general digital clean-up tends to ruin this shot for me. David should have just made a straight scan from the image, performed some minor dust and spot removal, and left it alone. It's B/W though...and we all know where I'm going with that.

Great people expression, great DOF & composition... nothing else but great.

This is a suberb photo in one of the most difficult types of photography. For streetshots like this you need a great eye, a subconcious connection with your camera and its abilities and lastly - the "guts" to just take the photo without knowing what the subjects response will be. great work!

Great perspective and subject -- excellent timing.

Shots like these though beg the question -- how many "good" photos are buried in boxes, that will be coming out of the closet to become "great" photos thru the wonders of relatively new photoshop editing tools?

 

Are there more of these out there that will be "re-released" over the next year, than will actually be taken over the next year?