Waiting For The No. 95 Bus, Rome, 2001

CommentsNice

This is a sweet freaking picture. thats all I can say. If only I could get people to look that natural in pictures...

-- Noah Bryant

Dammit!

Tony, this is equal to the best of your Cartier-Bresson folder! (The St Germain des Pres one). The composition is excellent and the exposure perfect, but mainly it is capturing the eyes of the girl who notices that she is being photographed, and her self-assurance (in her own good beauty) is wonderful. It reminds me why I love Italy and Italian people (almost as much as France). It's good to see this sort of stuff still appearing on photo.net. It removes all excuses about inadequacy of equipment etc, because what makes a good photograph is an eye for a moment like this, and the skill to record it. By the way, I'm relieved to see you and others confirming that T400CN is really 100 ISO - my first night effort with it, rated at 400, was very disappointing, with all shots even those carefully spot-metered with my hexar, being well underexposed.

-- Martin Fahey

Martin...

I was running out of film and so I switched from "P"anoramic (24x65) to "S"tandard (24x36) on the XPan. Thanks for the appreciation, it's one of my favourites too. She WAS beautiful... Amazing what you can find, waiting for the bus!

-- Tony Dummett (edit your comment)

Dear David,

No, I'm not a teacher, but I got sick of making depressing photographs about Old People. When you're young I think you take pictures of the opposite end of Life's Eternal Timeline. When you're 48, you do the same thing (only in the other direction). These were really pleasant, friendly, attractive kids having what seemed to be totally innocent fun. That's my fantasy and I'm sticking to it.

If I was 30 years younger, I'd have sliced off off an ear and put it in a pickle jar to be in that young man's enviable position. If she was sitting on MY lap, my hair would be standing on end too.

-- Tony Dummett (edit your comment)

You've let us all live vicariously for a moment as a sixteen-year-old Italian kid with a beautiful girlfriend. Street photography at its finest.

-- Eric Zimmerman

Every time I see this photo I get weepy (pitiful for a person my age)...but she reminds so much of someone who had forsaken me for a person very much like the boy whose lap she is resting on.

The spiked hair gets em every time.

-- Jim Tardio

Yes Jim, he was a lucky bloke. I like the sculpted look of her face and the easy confidence in her eyes. I'd like to think they were good friends as well as lovers. Is "lovers" to heavy a word to use for two so young?

-- Tony Dummett (edit your comment)

CultureI think it's partially a cultural issue. Americans are not used to see people living their lives (and love is part of life) in the street, in Europe (where this picture was taken) it's normal, absolutely normal. That's why some Americans think France (or Italy for that matter) is a big brothel, whereas people there have just a different way of living their lives and dealing with love, sex and emotion. Kids waiting for the school bus or train, teasing each other and trying out what puberty tell's them to do is a perfectly normal sight in Europe.

This picture shows this in a sensual and perfectly innocent way. There is nothing inappropriate about the picture or the behaviour of the kids in the picture. The lust is in the eye of the beholder, but not in the eye of the boys or girls in this picture.

-- Bernhard Mayr (Erlangen, Germany)

Did anybody notice the boy's hands? How he is nervously working on his fingernails? What do think is on his mind? The girl hopped on his lap, but he doesn't look like he's proud or about to brag about his girl(friend?). Is he embarrased or afraid this might go somewhere where it's going to be complicated (emotionwise)? It's so much more rewarding looking at this picture than reading most comments here.

Does anybody realize how masterly this picture captures the subtleties of REAL love and live and how far away from it this discussion is?

-- Bernhard Mayr (Erlangen, Germany)

Did you recently upload this Tony? If not, I don't know how I missed it when visiting your portfolios in the past. This photo is beautiful, and if not my favourite, it is certainly very close. I think you've received a great deal of praise and recognition for "Belgian Kids at Kensington...", but as you state somewhere in that thread, those kids were "poseuring". IMO this photo is a much more honest (on the part of the kids that is) reflection of youth.

The confident gaze of the young girl, the pensive look of the boy on whose lap she is sitting, the motion blurred joviality of the girls in back... all transfixing. And of course, typically well composed and exposed.

-- Nick Scholte

And another thing....

Thanks Morwen, Nick, Bernhard et al, You might be interested to read a criticism of this photograph - rating it poorly - from Arthur Sevestre, posted to photoSIG.com (where it also resides):

"What keeps me from rating this with two, or even three thumbs up, is the motion-blur and the fact that the bench isn't complete..."

and this (on the same site, posted right beneath Arthur's) from a chap called Jake Garn - rating it highly,

"...very nice candid shot, I think the motion blur, only one girl looking at the camera and the incomplete bench are all things that make this image better than and average candid snapshot..."

Interesting how two people can see the same photograph in diametrically opposite ways. And then there's Eliot, who's seen through all this and really knows what's going on.

-- Tony Dummett (edit your comment)

Tony -- or given the commentary above, the Bard of Beecroft -- this is one of your better photos. Given the quality of your work, that says a great deal. The blurred kids and partial bench help rather than hinder the image. The blur focuses attention on the two lovers, as the other people fade into blissful insignificance. The bench extending out of the frame creates a tenuous connection between their world and ours. Good show!

-- Ethan Hansen

Mr. Dummett, this photo pops out among your folder I think. Gives a great sense of youthfulness and friendly, healthy relations. Bella!

-- James Allen

This photo brings up a huge pang of homesickness and maybe even a little regret. You see, with all this talk of Tony imagining he was the boy in the picture, I could have actually been that boy (or at least, if not him, one of the other kids on the bench...). I waited for many busses in Rome with my friends in my time, and sometime images like this bring me right back there. This photo for me has a lot of emotional content, and is thus a brilliant photo.

-- Sam Fentress

A wonderful photograph that so well captures the spirit and emotion of teenage years. Having just left them myself I see this picture and remember fondly the memories and feelings that at the time were so strong and vivid. Is there anything wrong in remembering with fondness those years that shaped our later lives? After all, the teenage years are arguably some of our most interesting, confusing, wonderful, terrible etc. etc. and romance (and god forbid - lust) plays a huge part. There is nothing wrong with remembering this time of such uncertainty and so many highs and lows that are missing for most in later life. What better way to remember these than by observing others and imagining their own emotions? Somehow society seems to have lost its way, there is no longer innocence, and yet in this picture you have portrayed it so perfectly. This is a superb piece of art, and one that we all aspire to.

-- Richard Heath

a wonderful picture sadly ruined by elliot chow's pseudo-psycho never-ending rantings and in the box, "trying-oh-so-hard-i'm-a-bloody-intellectual-just-like-my-college-professor" critical analyses of the language. if you don't have anything good to say about a picture in this forum, move on young man. and don't be a smart ass by saying "the discussion is over" so you can go off scot free to another photo thread (where your name will pop out again to lay waste to other people's hard work) coz you just bloody ruined my viewing experience.

-- Jury Gregorio

I like this version better than the original one - the tones are much smoother.

Great scene, nice capture of the moment. I wish I could shoot pictures like this ...

The "old" version is better. It has better contrast. This one is just too grey. The girl's face is too light.

I've re-posted it a second time, with a more contrasty image. Thanks for the feedback.

This is maybe this web site's best photo. Excellent! I like it since I saw it for the first time two years ago. You only had a second or so for the photograph. Not many people realize how little time is that, barely to switch the camera on, pre-focus, approach the object; all that without being noticed.

Unfortunately, it seems to me that the light was not that great; it looks like taken later in the afternoon. I think you would do better if you didnt over expose the film by two stops; one-stop over exposure would give you the same effect and you would get rid of that blur (maybe).The strength of the photo is not in technical details. It does not matter whether it is blurred or not. All technical aspects are more than satisfactory. It is hard to say whether the photo is light or not, whether it needs some more contrast or not; even for people that actually do calibrate their monitors (I do). Myself, after some experimenting with film suitable for my XPan I have decided that I really need those two extra stops and started using Tri-X. Tri-X scans very well in my opinion.

This single photo is better than all your stitched panos together. I think for BW documentary photos you have already figured out why you take them and what you want to capture on the film.

This is a very well composed photo. I do not quite understand other people's comments about the bench. It was taken with a range finder camera; I really admire how you managed to aligne the boy's nose with the girl's hand. One small step to the left or right and it would not be the same photo anymore. The angle is very good; the boy's head is very well visible on the white background (T-shirt). The girl's eyes are aligned with the road; excellent for the amount of time that was given to you to take the photo.

I always had a feeling that the best photos are to be taken in front of our houses. This is an excellent example of that. Whoever with a camera could take such a photo; not too many try out. All those photos from India with good colors and all that: I think they only seem good because we do not understand what they show (I dont). This is a photo that I understand very well; it is from the same world in which I live. All I need to do is go outside and take such photos. Seems easy but is not; I would need a bit luck but that reward is only for those that really try hard.

The closest photo of mine in comparison to your photo is probably this one. I was lucky. The scene in front of me was excellent. I took the photo in panoramic mode so I could sqweeze more action onto the film. I like the photo very much. I had time for a few frames - I like the photo very much except for one detail that I have decided is not important in my opinion. "Perfect" photos are seldom. I was so close to the kids that framing the scene was challenging. The XPan viewfinder is not the best in the world - my Fuji GW690 had better.

All those critiques above are at least unfair. It was not possible to frame the scene much better. I am almost sure that alll those people that say there is something not perfect would be: 1) still trying to figure out how to switch on their digi camera, or 2) they would take the photo in 640x400 jpeg mode or 3) they would never realize that this is a scene to be photographed (most likely), or 4) they would lack the intuition and miss the one second that was available, or I do not know what else. I think that in a few years robots will write better critiques. Missing bench - BAD. It is like as if photography was a rule based system. If those people tried to buy a photo with comparable qualities they would probably find out that it is hard to find one, and that they cannot actually afford one. Photos by Robert Frank etc. are not cheap.

One question: would you still decide to use the Kodak film over exposed +2f or would you use a different film?

Martin... have you been following me, or have I been following you? Many of the places you visited in Italy received a visit from me too. A few of the pictures are very similar as well. "Great minds think alike"?

 

Where your pictures differ from mine in style is that they're taken from a step or two further back, using the extra frame area the XPan provides to good effect. It's a knack I've tried hard to build into my pictures, but I keep ending up framing too tightly. The example you give of your own picture does have a "squeezed" look to it (although this doesn't detract from its quality), but in general your pictures are more along spacious lines, not "squeezed" at all.

 

This is not a photograph of a park bench. Therefore the fact that the bench disappears through the bottom of the picture is unimportant to me. In fact, it never even occurred to me. Who knows whether it would have been better framed if I'd tilted the camera up a couple of degrees? The picture is the picture. It has the hands of the young boy and boy in the foreground and that "cool" look on him, with that "sweet" look on the young woman on his lap. She also reminds me very much of my sister when she was in her teens... that may have been why I first became interested in the scene. That, and her positively "Etruscan" look (appropriate for Rome), especially around the eyes and the hair.

 

The reason I used the normal setting (versus "panoramic") was that I was running out of film and wanted to squeeze in a couple of extra frames. It was, as you noted, late in the afternoon, on the weekend I think, and I didn't have a clue where I could buy T400-CN film in Rome.

 

The one thing about this film is that you get everything - highlights and shadows - in some form or other. It also does not appear to be as grainy as Tri-X. Lastly, it's easy to have processed, down at the local (any local) mini-lab, even two-stops overexposed. At one stage I was worried about airport X-ray machines fogging film, and I thought I might get the negs processed as I went along, before I boarded a plane. I did have some rolls processed, actually.

 

Tonality isn't such a problem for me as I believe the picture can be hyped-up in Photoshop afterwards.

 

Nevertheless, I have been thinking about going back to Tri-X (part of my return from digital to film, at least part of the way) to see whether or not the results from a 100% silver emulsion will surpass the ease of use (and good results) from a chromogenic one.

 

Thanks for you extremely thoughtful commentary on this picture, Martin. It's been a pleasure to read.

".. in general your pictures are more along spacious lines .." - an interesting statement. As I said the XPan viewfinder isnt the best one in the world. I was always afraid of loosing a photo because I frame too tight without having that in mind. I always felt guilty of not making those extra two steps towards the object...

Shortly after I bought the camera I went to visit a friend of mine to Italy. We visited a bunch of Italian towns -- but not Rome. I tried a few rolls of T400CN. I didnt like the low contrast, the look of it. I didnt like the idea that I have to overexpose one-stop to get "normal" density. I switched to Tri-X and I am happy with the film. Grain is no problem. It is always possible to go closer to the object and get more detail that way.

I barely use the "normal" mode. By default I use the camera in panoramic mode. I got used to the wider frame. Also, it takes a while to switch the modes so it is not an option when the scene is evolving very fast.

I think that your photos have sort of motivated me to try to take documentary photos. Now, I find it more challenging than photographing landscapes ;). In Santa Fe, NM I met Norman Mauskopf. Take a look at his photos. By now, I have bought all the books that he ever published. Very good BW documentary photography.

When I see the way that Mauskpof prints his images - dark and contrasty - I feel like that's the way I should be printing mine. But then, when I experiment along these lines, I always end up fretting about losing the darker and lighter grays. I take a middle course with my prints. I add contrast to the mid-tones by using a layer mask that weights towards mids and leaves the extremes only lightly selected. T400 at ISO-400 leads naturally to dark and contrasty prints. I suspect it has been designed with the "modern" photographer in mind. By overexposing it, however, you can wind back to the clock to a different era.

 

I suppose this could be done in a darkroom by a real expert (no "supposing" about it, actually), but when I can scan high resolution and get the same effect on my PC, and then on a laser print, I choose the PC. I try not to over-do it.

 

Another thing that many purists eschew is localized enhancement. Ansel Adams was allegedly the pioneer of "the perfect exposure", inventing the Zone system to achieve negatives that required - if done perfectly - only Grade 2 paper for about 20 seconds at f8 on the enlarger lens (or whatever the exact figures were), not matter what their subject. Of course, Adams used to burn and dodge his prints as much as anyone else, but the myth arose that he had achieved a method where such darkroom trickery was not needed. Many photographers since Adams have tried to emulate his technical achievements, losing sight of the creative fact that a photograph is the photographer's impression of the scene, and not just a technical exercise. There are many perfectly exposed, technically perfect photographs around that are little more than anally retentive laboratory records of this or that subject matter, suitable for hanging in the living rooms of buyers who base their concept of art along the same lines as the room-cleaning management of expensive hotels. No fluff on the carpet, no ash in the ashtray, and no soul hanging on the wall. Neatness? Yes. Heart? No.

 

I use local enhancement a lot. A lightening of the tone on the cheekbone here, a lifting of a shadow under an armpit there. When it's done well, even a "gray" print (like I prefer) can jump out at you and say, "This is how it was".

 

Like some architects like to do by exposing plumbing and raw concrete on the outside of their buildings, many photographers like to make the process of their prints public, leaving haloes around heads and other obvious artefacts of the darkroom process there for all to see. Painters also regularly emphasize their brushstrokes. I like the opposite strategy: I try to craft my print so that it conforms with my recollection of the scene, without showing the artifice behind the making of the image. I want viewers to believe that what they are seeing is real, which it is, except that it may not be exactly as God (or whoever decides these things) originally lit the scene.

 

The T400 film is quite flat. On that point you are absolutely correct. When I scan these over-exposed negs thay always present as washed-out and over-exposed. This is the result of cramming a wide natural tonal gamut into a constricted dynamic range on film. The job is then to take the bits of the picture you want and emphasize them, to bring them back to an approximation of verisimilitude, while not making the less important parts of the scene on either side look out of place. It's a process of working on the print in several stages, adding more meaning to the print each pass.

 

My original scan is 16-bit, so that the first culling of tones can be done at my leisure without creating any gaps in the progression of grays from 0 to 255. I continue in 16-bit until I have a result that can be more subtly worked upon with functions that are only available with 8-bit tools. By this time, as perhaps a sculptor does after a couple of days attacking a raw piece of marble with a hammer, I have the basic outline of what I want. It's only then that the more subtle (and entirely subjective) local changes are made. I often save "legacy" versions of my results so that, if I completely wreck a print, or figure out that I'm on the wrong track, I can go back to a known point on the journey and strike out in a different direction.

 

One of the most controversial aspects of Cartier-Bresson's photography was his refusal to crop pictures, to use everything he recorded in the frame as the basis for his photographs. Many others (including me) have followed this discipline. You rightly point out the problems with the XPan rangefinder. Having used a Leica at one stage, I can assure you that Leicas have their own problems in this regard, too. You cite as a practical problem the feeling that if you took the extra two steps towards the subject the viewfiner might let you down, so you stayed back a little. I'm sure even Cartier-Bresson had this dilemma, which is why I think he tended to shoot (I'm speaking generally here) with his focus set to 4 metres. The question that arises is how, with an imperfect viewfinder that (at close range) also suffered from parallax error, he - or anyone else who prints "full frame" - could be so determined to use that full frame, arrived at (at least at the edges) by guesswork and non-scientific instinct. The only answer I can think of is that this was an entirely personal decision by him, related not to the mechanics of the camera, but more to a desire on his part to understand his fellow human beings, the better to predict their movements, and thus to understand their emotions. This, coupled with luck in not capturing annoying bits and pieces at the edges. Understanding supplemented by luck: a recipe for learning about the world; part determinism, part serendipity. In short, printing full-frame may have been a social exercise for someone who had trouble relating to others, or at least believed he did.

 

The converse is not necessarily true. Just because I get in close doesn't mean that feel I have nothing to learn from my fellow human beings. It's more a dare I make to myself to see how far I can go invading other peoples' space and then (hopefully) getting away with it by either not being noticed at all, or merely raising my eyebrows in cheery cameraderie. Getting in close could well be due to my natural tendency to chat, or if not to chat, at least to get personally involved in the scene wherever I happen to be. The expressions on the faces in many of my pictures are indications of just how successful I was at doing that. My photographs are, to a large extent, trophies of personal encounters as much as they are records of geometries and physical associations I found interesting at the time.

I met Mauskopf when he came for an assignment to my previous employer. I went for a lunch with him. He was explaining me his way of photography and all that. He showed me his books. When you buy any of them ("A Time Not Here" is probably his best), you will see that many of his photos are very grainy, not especially sharp. I believe he crops his photos quite a bit. There are a few panoramic photos that have been obviously cropped from a 35mm frame. In some cases he used the middle of the book to connect two photos into a diptich. His philosophy, as I understood it, is based on "expert" photographic design rather than anything else. He didnt seem very impressed by sharpness in photos; he noted that HCB was using lenses with outdated design (by today's standards), nevertheless, his photos have become a benchmark for documentary photography. He is teaching "Photograhic Design" at Santa Fe Workshops so, if interested, you can take his class.

Some of his photos are posed. I admire both his ability to take "unposed" as well as "posed" photographs. The posed photographs are a part of his visual storytelling; he always emphasized to me that good photos are not everything, and that one shoudl never forget that these photos are going to be a part of a photo essay and therefore one should photograph accordingly. Notice also that his books are about groups of people that are usually hard to approach. I think he spent a lot of time figuring out how to become an insider.

I can only add that his publisher -- Twin Palms -- is a very reputable one. They use high quality paper and I believe that actual fine prints are not much better than what can be seen in the books.

This photo of yours probably fulfills the well known that "one picture is often more than a thousand words". There are not too many photos that would convey such a good characterization of a certain aspect of teenage life. I would actually have to go through the books to find a photo that would compare well to this one. It has some small technical deficiency -- given that the light was very flat you could have taken the photo with less overexposure, thus preventing the blur. But after all, as I previosly said, that is not a big issue. More of a concern is that it is not a part of a larger collection of photographs with the same theme. You would probably need to devote a lot of time to come up with a complete photo essay. Take a look at photographs by Lauren Greenfield. She managed to put together a few interesting photo essays (she has my respect for that); she figured out how to approach people but the quality of hew photography is not that good as Mauskopf's. Her photos lack, in my opinion, that expert skill to "design" photos. I find her photos also a bit commercial -- she includes in her books photos of some very well known people without considering whether the photos fit in... In some of her photos I can see very good use of colors but definately for her the story is more important than the artistic side. I would prefere to own a book with photos like "Waiting for ..." than a book with her photographs (I have bought "Girl Culture" but was slightly dissapointed).

One more example would be Mary Ellen Mark. I have seen her photos in Prague at the Leica Gallery. Many of her photos were printed the way she took them; without cropping. I only want to comment on her choice of subjects. She did a lot of "social" photography, sometimes visiting strange places like psychiatric hospitals. I am finding photos of everyday life more interesting than any other photos. Some people say that they could not take a good photo because they have never been to India or the Grand Canyon. I think to acquire a skill to see what is worth to be photographed is not easy. Many people, as you pointed out, are able to take technically good photographs, well composed but they really lack in choice of their subjects. I actually believe that for them it is not a choice...

A photographer that really opened my eyes with respect to everyday subjects is Stephen Shore. I am still learning from his photography. The photos in the book are excellent, there are some of his photos on the web but they are too small to be appreciated. Most of his photos were taken with a 8x10" camera.

To conclude, the strength of a series of photographs ordered into a photo essay is largely underestimated. The best example of that is this web site. Nowhere get random photos so much attention as here :-((.

I don't mind the blurred girl further along the seat. I think it adds poise to the couple closest to the camera. I see that blur as an advantage to the picture.

This other picture was taken half an hour before we reached the No. 95 bus-stop, also this one, about an hour before. They're the nearest I got that day to an essay.

I don't think 3 pix make an essay, though. A day in the immortal city... wasted?

A photo essay is not an easy thing (time consuming). If you take a look at some (better known) photo essays, you probably notice that there are always some posed photos. These posed photos were necessary to improve on the story presented to the reader. A good approach is to take an unposed photo and then to ask the people for a posed group photo or for portraits. Just imagine that you would have protraits of the six kids on the bench. I think that TOGETHER with the unposed photo, it would be a nice collection. I am just trying to say that it is often not enough to use what is offered to you but to create the opportunity by yourself. I know that you strongly advocated against posed photographs, but in some cases posed photos look very appropriate to me. It is all about being efficient. I can imagine myself walking with the XPan around my neck and waiting for a good photo. I can imagine that it will take me 20 years to come up with a good collection of photographs, especially, because some of them would be so apart in time...

Being Italian, I look at your photos and see how you captured really the essence of a place and of an age...

 

The picture, as usual, is simple and direct, the fact that the other boys and girls are moving make easy to concentrate on the boy and on the girl on the right..

 

They're safe in their photo, you can see that from the "adult" look of the boy, and from the smile of his girlfriend...

 

A situation well caught!

 

Thank you.

Truly a stunning composition. This is one of my favorite sorts of street/doc photos, in which a single member of a group immersed in activity breaks out of their world to connect briefly with the camera lens.

everything is perfect in this photo, the sharp subjects, the blurred subjects. A miracle that in the end there is so much spontaneity!

That's because it WAS spontaneous. No posing. No staging. I just clicked the shutter when I thought the moment was right.