"Scottish Street Musician"

Critiques greatly appreciated!

Even the stone and the light look Scottish! ...but see it was taken in Canada. (I lived in Scotland for a number of years this brings back some good memories). At the risk of causing a disturbance (:-)) I think I might have tried a lower view point for this shot.

Not bad Steve. I wuold try to tweak more on the BW conversion, greayscale looks a bit flat for my personal taste.

Thanks for the comments and suggestions, guys. Colin, I forgot to change the location info retained from my previous upload when uploading this shot. The photo was taken in Edinburgh, Scotland. Next time I'm in Scotland, I'll try for a lower angle on a shot like this. I trust that one generally wears undies with a kilt, at least nowadays. (-;

First: I know Edinburgh and I think you caught one of the sunny, bright days there :-)) Second: A scottish kilt in B&W? YES, it works - a good idea in front of this structured background! RE

Actually, RE, I was in Edinburgh for 5 days and saw the sun for only part of one day. Unfortunately, it wasn't this one. (-:

Ah, right, Edinburgh! Mind you I've seen photos of McGill University, Montreal that look very like my own Glasgow University, Scotland.

 

Underwear : very likely, I never checked!

Interesting shoot. Probably ,He wanted money.... to stop play on bagpipe.

Tones and exposure are right on. Nice work on this one from the archives.

just plain excellent BW

Nice capture Steve, nice shot.

Very nice and interesting Steve! I think the mood of "Old Scotland" is all in here. Congrats!

Street musicians are a common site in at least some of the larger U.S. cities, such as New York. Of course, the most common instruments here are probably the trumpet, saxophone, and clarinet. It was quite interesting to see analogous street musicians in Scotland playing bagpipes and wearing native clothing. If you look closely at the lower right hand side of the photo, you might be able to make out "Thank You" written on the notepad attached to the guy's bagpipes case. In front of it is a small ceramic pot for collecting donations.

The 'thank you' note is a nice touch, but the bright white pad hurts the aesthetics of the image because it pulls the eye away from the subject. It also makes composition difficult because it forces you to put him dead center instead of to the right which would work if the case and pad were in front of him.

Thank you very much for the critique, Carl.

Yeah Steve, this being a still life and not a street scene I'm disappointed you didn't just go over there and collect all his stuff move it out of the way ................ smiling out loud.

 

nice touch - but hurts the aesthetics ... (?!)

 

(-;

 

His nose tip is dead center, but most of him is right...right? Very nice detailed shot, like the white bits! ;))) Makes the shot fling in a Highland sort of way!

A bit dark or missing some grey tones as Michele mentioned... but still not a rainy day!...:o)

In fact Steve, u're twice lucky, first not rainy and second that Amelie* came in and didn't take off the "man's skirt" to check the reality of a myth concerning the existence or not of scottish underwears! (she does have the strange PS power to do such transformation... believe me!..)

]:@*

heehee Jacques...I need 'parts'...have Mr Chubb post more!

Hey Steve, This kind of image is mostly in a different league for me commenting. I very much like the subject and the tones, the patterns on the walls seem to work great with these tones. The writing on the notepad is a nice touch, but I think the white may be a little distracting? Nice shot!

Good b/w work but was he playing when you took the photo or was he being carefull that he did not disturb the developing crack in the wall. I'm not sure if it's my monitor but I can just see a hint of red still in the bricks. Still worth my rating though.

Interesting senerio Steve. Wish the buskers here had this much class and took their job this serious. As for the white perhaps some dont realize street photos always have random objects and arent sterilized with ps. To me it adds realism and counters contrieving. Btw was it you wanted Garibaldi shots?...if so shoot me mail, got few scans.

Great full-length portrait of a musician, with beautiful tone!