Smoker's Corner

Thanks for looking, more thanks for making the time to comment.

Scene from local hospital. What do you think about the space?

The left half of the image has zero impact. The good right half, now reduced in size, also suffers as a result.

 

I like the fact that you show that the smokers have been backed into a corner, when the other table, closer to the walkways and nonsmokers, is available. There's a message in here, somewhere. I am not sure if I like or dislike your vantage point, looking down.

 

On the screen, I can barely see that they are smoking. You say that this was outside a hospital -- did you want to show that, does it impact your message? I don't see anything hinting at a hospital here.

 

There seems to be a profusion of ashtrays and trashcans in this small space!

 

Thanks Thirumale

Re: left side of the image; my thought/intent was that the space emphasized the "corner" theme, but I guess it's not working!

No, I didn't particularily want to depict the hospital aspect, just a generic corner.

Cheers

Ah, now that you mention it, yes, the LHS does emphasize the "corner" aspect -- they are more hemmed in. I spoke in haste, above.

 

Re: the waiting area to the left also seems to be a smoking lounge of sorts. Those steel cylinders are ashtrays, aren't they? If so, the photo asks interesting questions -- why are the folks inside not smoking, and is it because of the presence of those two that the smokers are outside? Have the smokers even been driven out of smoking areas?

Show them that they're isolated!!! The 'but' hut!!

The smoking cabin looks a lot sadder than the smoking corner. At least there you can breath clean air, which in a hospital is a necessity anyhow. I have a small job in a hospital and working there today reminded me of this picture: after so many hours of inhaling disinfectants and illness you do really want to get out!

 

Well, about the picture. I actually agreed with most of Niranjan's first comments. It's all a bit dark (which could be my monitor again) but are they having beers?? That would be a major victory for the corner! :) Your vantage point from above is fine, it accentuates the corner aspect. But if you could, I wish you had moved to the right. Not necessarily centering the people, but eliminating the odd angle at which the right wall comes into the picture. How shall I put this, to get the divergent lines of the right wall AND the cabin somehow more alike (obviously in opposing directions). Hmm, does this make sense to you? If not, I'll try to do a quick sketch. And you'd also get the back wall not to end abruptly within your frame.

 

What's with the guy at the right? Is he the one picked on by the wicked nurses on the left? A small tragedy in a isolated corner - I like it. Regards,

Thanks to all who made (or will make) the time to comment.

In my reply to Thirumale, I should have written that I thought the LHS emphasised the isolation, not the corner.

Jeroen, I think(?) I know what you mean about moving to the right. It would have given a view of the side as well as the front of the shelter and so provided converging lines to match the convergence of the wall? Interesting, and I think you may be right.

For what it's worth, the photo was taken from a vantage point obviously above the scene, but I chose to shoot with the camera pointing level, not pointing down, to avoid wierd angles in all the building lines.

Then I butchered a big part off the top because the light areas of reflection totally chnged the picture, making the part I was interested in disappear. Really!! Isn't it enough to make true artists roll over and puke!

Might have been interesting from the lower level (same as "theirs"), but I don't think the spacial relationships would have been there, and that's what I was exploring.

This IS an example of why I bought this little camera to have as a point and shoot. I was on a different errand, not a photo shooting sesssion at the time, but the camera was in my pocket, and available when I came across this, and thought "that's kind of interesting".

I have attached a (highly compressed) full frame copy if anybody cares.

Cheers

Yep, that's what I meant, Wayne. Amazing that you understood.

 

That is a strange building alright. But I think that while you were rolling over in disgust, your camera was underexposing. Or rather, properly exposing all of the scene and thus leaving the bottom dark. If the camera has exposure compensation or spot metering available, this would be the time to use it.

 

Anyway, good thing to always have a camera in your pocket. I often carry an Olympus epic on me for the same reason. We can't claim to have missed the perfect photo for lack of equipment. Cheers,

Hmmmm, I think one of the main issues is that the location of the picture isn't especially photogenic, and trying to show too much of it in an effort to create space can actually detract from the picture and introduce too many distractions - the reflective glass in the original for example. On the other hand, zooming in too much loses all sense of scale and isolation.

 

In striking a balance, I think you have pretty much come up with the ideal compromise considering the limitations imposed upon you. However I do feel that the image is lacking front to back depth which limits the feeling of isolation that you are trying to emphasise. Though the original doesn't have much more foreground to play with I think that including what was there makes a significant difference to the overall impact of the shot.

 

Perhaps this could have been further enhanced by angling the camera downwards to include more of the ground and less of the building (which you've cropped anyway)?

S Wan: very good point about the extra foreground being important. Cropped tooo much. I did not want to tilt the camere down for the reasons I mentioned above.