'The Energetic Accordionist'

This is the energetic accordionist and also a singer -- a man with a very

large mouth and not afraid to use it -- apparently with great vigor. Your

ratings, critiques and remarks are invited and most welcome. If you rate

or critique negatively or harshly or wish to contribute a remark, please

submit a helpful, explanatory, and constructive comment; thank you in

advance for sharing your photographic knowledge to help improve my

photography. Enjoy! John

Why can't photographer's get this excited! Well done. I the 'noise?' on the back wall and the black sweater from the camera or post processing?

GJ

This guy was just fascinating to me; he was so enthusiastic; he gave it his all.

About the noise; this was shot at a fairly decent shutter speed at ISO 3200 with a  D300.  Noise is just a camera artifact and to be expected shooting at such high ISO levels. 

I used to live near Grand Canyon, and just looking at his mouth makes me homesick!

Good comment; I hope my reply is adequate.

john

John (Crosley)

Great photo, John. May I share my thoughts on it?

1. Closely cropped for fuller impact with appropriate DOF (duh!).

2. The usual practice is to lead the eye into the photo. This is not necessary here for obvious reasons. But consider this; the open mouth of the subject grabs immediate attention. His gaze leads us to his companion, who also has an open mouth. We are then led out of the photo. Was this considered while framing? Difficult, I think, for the men could have moved any time and this may not have been the result. Your subject was of course your prime concern.

3. The third person, whose face we can barely see, appears to have his mouth open too. Was he part of the group or part of the audience, joining in? Possibly the former.

4. Would you say the photo is a tad over-sharpened? This may have led to prominence of the grains referred to above.

5. Finally, a personal interpretation. The reflective surface at the left suggests that there is a world around the singer which he is oblivious to; so immersed he is in his art. The blurring caused by the shallow DOF accentuates this and underlines the relative isolation of the man.

Regards.

Very emotional accordionist!

I'm going to keep my analogy simple.......the guy feels he has to try so much harder, because he's so much smaller : - )

Love the humour of the scene.

Best Regards

Alf

What jumped out and grabbed me instantly about this image was how his open mouth and the black design on the accordian seem to be very relate to one another. The accordian bellows look like his teeth as they surround the dark open space of his mouth. Even the keys of the accordian are like teeth.

I have to say, I can almost hear a voice coming from that open mouth as well as music coming from that open accordian.

Lots of sound coming from such a silent image :)

deb

Samrat Bose,

Like many of the photos I like personally but feel might be rejected by the PN audience, his is one.  So, I am surprised at its acceptance, and am delighted to answer your questions.

First in American vernacular, this guy was singing and moving 'a mile a second' and I was 'bobbing and weaving' at a similar pace, so trying to keep him framed interestingly at a very high ISO and fast enough shutter speed, but still contending with blurriness was a distinct issue.

Because it was night, under the edge of streetlights, and with a D300 cranked up to ISO 3200, much darkness is to be expected, and also my lens had to be at full aperture, thus accounting for shallow depth of field.  However, even in brightness, I would have chosen maximum aperture just for depth of field distinction, as you noted in (1).

2.  Here, the open mouth is the subject, not the eyes, and even his front, then rear teeth.

His teeth and the lines in then 'mirror' or 'repeat' the vertical (or mostly vertical) lines of the white accordion (a point you missed, but I just noticed, because of your helpfully putting me to the task).  Then we are led to the companion.

I would have liked to place more of the companion in the photo, but a frame edge is a frame edge.  There ain't no more.

The companion with open mouth also is the subject and does NOT lead us out of the frame, but is another repetition or 'mirror' of the subject, for increased complexity in this photo -- one reason I think it has been received well.  There is a difference between having an eye led out of a frame and revealing at a frame's edge a 'mirror' or repetitious element -- although a fine one, I grant you.  And that's my judgment, after the fact.  It can be confusing or subject to debate, too.

It is not oversharpened; the grain and other artifacts come from high ISO and are native to the capture speed of the sensor, not sharpening and if anything the artifacts of speed were 'filtered' down . . . . to make it more acceptable.  This is always a matter of judgment too, when to 'smooth' a photo using filters, now that I do know how to use them, such as Imegenomics 'portrait' and 'noise' filters, both of which combat 'noise' but both of which also introduce 'smoothing, as does all anti-noise filtering.

I also use Adobe's native anti-noise filter, from time to time.  It also has a smoothing effect, though none so severe as the above two filters.

As to your personal reflection, I am happy to read that.  I was fearful of posting for fear the street post (left) would interfere with its acceptance by introducing a vertical line amid the leftmost whiteness and suggesting a crop line that was unnatural.  I could not and would not crop it out and do not clone, but didn't particularly like it there.  In my best of all worlds, it would not be there, but then who am I to say; i just take the suckers.

I am in an Internet cafe, traveling and taking photos, as the weather has warmed up to freezing and above, and BOY AM I HOT in my photography.

I feel just like posting the contents of the best of one flash or SD card, just to show how hot and consistent I'm getting with so much less junk that my mentor complained about two years ago.

I don't think I'm a better shooter much now than then, except now I shoo better more often and with less effort.  Al Farb gave me the ultimate compliment a day or so ago.  'You make everything interesting' (or words to that effect).

Samrat, I owe you a debt of gratitude for each and every substantial critique like ths you post; you do me a great favor, and I want to let you know that . . . . .

john

John (Crosley)

It has been a while, but Iseem to recall that these men were playing, at times, klezmer, music -- aform of Jewish (Yid) vernacular, which is wildly enthusiastic and 'gets into your bones'.

Whatever it was, they, themselves, were wildly enthuastic, especially this guy, for which I think we all owe a favor.  Because this is Santa Cruz, California where many famous artists may play on the street from time to time, he may even be famous or part of a famous group -- who knows?

There, the great and the greatly known can mix in a 'pickup' band on the street.

It's that kind of place, and for that I treasure it, but it's getting too gentrified for my taste; I like things 'grittier', sometimes-- too many 'chain stores' are coming into its city center, reducing the city's distinctiveness, but also driving out its considerable population of bums (bumshes as you know them)

Thanks again, for the comment.

john

John (Crosley)

I know a man who's about 6'10" and very, very big physically in his body.  He strikes me as being very large, first and foremost.

But also this artist struck me as being also 'very large' in his projection.

In fact, until your comment, I never gave a thought to his physical size (in fact, his companion, right, may be quite, quite tall.) 

In any case, this guy plays like a giant!

john

John (Crosley)

I think you posted over me with the relation between the teeth and the accordion, with their vertical striations mirroring (repeating) one another, as I hadn't seen your post when I began replying to that of Samrat Bose, but I may just not have seen it.

But you made a good point, which I came up with independently and today for the first time, too.

You are exactly right; we an almost hear the sound bellowing out of this image.

My very best to you, and if you beat me to the punch on the teeth/accordion similarity, it was only by a matter of  a small time, but somewhow we think alike, for which I am most thankful.

The weather has abated from -10C to above freezing, and I'm out shooting up a storm (so to speak), with wonderful capture, day or nite, after wonderful capture (none record setting, but most are quite satisfying).

Best to you.

john

John (Crosley)

This is a good portrait, well captured.

Regards :-)

Its Great! no more...

Thanks, I needed that.

john

John (Crosley)

Sometimes, I as a photographer will have favorites I think Photo.net audiences will not see 'eye-to-eye' with me on. 

In fact I post lots of them and some are wonderful but they get low rates and low views.

This is one of the exceptions to those on the 'borderline', and I thank you so much for noting how much you like it.

john

John (Crosley)

I agree with Samrat. Judging from the halo effect it is over sharpened