'The Courtesy Shuttle'

The man appears a bit rumpled, but the car dealership 'courtesy

shuttle' is immaculate and so is the luxury car pictured on its side, as

it drops the businessman in the center of the downtown area of a

major West Coast city. Your ratings, critiques and observations are

invited and most welcome. If you rate harshly, very critically, or wish

to make an observation, please submit a helpful and constructive

comment; please share your photographic knowledge to help

improve my photography. Thanks! Enjoy! John

I like the shot, but I wonder if, for my tastes, that this would work better if it were a little less processed. His pants seem overly shiny and the creases too sharp in the wrinkles. I played with this a little to steer it in a direction that seems better to me.

And I think a different crop that would emphasize him more would produce an image with more impact. Of course, I'm only expressing my tastes, but maybe you'll find it intersting.

Best regards John!

PDE

This photo is no more 'processed' than any other photo I take, and even a lot less.  Basically it has minimal processing, and not even contrast adjustment other than just basic 'to the eye' adjustment in Adobe Camera Raw and some minimal sharpening (all digital captures require some sharpening according to experts ). . . . but it is not overly sharpened by any means, as it did not have enough sharpening done to it to come anywhere near that - over sharpening was an impossibility.

This is a bright daylight capture with a contrasty subject (the car) and the man also had a pretty shiny suit, so the wrinkles in his suit are accentuated by normal processing.

Anyone who knows my work knows I bend over backward to do minimal post processing work in 99% of my work.  I just take another photo if a photo needs too much post processing . . . .I am not a Photoshopper . . . I'm a photographer.

Now the legs of his pants may look a trifle better or at least to your taste in your view, but I can't say there's so much difference aesthetically; as to the crop, I think it detracts.  I do not crop except when i miss the capture entirely or a lens is too short and a crop is needed to zero in on something important I could not crop in the viewfinder.  Occasionally I will see something in processing that causes me to crop, but rarely. 

I prefer my original crop with the mirroring of the front to the back wheel and the idea of the wagon body and the photo of the other body encased in it, but your crop obliterates both ideas and for my money is less desirable because of that.

In any case, I prefer to shoot full frame when I can and only crop as a last resort; and I very much like my original crop; good try with your crop but not to my taste.

Thanks for the try and for sharing.  In this case it cements in my mind the solidity of my original choices, but for others, they may have different views.

We'll see.

Thanks for contributing; just because I disagree with the crop doesn't mean i don't laud your effort (which I do).  It takes courage and guts to go out there and attempt to make improvements and share them.  I applaud that.

Best to you, Chuck and thanks.

john

John (Crosley)

Thank you for sharing your high estimation of this photo.

It 'looked right' to me, and also seemed somewhat unusual.

I don't think you'll ever see another such photo again.

I like to keep it interesting even if this is not a particularly 'challenging' photo, though it was challenging to capture (this is the third shutter release, to get the guy leaning left to counterbalance the stripes on the car, right).

Best to you, Pierre.

john

John (Crosley)

I noted incorrectly the guy was leaning left.

He is leaning right.

In fact this photo is as much about the 'lines' that it contains as anything.

There are the radian lines of the rear-most wheel.

There is the front wheel portion mirroring the complete rear wheel.

There are two sets of auto lines -- the lines of the side of the car indicating dynamics to me. and then the grill of the pictured car, also indicating dynamics and set forth slightly more prominently or aggressively.

Those lines are up on the right, down on the left and I would call them leftward leaning, though the exact words to describe might be tricky.

In any case, the man's rightward leaning stance is in opposition to the lines on the auto and the auto within an auto.

To further complicate matters, his suit is both loose fitting in the pants and crumpled and creased in the jacket -- further lines for those who are looking to analyze this photo in terms of lines, as I am doing here.

I made sure to bring out the cross hatching of the pavement stones, which were nearly washed out from brightness, to further bring forth their lines.

All in all, therefore, I might describe this photo, which seems to be about a man getting into or out of a car, a photo essentially about the subject of 'lines' and their intersection with this man's transportation.

How do you see it?

I'm curious; agree or disagree? 

Have another viewpoint?

john

John (Crosley)