'Balance'

Good 'Street' photos often succeed if they work in in black and white, but to

add color adds a completely other, and much more difficult dimension, as

seen in this photo of a mother with her blue and green baby carriage passing

two blue and green pay telephones. Your ratings, critiques and observations

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

make a remark, please submit a helpful and constructive comment; please

share your photographic knowledge to help improve my photography. Thanks!

Enjoy! john

The umbrella is a perfect fulcrum for the balance of color and composition. I think it's the color that really makes this one for me, though I also like the pattern and contrast. This is one of yours that gets more complex as you realize how nicely all the elements fall together.

Amy

I'll  reply to my commenters a little later.

About 'roundness':

Notice that (1)  the Umbrella is both round and a giant 'color wheel'.

(2)  the baby carriage has four green wheels.

(3)  the two pay telephones (taksophones) are roughly round(ish) in shape and green.

These are more elements of coordination that are part of the synchronicity of this photo, not so likely to be commented on I think.  Apologies to anyone who discovered or saw those repetitions of roundness (and color) and was about to write a comment.

john

John (Crosley)

I like your phrase 'perfect fulcrum'.  Who knew how complex this was?  Especially after my comment above about things circular -- e.g. wheels, phone booths (almost circular, or nearly so) and the umbrella.

I worked this up two years ago, didn't post it in the meantime and as I was uploading a file of 1,200 to 1,300 worked up (many posted) photos to a cloud storage service ran across this and did a 'dope slap' to my forehead 'Why didn't I post this -- this is the epitome of what 'street shooting' is all about in a 'formal sense' when it comes to color.  Good street shots that make terrific sense in color much more than black and white are very rare birds, and this is one of the few where it's not exactly color dependent, but almost so, as the color triumphs over the black and white version (also good) by a significant factor.

The two year old workup was a little 'shaky' probably accounting for why I didn't post it, but I applied a new tool in Photo.shop to mostly cure that, and it worked marvelously, then a couple of other 'tools' also to correct other 'issues'.  My ain't Photoshop CC (2014) getting ever so helpful when something's just not 'quite right' but nearly so.

Thanks for your comment, and yes, the 'umbrella' certainly holds things together.

Best to you.

john 

John (Crosley)

I agree with your comment about the capture, but apparently other raters do not -- I challenge any of the lower raters to capture something so sublimely and almost perfectly on the street in 1/100th of a second with no real advance warning -- I just looked up, saw, raised camera and fired, all in about a second's notice -- no stalking involved.

But the ratings have their purpose; for the most part they get it right, with some significant 'issues' -- and sometimes I just have to differ with them.

Maybe you and I together?

john

John (Crosley)

Have you ever seen a color photo so well-coordinated?  I haven't, though I have one close contender (three pairs of twos outside a grocery (iziomunka) in Dnipropetrovsk, Ukraine, with one pair being on a billboard and the whole photo being in shades of pink and grays.

I place this on a par with that, but frankly that one didn't get a huge reception here either, but it warrants a place in my all time best color photos, and this won't be far behind for the category of 'street color' not involving expressions or emotions.

Thank you Jack for weighing in; your forays here are always appreciated.  I agree about the parasol (nice fancy word for umbrella, or as I have renamed it, color wheel).

;~))

john

John (Crosley)

Strong composition. Color works greatly here!

It's a very simple composition in one way, but in another it's quite complex with so many different, coordinating parts, isn't it.

Thanks for the kind, supporting comment.

john

John (Crosley)