Sasha -- The Taxi Driver**

This is Sasha -- The Taxi Driver, a 'street' portrait taken at

night, in his car/taxi. Your ratings and critiques are invited and

most welcome. (If you rate harshly and/or negatively, please submit

a helpful and constructive comment/Please share your superior

knowledge to help improve my photography.) Thanks! Enjoy! John.

excellent john. really enjoyable use of the car light, great composition, really feel him at work. if i have a quibble, its that the light outside the front window is a little bright/harsh for me.

When Sasha saw me pointing my camera as he puzzled over his map, he started to put his glasses over his eyes -- AT NIGHT WITH SUNGLASSES -- and I nixed that, took several photos, which I discarded as too 'posed' until he relaxed from being too 'tired' at being photographed, and when he relaxed, he finally got down to the business of trying to locate where I wanted to go, and voila -- this photograph.

 

Nikon's lighting system really came out wonderfully under this incredibly 'mixed' lighting, didn't it -- both for metering and for rendition? All set for 'AUTO' color.

 

Thanks.

 

John

john, you describe what happens to me all the time. with a 10D i don't worry about how many shots i take. often, with someone i don't know, the first half a dozen shots or more are stiff and mean nothing other than it is the time we are getting to know each other. at some point they relax, i find the angle, we chat, both their eyes are open and their mouth is shut, and life is good.

;-)) (My reaction to your comment -- yes, all is right when that happens.)

 

By the way, I tried to comment on a photo you had up for review, and PN wouldn't accept my comment -- it was a flower photo, exceptionally well done -- apparently you had withdrawn it??? I had liked the repetition of the curves from the stamen(?) to the petals, as well as good, strong colors, contrast and exceptional sharpness and clarity.

 

John

thank you john for the comment. yes, i withdrew it. i have tweaked it a little and am reposting. feel free to take a look again. there are others like it in my nature folder, taken while i am walking my dog louie. thanks for the interest.

 

by the way, to go on about this one, the way you've used the seats for framing is a great example of finding some way of portraying the every day real world in an artistic way. i love that stuff far more than set up shots and the like. finding something extraordinary in the ordinary is great fun.

Thanks for the nice comment about using the car seats for framing. The fact is that no two of my photos seem to look like any others for the simple reason that I eschew a 'style', for just taking what 'appeals' to me.

 

I go out almost every time with a camera in hand and try to think as though I am going to take a photograph through the viewfinder and keep the photographic aspect in mind. With the great ISO range of the digital camera available to me -- this is an ISO 1600 photo -- and not having to change film ever -- I can afford the luxury of taking photos at or near midnight, as this one, under the dimness of a car light.

 

As you can see, I'm a pretty steady holder, for reasons that escape me - possibly because my blood pressure's quite low for a guy of my age/girth, and maybe because of extrinsic factors that are just idiosyncratic to who I am. And this photo is even stopped down, if you can tell, for some sharpness front to back.

 

'I just take what pleases me', and so often that means breaking the mold and taking photos that no one has ever thought to take before, and often capturing expressions (as you noted above) that are felicitous.

 

I was completely charmed by your architectural work, by the way, as well as that special photograph of the baseball player which 'spoke to me', sans glove, hands, background, etc., -- a very special capture -- enhanced by the wonderful crop (and in his slimness, the ball(s) in his back pocket) Congrats.

 

John

This photo is full frame -- uncropped. Unlike earlier photos which included too much of the interior auto light, this one rendered it correctly, and as a result, this photo needed absolutely no cropping and is completely full frame.

 

John

Thanks John, compliments on my work from you means a lot to me. Best regards, Ben

Muchas Gracias, (Rafael removed his comment -- apologizing for his lack of English.)

 

Juan

john, this use of the seats inspired a composition of a montage i came up with last night, about two basketball players. feel free to take a look. this sharing, its one of the best things about p.net.

I really like this composition a lot. It has an artistic feel to me. Also, ISO 1600, very impressive.

A great shot of an interesting looking guy with an obvious connection between himself and the photographer. I like street portraiture almost more than any other genre and the wide angle you've used to include the car seats both creates an aesthetic frame and keeps the story relevant. Did you shoot from chest height or did you get into position? When one sees photos like these one thinks it would be nice to see a whole series. I know that when traveling around in unusual parts of the world one often builds a bond with the various (better) drivers and they tend to make great subjects, I take their pictures often. This happens to be a paticularly fine one.

By the way do you remember when we met in Bangkok we briefly talked about how great it would be if there was a compact digital street shooter that worked well at high ISO's as a discreet low light tool but that technically it was probably too hard to do because of noise? Well I've just noticed that Fuji have had a go with the F10 - looks way cool. Thinking about getting one, would open up many possibilities. Good work as ever John. Miles.

My position was sitting low in the back seat. My camera was at eye level, as the D70 does not allow focusing using the viewing screen.

 

I was surprised, given the varying lighting and its obvious low level, that this photo and the series came out as well as it did.

 

If you look carefully, you can even see that this is a double portrait, with the driver's face caught in the rear-view mirror.

 

And, actually, given the 1.5 multiplication factor of the D70 CCD (charge couple device) and a 24 mm zoom length, this has the equivalent of a 36 mm lens at a relatively large f stop for depth of field with a very long shutter speed, using the V.R. (vibration reduction) feature of the lens to stabilize the image (plus I'm a steady holder anyway).

 

Thanks for your comment.

 

John