Transport Energie (Parisian Youth Style)

This younger Parisian man rides very, very fast downhill in the 19th

Arrondisement of Paris (northern part of Paris) on his folding

scooter in front of signs that advertise 'transport' and 'energie'.

Your ratings and comments are invited and very welcome. (If you

rate harshly or very critically, please submit a helpful and

constructive comment/Please share your superior knowledge to help

improve my photography). Thanks! Enjoy! John

John, well I don't do much rating these days and I don't have superior knowledge so I hope it's okay for me to comment on this shot. I've always admired B&W photos, especially so recently. Probably because I can't do them well. The exposure on this shot is on the money. Great timing. The placement of this guy is great too. If I had to offer a suggestion it would be to aim the camera up and to the left more so you get more of the signs of the shops and less of the bare street.

In 'street photography' especially when zooming in with a giant '70~200' mm V.R. E.D. Nikon Zoom with a D2X it's a pretty big affair, and this guy was 3/4 of a block away when I spotted him and with frame advance set to 'fast' but shooting a frame at a time, I managed to frame twice and get two frames of him only.

 

As in all 'street shooting' there was no time to analyze the situation for possibilities -- just push the shutter release and hope for the best, and this is the result, without cropping, full frame (a redundancy, I know).

 

The D2X is pretty good about the exposure, which was in color. I added auto levels and auto contrast before converting to monochrome using Red, Green, and Blue sliders in Channel Mixer (checking the monochrome output box)in Photoshop, Image>Adjust Image (for those who don't know how to convert color to B&W and get a good result) and played around with varying levels or red/green/blue until I got a mix I liked and a 'constant' that matched the scene's brightness levels.

 

But for all that supposed 'adjusting' it wasn't much at all -- the original shot was 'on the money'

 

Despite lower ratings, initially, I like this shot very much, with its lines, its dynamism and its signs which 'explain' the action below.

 

I might have drawn my telephoto back a little had I known the contents of the signs, and how they 'explained the scene, but only a very little.

 

Thanks for the comment, Will.

 

John (Crosley)

 

 

John, thanks for the detailed story behind this shot. As for the low ratings, I don't think most people appreciate or even realize what goes into a candid shot like this. You're right, there's little time to think, let alone compose a perfect shot. I apprciate this because I do know how difficult cathing something like this can be. If I had taken this same shot, it would have been dark and blurry.

Well, Will, there's definitely a knack to it, and it's partly an attribute of anticipation and not just firing willy-nilly but having the wherewithal to sum up a scene in an instant (kind of like those 30,000 photos that Nikon claims are in its 'chip' that analyzes all those photo scenes for content, color, lightness, brightness, etc. and reduces them to algorythms), except I don't reduce them to algorythms.

 

I take in the scene, often miss it entirely if it comes too fast, I'm too tired, not aware, etc., have the wrong lens on (often carry two cameras now which makes me look like a 'geek' or a photojournalist or in the country where I am a 'correspondent?' as I'm frequently asked), and when you see a guy scooting fast down a street like this guy, you get just one or two shots.

 

That means you have to have your ISO preset, have your hand on the camera and know where the zoom is set, (e.g. 70 or 200 and which way it turns to make it zoom the other way -- I usually have it zoomed minimum and zoom out, unless I'm taking 'street portraits' in which case I reverse), and with this lens, you zoom with a twist.

 

There's no time to set aperture as with the old AI and older Nikkor lenses in which you twisted the aperture ring. Tant Pis! (So much the worse in French, as I miss it so much and I know you can do it with some lenses but not a 'G' Nikkor lens as it has no aperture ring at all!)

 

So, shooting like this is reflexive, and a product of literally taking not only shots like this but also hundreds of 'junk' shots of just about everything, and when there's nothing to shoot, still shooting, just to shoot, just like a hurdler without hurdlers will jump hedges or 'air' or anything to keep in shape.

 

And I always 'watch my background' as my Presention' on the subject will tell you. It bears some updating, but it is an important subject, as it really speaks to the 'contextual' analysis of photo creation.

 

This wouldn't be such a shot without the signs advertising 'transport', 'logistique', and 'energie' in the background, now would it, although the lines and placement are nice?

 

And in thoughtful reflection about raising my lens, I can now say, I am sure I wouldn't do so, or I'd have cropped it out, as it would have included the extraneous writing from the leftmost shop sign, which would have been distracting and have 'taken away' rather than 'added' to the photo, as I've finally analyzed it. (appended Jan. 11, 2006).

 

I thought it a much better photo than the raters, just for that, and perhaps they didn't 'get it' but then that's their prerogative, in their 5 seconds or so in an average rating process.

 

I can assure you if I publish, this'll be in any book of my B&W photos, if I have a say.

 

I like your comments -- right to the heart.

 

John (Crosley)

See comment re: French 'street photography' by Frederic Harster under my recent color photo of the Eiffel Tower at night with its searchlight, a photo predomintly in reddish-orange sky.

 

The comment (and my reply) are interesting reading, if you're interested in shooting 'street' in France.

 

John (Crosley)

John, this is a very interesting shot. Of course, coming from you, the composition, framing, tones, and all that is great. But take a look at the cars. They all look about the same. So you've got this guy zooming past mediocrity, which claims to have the answer to transportation. Now if this were taken, let's say, in 1957, the photo probably would not have been near as interesting or ironic, because the automobiles would actually have some character. We have degenerated into a society of the mundane.

 

So much for my philosophical treatise for today. Very well done.

 

Best Regards

Aerodynamics beats the radical stylings of the old Renaults or the old Citroens anyday.

 

And it's aerodynamics and the high price of petrol which now dictates European auto design.

 

Of course, not so for this guy . . . scarf flapping in the breeze.

 

I enjoyed your comment.

 

John

(more photos -- many more to upload from Paris and regions beyond.)

Another superbly timed photo John, either you're incredibly lucky, incredibly skilled, incredibly patient, or all of the above :)

Well, one of the points you made may be right -- probably lucky, but it seems I get luckier the more soles of my shoes I wear out, the more times I press the shutter button, the more times I exercise the zoom lens without looking, the more times I 'shoot' things that don't really matter just to 'practice' and the more times that I just 'try' to do something, anything to keep in shape, like a hurdler jumping over shrubbery when there are no hurdles. (I'm actually kind of gimpy so the shoe sole analogy may not be so good, or is it, as I was limping all over Paris, with the wonder of the city and its possibilities masking the pain of my sore feet, joints and overall stiffness?)

 

And, finally, and maybe most importantly, the Nikon D2X seems in the end to have made me even more productive (Nikon, please send me a new one or something in return . . . for this unsolicited testimonial . . . fat chance.)

 

That wonderful camera is a shooter's dream.

 

Yesterday, at an exhibition park in some unnamed city somewhere in the world I shot 300 photos from a dancing father frost with a young woman to an 'Octopus carnival ride and rider at night' to a bactrian camel spitting at a smaller horse, all in one day -- a two-hour day, and the camera was superb. It's with me everywhere, with its great bulk only exceeded by the 70~200 V.R. E.D. lens that's often attached to it, except sometimes at night when it's sometimes off, though I can use it at 1/4 second at 200 mm which I just did to take photos of cold air circling around a construction worker's head (as well as his exhaled smoke) in the night cold where I am . . . any hints about where I am? . . . I'm not giving them.)

 

When a guy like this zooms along, I'm prepared. I miss a lot of shots. Sometimes my 'focus' point is mispointed, and the background guy or shop is in focus, in low light especially in short days with cloudy overcast in winter in the far north where shallow depth of field is common and I pinch myself when that 'great shot' on the viewing screen turns out to be plokeh (bad or disastrous) (not Japanese but kind of rhymes with Bokeh, though not quite; re: movie 'Educating Rita' if you saw it.)

 

And the five-frames-per-second feature of the D2X means that if you can't get it the first time, there may be a second time, but I never 'lean on' the 'frames per second' device and shoot each frame individually unless I'm shooting something like a carnival ride, and even then I tend to shoot each frame individually.

 

I'd save frames per second devices for sports where there's a scrimmage play or things like that or motorcycles coming around a curve, or car accidents at a race course.

 

Thoughts for the day, inspired by your brief comment.

 

(I've been thinking about just what you said and reviewing the 120 or so photos sitting on my hard drive that could be uploaded if I had the time -- and Internet access from it instead of Internet cafes.)

 

Best wishes.

 

John

I 'love' this photo for what it is; not a world-class photo, but workmanlike and entirely spontaneous, and representative of the best of my craft -- something I could produce that I think few others could under the circumstances.

 

Raters -- the few who thought it rateworthy -- have given it a 4.00 and a 4.00 + (and barely that) and fewer than 2,000 viewers have seen it through today's 'view' count, but I am undeterred.

 

I will sooner post photos of this sort than cater to whatever 'taste' raters seem to prefer, IF I ever could determine that.

 

Maybe that's the reason I just shoot for myself, knowing instinctively that some photos will 'score high', others less so, and being surprised sometimes when 'low scores' come in, but really not caring so much, because it all comes out in the totals and averages -- and the comments (see above) are part of what makes this whole exercise worthwhile (thanks commentators!).

 

John (Crosley)