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© Copyright 2006, All Rights Reserved, John Crosley

Rues de Paris (Streets of Paris)


johncrosley

Nikon D2X, Nikkor 70~200 f 2.8 E.D. V.R. (vibration reduction). Converted to B&W in Photoshop using channel mixer, otherwise unmanipulated.

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© Copyright 2006, All Rights Reserved, John Crosley

From the category:

Street

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'Rues de Paris' or 'Streets of Paris' is a simple 'street' scene

that greeted me one night on arrival in Paris on my first walk after

arrival. Your ratings and critiques are invited and most welcome.

If you rate harshly or very critically, please submit a helpful and

constructive commenet/Please share your superior knowledge.

Thanks! Enjoy! John

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It may be a "Simple" street scene but you have captured it very well, especially since I love street and spontaneous images. I like the composition, especially how you left the legs of the people that have passed the lady, I think providing good DOF and motion. The lady's expression, I feel is so much the photo.

Great image and representation, and it truly tells a story.

 

Congratulations.

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I love shots like this. A million people can see a sunset and say, "Hey, that would make a great shot!" It is a lot harder and skillful in my opinion to be able to take a "simple" scene and capture a moment that many photographers would overlook. Good job!
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Actually, what looks like a 'simple street scene' follows several compositional strictures I've tried to follow as I've developed into a 'street photographer' with greater breadth than when I joined Photo.net two years ago with old stuff.

 

Notice that there are 'threes' in this photo: the woman and the two male hikers with backpacks, and the backpackers are cut off, since their upper torsos are confused by the 'busy' and contrasting background.

 

If one draws an imaginary line from the woman to the backpackers and between the backpackers, one has a triangle. Added with the line of the curb, one has three strong diagonals through the photo, one actually there and two imaginary lines.

 

And the implied triangle (implied by three figures) makes for a strong composition, which is exactly why I chose this photo.

 

I have a 'Presentation' on 'Threes' in my photography as a compositional element. Three represents 'many' but the least 'many' that is more than a 'pair'.

 

Three makes for easy interspersal of figures, and when hypothetically connected, forms the points of an imaginary triangle -- which I regard as compositionally most dynamic -- a triangle is a very dynamic figure.

 

I process all that subliminally when I shoot, and also more consciously when I edit -- just because it looks 'nicest' to me, and I've managed to put into words 'how' and 'what' I do.

 

'Whew'

 

But it's still a very simple photo.

 

;~))

 

Thanks for the nice comment.

 

John (Crosley)

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I do sunsets too, but they are so common I just don't post them. I live overlooking the ocean and if every clear day I took a photo of the setting sun, I could have an enormous album of sunsets, (and in fact have spent one hour one day doing just that and they were all beautiful -- and different).

 

But true 'sunsets' require graduated neutral density filters with 'hard' or soft delineation and going down into the soft sand and surf and really working at it.

 

I think I'd rather work with a view camera or a large format camera for that. And I have the equipment for that, but may never post such things on Photo.net They'd be wonderful for calendars though, as people love cliches (look at the views and the rates on my last postings under Early B&W folder which in my own view are pretty good and the PN public thinks they're stinkers, and even this photo doesn't score more than middle average, but if it had the name Cartier-Bresson attached to it, or Doisneau, etc., I think people would look more than twice at it.

 

But those guys all left the trade in the late 60s when they couldn't make a living when 'Colliers' folded in the late '50s and other magazines which provided their bread and butter also folded or cut back on their photo offerings (and which is how subliminally I got my training, as I was exposed to them all, except 'Paris Match'.

 

This photo could have been taken in the '50s, '60s or '70s as well as in Dec. 2005, I think, unless the backpacks give away the date. (no backacks on the street in the '50s until the '60s and '70s I think.)

 

I love to take and post photos like this; anyone can take a sunset, but a little old lady walking with her 'stick' and two precisely positioned pedestrian youths (age and youth) in a composition, is something I relish. (But you should go through my discards -- you'd wonder if my head was screwed on straight.)

 

;~))

 

John

 

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It's interesting, when a photo like this works its way through the rate recent queue, it gets worked over pretty good, then along come the PN members who bother to rate and routinely such rates are much higher than in the queue.

 

Members usually have seen almost everything, and don't rate but what they regard is unusual or the best, (for the most part with exceptions).

 

I find that very heartening that a lot of rates I get that aren't from the queue have the member's logo attached to the name -- in fact the vast majority of them.

 

Very heartening.

 

It makes me feel very appreciated.

 

And the vast, indeed enormous, number of comments I get and their intelligent content is most heartening of all. It provides constant intellectual stimulation and gives me impetus to 'keep posting another' and to 'keep trying to do better.'

 

And I genuinely do mean it when I implore 'Please share your superior knowledge', as I'm still a neophyte with lots of room to grow and grow.

 

In fact, in photography, I'm just a kid, albeit a very enthusiastic one. (Maybe a kid in a candy store . . . )

 

John (Crosley)

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Thanks very much for taking the time to explain and put into words what someone like me has been doing instictually and it is artists as you from whom I have learned tremendously and continue to learn, that are providing the tools to understand this process.

Sincere thanks. Marco

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I just have a gift with words and have tried to distill what makes things work, much as I used to take apart pocket watches and clocks when I was a young boy, then try to put them back together (there always were parts 'left over' and nothing ever worked right afterward).

 

It's something that eluded me for a long time, but once I did it for one photo, I had done it for all similar photos.

 

So once I had analyzed one technique, I owned analysis of that technique for life.

 

Then there was another technique, and I learned how to explain that in words and learned how to explain that and relate it to similar occurrences in other photos of mine (and others).

 

And so it went and after two years of doing that, and critiquing others' photos, I've been more successful in reducing what once seemed random into something more 'scientific'.

 

If you haven't you might want to look at both Presentations: 'Photographers, Watch Your Background' (or similar name) and 'Threes in My Photography', both of which are available for review and both of which are filled to the brim with photographs illustrating how to analyze my photos and how I do it.

 

The process of creating explanations for the former (background Presentation) forced me to explain the photos' composition, drawing heavily from 'comments' of others and my own comments in reply and my own ideas, and voila, I was an instant 'critic' of my own work and I developed better critique skills.

 

The result also was that I learned better how to take photographs, having analyzed to death my own successful photographs.

 

I was the WINNER for having tried to share what I saw as my successes and trying to explain them to others. In explaining to others, I had to explain them to myself first and in doing so, I learned how to use and incorporate those techniques.

 

So in explaining them to others, I explained them to myself, and then I 'owned' them and the techniques in them.

 

Creating those presentaions, particular the former, was a great teaching and learning experience.

 

If you haven't you might want to spent some time browsing those, especially the former presentation about backgrounds.

 

I think from your comment, if you haven't been there, you might find it (them) edifying.

 

John (Crosley)

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First....I really like the photo. I've tried taking street shots but feel like I am imposing on people. I think it's because I've always tried to get close-ups. I'm trying to understand all that you have explained in your comments so guess I better take a look at the Presentations. I do try to watch backgrounds but hadn't heard about the threes. Can you tell what a novice I am? I learn something new everytime I visit your portfolio. Thanks.
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Nice thread John, gives me a porthole into your thinking...maybe even hers! I agree about your backpackers being positioned for leading lines but what stands out for me is the walkers unison steps and old ladies backward use of her cane, a sincere photo. Short and Punchy? ( :
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Being a 'street photographer' isn't about just getting close-ups' it's about taking photographs of the common experience. Henri Cartier-Bresson I am sure used a 135 mm Leica lens for some of his landscapes and longer country 'street' shots, as that is the length Leica made, and it 'makes sense' for certain of his shots, given their 'foreshortening'.

 

Foreshortening is about the same as juxtaposition -- bringing the background to the foreground, often in a more or less unnatural way or at least one that doesn't appear at once to the person walking in the street, but is easily achieved with a telephoto lens or by taking a larger image and cropping it. (Either way is exactly the same, but a telephoto gives better resolution -- and its image may be actually called a 'crop factor'

 

So, this is a telephoto shot, from behind a Metro entrance, as I recall, just as the woman spied me, after I took several shots of her without the backpackers in the frame, and the look in her face MAY be one of recognition that she is being photographed (or one that her dinner is burning in her oven, who knows?)

 

The whole idea of 'street photography' for me, is to create something interesting from the randomness of the street -- anyhone can wade into a crowd and get a random crowd.

 

It is making sense from the randomness that is the challenge, hence my use of 'threes' so ofen, as they are a little 'busy' without being 'cluttered'.

 

Balaji and others (Balaji I hear is bone from this site) used his Leica close up, as I sometimes do with a wide angle lens on my Nikons, but I also use telephotos when I feel less like rubbing elbows or 'less sociable' maybe.

 

Either way works, and both are acceptable ways to produce good photos, I think, because the goal is to produce interesting photos that are 'viewworthy' (to coin a phrase?).

 

Go on out there and find a friendly crowd interested in other things, say at Disneyland at their nightly parade and teke photos of the people or the parade participants, and work your way from there (or any hometown parade or even political demonstration or gathering or even sports event where everyhone has a camera).

 

You'll be treated less as an alien then.

 

I hope you enjoy the presentations.

 

John

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I hadn't noticed the 'unison steps' of the two backpackers in the distance, but it's important to the photograph -- something I am sure I processed subliminally when I chose this photo to post.

 

And I hadn't noticed the old woman holding her cane in reverse -- how rich this 'little' photo really is.

 

Thank you for helping me understand my own photo, and why it seems to have such appeal.

 

John (Crosley)

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