A vendor selling "Homemade Cards Each One Original"

This is part of the series of photographs I made recently of people

not expecting me to take their photograph. Photographing strangers is

a push for me so I gave it a try. This particular woman is

selling "Homemade Cards Each One Original" just outside of Central

Park in New York.

The car in the background is distracting to me. My eye keeps going to the upper lefthand corner and away from the woman (it is a woman, right?) and her cards. I think this would have been a much stronger photo if you had shot this at an angle from the right side - zoom in on her face, but still show her cards and the sign. I'd like to see the expression on her face.

Ditto on the car. I would also try two things: trying to get the cards and board flatter towards the viewer, since right now they seem to be facing away; and using a shallower depth of field that maybe would have helped with the car.

 

One other thing you could try is stopping by later (assuming you can stop by again) so that the light of the sun isn't so hard against the cards - they look almost blank.

Hello.

 

 

I like this shot. But I do see a few things which would have made it better (I do hope you have a chance to redo it :~) first the car in the back ground is distracting this is obvious now but might have been very difficult at the time. Second the cards and sign need to have a little more detail in order to draw them into the shot. Third it seems to me as if the whole picture is trying to fall backward out the left side like it is tilting and will eventually fall over. Unfortunately I do not know the conditions at the time of the shutter click so I cannot offer any suggestions as to how it could have been handled better. (any suggestions from the rest of the circle?) At first the fact that you could not see the womans face bothered me but then I realized what she is doing. Reading a book and holding the card display in place and unintentionally, I think, pointing to her product. This made it a very real moment

 

To me this image looks overexposed. It also looks like a straight print. Do you do your own darkroom work, or was this done by someone else?

 

Let me explain...

 

This image could be pretty good - there's a couple things going on: the edges are nearly white, which opens the whole image up and makes it look kind of flare-y. Like it was taken on a hot summer day. But the woman is wearing a coat. So that part of the picture subconsciously doesn't add up. Reflected light off the sign and cards also makes this picture feel "hot" to me when I know intellectually that it's not.

 

Several other posters have commented on the distracting white car mid-up-left. That's also an issue that heats this picture up.

 

Fixing most of the problems of this picture would be a fairly straightforward process in the darkroom by just burning the image in a bit to balance it more and make it look less overexposed. I'd suggest some edge-burning to balance the picture, then burn in the lettering on the sign and some of the cards. As part of edge-burning, consider lowering the luminance of the car to balance it out. You could achieve a similar effect by printing this 1 stop darker and bleaching the highlights on her back and the card sheet.

 

I screengrabbed the image and _tried_ to give a flavor of what I'm talking about by manipulating this with just the dodge/burn tools in photoshop. It doesn't convey because the information needed to really bring out the cards is not present in the print you posted. My "burning" on the car is pretty sloppy, too - this was just intended to illustrate not complete. ;) Framing the image in a black border would help, too!

 

mjr.

I, first of all, want to thank everyone for their comments. The Critique Circle idea should help focus comments from people with similar interests. This will prevent images from scrolling off the screen before possible reviewers have a chance to look.

 

I do my own B&W printing and yes, this is primarily a straight print. I will take it back to the darkroom and try some of the suggestions. I plan on venturing back to the location again to see if she is back and try to reshoot either without cars, hard in that location, or use a much lower shutter speed and blur them beyond recognition.

 

Part of what attracted me to photograph this was the fact that she was selling the cards but sitting and reading in a position where she looked asleep. People were walking by almost not paying attention. She did not seem interested in trying to attract business but was there if someone wanted to buy.

My basic question is what are you trying to convey here? Her mood is unknown to us, the face is hidden. The index finger is pointing nowhere. It seems the kind of newspaper shot that would read "Street artists are back for the Summer", but with little artistic intent. Just my feeling.

ok it`s a bad print, but i think the 2 major problems here are the messy background and the "falling" of the subject to the left. The first should be avoided with a large aperture or wait till the car is gone, the second problem should be corrected with a tilt of the camera.