arraga

While street-shot, not belonging to the typical genre ethos. Call it

trascending boundaries, or being unsure of the filing categorie ;).

Danielle: Hope you are joking. One of the firestarters is pictured here.

Alon: thanks. I wanted to isolate the gentleman from his other associates, and picture him against the backdrop of flames and smoke. I was partly successful; there aren?t many flames visible. On the other hand, I like the slight blurriness of the movement, in particular of the hand with the stick. The photo seems less posed that way for me.

It was fun to put an old FED 2 to the task again. Basically, I did a quick sunny/16, and overexposed an extra stop in account for the smoke shadow. The rangefinder is dim, but accurate. It'd be hell to use at night.

The film was Delta 100, which was what I could find in bulk at the time. I dearly miss Tri-X; The pic would have been 'punchier', with more contrast in the midtones (his shirt).

Maan: The picture is a commentary on radicals and their methods, and is emphatically NOT a propaganda shot.

I'm not a big fan of created/staged photos. They can only reflect the photographer's mind.

A found photo like this reflects the world, which I find infinitely more interesting.

And as a final observation... Car Trip, Papa at 80 kilometers an hour. A 'snapshot' that will be remembered forever, while staged models fade and wither.

Two ladies awaiting.

Unmanipulated, uncropped, unposed.

It is now very common for traditional painters to photograph the scene first and then paint it, something not existant in Rembrandts days. In particular now because of this benefit were now seeing detail paintings of animals never before possible

Your may want to check Edgar Degas. And his horses. Old french guy, impressionist, XIX century.

I see a lot of hip/avant-garde artsy talk about manipulation, scanners, and integration of painting and photography. I see people extolling the virtues of photoshop, like nothing of the sort has been done before, new horizons, and the armies of strawmen that accompany this debate crawl restive behind the messages.

Idealism versus Realism. That's the name of the game. The tools are diverse as the epochs. In the XIX century there were elaborate backdrops and disguises, with fake roman columns on carpet. In the 20's graphite and drawing on the negative ruled supreme. Now photoshop is the tool of choice of the idealists.

For the realists, the tool has been very simple, and invariable: their eye.

Battles have been fought, battles are being fought, and battles will be fought, as those two soul states are irreconciliable.

But it's the same old debate since the beginning of photography. The tides can recede, but always come back.

Thanks for your kind comments. While capoeira is highly fluid dance/martial art, there are some classical postures associated with the sport. That, and getting into the rythm of an particular dancer, enabled me to position myself beforehand, and wait for the inevitable frame.

It's a difficult shoot to print. The dancer is in the shade, and the sun is up outside. I wanted to preserve tonal separation in the dancer's muscles; that would mean overdevelop the negative, but the final contrast would get to the sky.

A two bath developer was also discarded, as there would not be enough separation in the midtones.

I finally went with my standard developer, Perceptol 1+3. It gives not too exaggerated acutance effects, and really tight grain. I went with normal developing times to get a grade 3 negative with an diffusion enlarger. It should print quite crisply in a condenser. The paper is Agfa MCP 312, semi-mat RC. It's selenium toned, but I did desaturate the photo for the web, so the warm sepia/eggplant tones of the print are absent.

So, right now it's a working print, straight from the neg. Maybe I'll let it that way. Or dodge a bit the dancer, and burning it in with a very hard filter. Decisions, decisions...

Agreed on the top corner moulding; I did not see it while I was taking the shoot; too concentrated on the dancer's rhytm, and did not pause to look around :\. The backpack does not bother me; the dog looking aside yes. At least it's not a butt shoot.

I'd isolate the tractor more from the surroundings, concetranting in the vegetation slowly engulfing it.

Sometimes I found it's more effective to suggest the whole, and concentrate in a small part of a large object.

I really, really like the lighting.

Also, congrats on capturing this expression. The grain of the photo complement it nicely.