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>>> Street Photography eXchange #86 <<<

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i think you are on the right track with the crop, but i feel like it could use some slight refinement. even before you posted the adjustment, i had played with cropping the originally posted image so that the post was perfectly centered, shaving some off the top and bottom, and ensuring that the post lines were vertical. i would probably cut the top right where the shirt sleeve hits the edge, and the bottom right where the near bottom corner of the 'vegetarian' banner falls.

to my eye, eliminating some of the bright white on the top of the frame really helps, and the proportions help to emphasize both the featured shapes, and the human subjects.
 
since they seem to be all the rage this thread, today's nyt mag cover has a pretty great take on the subject:

David Guttenfelder for the NYT

David Guttenfelder for the NYT

so, maybe there's a way to do it without rotating the picture, after all … : )

incidentally, the feature on famous photographers' travel snaps isn't bad.

for some reason dpr isn't allowing me to link that (this whole post has been fraught with technical glitches), so here is the link:

Loading…

www.nytimes.com
 
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xtoph said:
i always appreciate comments-
jeff hladun said:
He looks very much as if the shot was taken head-on, even though it wasn't. Such is the optical illusion of the tilt.
Click to expand...
but it is taken head-on. it is made laterally square to the man's face (i'd have to be down on the sidewalk to get vertically square).
xtoph said:
I originally thought the "cheat" could only be done by tilting the upper frame-line away from the converging perspective, that is to say, opposite to the way you did it. It appears as if it doesn't matter...
Click to expand...
i appreciate your interest in understanding what is going on, visually, in pictures. but i think you may be trying too hard to make this example fit a preconceived (and possibly not objectively defined) case.

if i understand you correctly, you would be saying that the same photo, corrected so that there is no tilt whatsoever, would look like it was taken less 'head on' to the subject:

i-Mj3tQfM-X2.jpg




do you still think so?

i can easily understand if various people might prefer it one way or the other--obviously i prefer it the way i first posted it--but in terms of appearing to approach the subject more or less head-on, i don't see anything to recommend the more tilted shot over the level shot. if anything, i'd say the level shot appears even more direct (though that might be largely the higher magnification of the subject).
Click to expand...
I agree that the subject is shot head-on; it's the rear-plane that is at the angle. The bench's side edges are converging, which I'd say is more noticeable in the levelled, revised image. The converging lines of perspective of the original image are less noticeable - the viewer is duped into not seeing the weakness of the angle of your position - due to the busyness of the tilt.

I think if there was a brick wall behind the man instead of a vista, the illusion would be clearer, as the double vanishing points would become manifest. As it sits in the original post, the fact the bench wasn't composed head-on to the rear-plane becomes less important.



Shot yesterday. The boy was twisted almost 180 degrees, I was at the angle, and the double vanishing points went both ways. I figured better to frame the trio on the left side and lose the head to the right. Maybe I should have zigged to the right instead of zagging to the left, but to me the diagonals resulting from the tilt take attention away from the weakness of the quarter shot, had I kept things level.

--
http://www.flickr.com/photos/12191517@N05/
 

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Super nice pics. Welcome here .

The eifel tower one is exeptionqlly good. Thanks for sharing.

MeaC
 
Nice picture. Black background is good idea here .

have a nice day

meac
 
the second one really stands out among many of these offerings. the arc formed by the people wearing hats, and the mix of detail where some of them are finely described and others are sketched, helps to create both a sense of space and a development of subject.
 
The first one is lovely, it can't get much more romantic than that!
 
xtoph said:
i particularly like the light, wealth of details, and the expressiveness of the gesture of the second photo.
Click to expand...


Thanks xtoph, it was actually a crop. Do you prefer this one?

12756871815_b11d1250c6_h.jpg






--
www.flickr.com

matt austen

Explore matt austen’s 380 photos on Flickr!
www.flickr.com www.flickr.com
 
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while i like your cropped version for the reasons i gave, it probably isn't where i would have ended up myself, starting from the original scene or frame. your crop does emphasize the main subjects, but you lose some powerful converging point perspective/leading lines. i might have gone somewhere like here:



[not my photo: will be removed on request]

[not my photo: will be removed on request]

this lets you keep the additional figures at the right which i like, and by adjusting curves i think you can relate to the central woman more easily. sometimes counterintuitively, i often find that turning contrast down can allow a sense of light-filled space to develop. working from the jpg it all gets a bit more crunchy than ideal, but that's indicative of what i perceive as most interesting in your photo. what do you think?

uncropped, unadjusted version:

12756871815_b11d1250c6_h.jpg




original crop:



9679405645_203687b063_b.jpg
 
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