Thanks for the comment Shel. I tend to agree about Paul's eyes and the
lack of any real contribution from the spectators. However, I don't
think that contemporary flash illumination is different from that of
years past. It's still just a single point light source, and in BW the
light temperature is irrelevant. I have burned in the foreground to
eliminate some of the imbalance, but good darkroom workers did the same
in years past. In any case, I appreciate the feedback.
On May 30, 2005, at 10:20 PM, Shel Belinkoff wrote:
Hi Paul,
I've looked at this shot several times, and, on the whole, I don't
think it
really works. Paul's eyes are lost. Eyes would make the shot come
alive
here, but being half closed and not looking specifically at you or at
the
passers by, or completely closed as if he were "lost" in the music
while
the world around him goes on about its way, diminishes what could have
been
a better shot. Likewise the passers-by. They're not looking at Paul,
which
is OK in and of itself - there's no need for them to be looking at
him, and
one can (as I may have above) make the point that they are in their own
separate world. But with them AND Paul not connecting to any one or
any
thing, you've got a ho-hum photo here that, IMO, misses the mark. It
certainly could have been more.
A few years ago I took a weekend seminar with Baron Wolman who, in the
late
sixties and early seventies photographed a lot of musicians for Rolling
Stone magazine. He told the class something that really stuck with me
-
shoot for the peak of action. There is no peak of action in this
shot, and
if you want to expand his comments to include an emotional peak, well,
that's missing here as well.
For me, there's not much retro look with flash and digital. Maybe
it's the
new flash units that are used today, but whatever it is, that "Weegee
look"
is certainly not there - certainly not in this pic. Maybe it's the
format
of the camera v the format of larger negs and the way film reacts
differently to light. Maybe it's the greater DOF, or perhaps the idea
that
we can "save" a lot of shadow detail. Whatever it is, the retro look
eludes me in this shot.
Anyway, that's my two cents, FWIW.
Shel
PS:
What's the worlds shortest sentence? ... I am.
What's the worlds longest sentence? ... I do.
I wasn't going to post this until next week since I already posted
two
shots this weekend. But I see there's a shortage of conversation here
anyway (longest sentence? :-), so I figured what the hay. Anyway, the
guy in the pic is named Paul Miles. He's a Michigan Blues singer who
works the Birmingham streets on busy days. He's also recorded a
couple
of CDs (my pic on the cover of one). He's appeared in a number of
blues
festivals and various other venues around the country. He's quite
good
and a very nice guy. I shot this with the FA 35/2, converted to BW in
PS using the channel mixer. It was quite dark when I shot it, so I
tried the on-camera flash at ISO 800. I have some other pics from
slightly earlier without the flash, but I sometimes like the retro
look
of BW flash pics. I tried several different crops and settled on
retaining the cut-off figure on the right. I think it helps the idea
of
a passing crowd. I wonder how others feel about this partial body. By
the way, this prints rather nicely on the Epson 2200 with the
standard
ink set. I'm printing more BW inkjet these days and liking the
results.
http://www.photo.net/photodb/photo?photo_id=3410319&size=md
Paul
