One Man Band

[Danyarnos]

http://www.aidemedia.co.uk/photoblog/index.php?showimage=50

Comments Welcome, I had trouble exposing this shot right, but I'm fairly happy with the results.

[skennedy1217]

I like the composition...one man band in a crowd of people...there's just something amusing about it. I would have maybe tried to take it when there were not any pedestrians so close on the opposite side of the one man band. I know this is hard to do on a crowded street, but the lady in the white shirt and jeans is slightly distracting.

Have you seen your site in Firefox? Everything is pushed to the right. Looks great in IE6, though.

On an unrelated note, nice to see your photos from the U2 concert. I saw them in Philadelphia back in the spring and was too chicken to take a camera. I ended up in the ellipse right in front of the stage. I'm still kicking myself about it. I'm seeing them again in December, but will be seated instead of in the General Admission section. So unless I bring the DSLR and a tele lens, I won't get any close-ups like I could have had. :(

[blinking8s]

i kinda dig it, a little more DOF or something to seperate him from the BG a tad bit more might have worked better...and then I want a follow up showing his face though, i'd shoot that dude for a good 30 minutes if i EVER saw that around here...haha

[Danyarnos]

I think your right about the lady being slightly distracting, I could probably do something about that in PS.

I haven't seen it in Firefox I'm going to have a look now, thanks for that.

U2 was the gig of the year for me, especially being on holiday on the Cote d'Azur.

Blinking8s: your right and I have already added a little lens blur, but maybe a couple of percent more would've been better, and I am going to post another one of him today.

stay tuned...

[blinking8s]

as a "student-photojournalist" i try to stay pretty clear of over processing anything, then it just becomes a lie to a degree. But I also do a lot of design work and photoshop the heck outta stuff, so year...it's really you're call...but I just normally accept that I messed up and should have composed different. It's a live and learn process.

[Danyarnos]

why does it become a lie? or accept that I messed up? just because I didn't do the DoF the way I would've liked when I took the picture, doesn't mean I can't deal with it later to recreate what I actually wanted to capture.

Its all part of the "digital dark room"...


I must admit I don't like it when people apply allsorts of filters in photoshop, but a bit of blur, burn, dodge, USM, never hurt anyone :)

[blinking8s]

it's a strange world of journalism ethics, i can't really explain it...haha

[garethm]

Ansel Adams said "The negative is comparable to the composer's score and the print to its performance. Each performance differs in subtle ways."

Photography involves a process of decision-making; selection and rejection of alternatives. I choose a wide aperture to reduce the depth of field, eliminating the background. I choose to print on hard paper, or to cross-process, or a slow shutter speed, or to dodge and burn in the darkroom. None of these things are regarded as illegitimate activities. What, then, is the difference between them and achieving similar results in photoshop?

Blatantly changing the material contents of an image by pasting into it elements from a completely different photograph is one thing; a bit of selective blurring is quite another. As a photojournalism student, you need to be clear on your philosophy :)

[nephoto]

I think what Blinking8's is trying to say is that people tend to begin to rely more on the fact that they can digitally post process pictures to look how they had intended rather than learning how to take the picture 'in camera', essentially becoming a better photographer. As students that is our goal, seeing as how we don't want to be sitting at the computer after every shoot for extended periods of time to make the picture look how we had intended to do in the first place, rather just drop and go :) Neither way is right or wrong, just preference to time management I s'pose.

Besides that though I'm loving this guy as a subject, I have been waiting to come across someone like this and have yet to have the pleasure, nice pictures.

[Danyarnos]

I see what your saying, and am definately in it to improve my skills. What I will say is in my opinion some photo's I take, I'm completely happy with and don't do much to them. Sometimes I take a photo and get back to my computer and see that its very close to being a great photo. Rather than binning it, I do a bit of tweaking, and hey presto the "One Man Band" picture.

So I think sometimes no matter how good you get, theres always room for jello, I mean Post processing :)

[blinking8s]

depends on the angle of photography you are after really, in photojournalism or documentation, we'll take national geographic as a sample idea, you're not going to add blur to something, it's not a natural alteration of a photograph (photoshop or not) and fundamentally alters the images composition, therefore it's not really a photograph anymore and is of no use except for pure artistic purposes.

with digital, you always have to post process, its very hard to compose a perfect photograph even on the latest digital cameras. But there is a range outside of toning an image where it starts to not be photography anymore, and its photo-manipulation or photo-illustration to a degree.

I have one exception that allows me to alter an images composition, and thats if I am trying to recreate something as if it were shot on film, or a type of film camera.

like i said, it's a weird set of values...haha