St3v3M wrote:
With a look at the four winners of the Weekly Photo Challenge let's analyze why they won and see how we can apply their strategies to our own.
This is what they had to work with -
From WPC 1530 - The Street
http://www.uglyhedgehog.com/t-325438-1.htmlHELP -
Street photography
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Street_photography"Street photography is photography that features the human condition within public places. Street photography does not necessitate the presence of a street or even the urban environment. Though people usually feature directly, street photography might be absent of people and can be an object or environment where the image projects a decidedly human character in facsimile or aesthetic."
And, here are the results -
From WPC 1530 - The Street RESULTS
http://www.uglyhedgehog.com/t-327389-1.htmlList them in order, or list them by name, but let's walk through each one and reverse engineer them to see how they won. S-
With a look at the four winners of the Weekly Phot... (
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Somebody's got to try this first. It is interesting but a daunting task! I have never participated in the challenges here, so these are all new to me with this post. The most remarkable thing that jumps out at me is that I opened the thread expecting to see images like those of Graham Smith or Billyspad, portrait-like street shots. Instead, I found photos of... well, streets. No criticism, just surprise. Well, here goes nothing.
#1 - The appeal to me is the cool implied movement with those streaming tail-lights. I've always wanted to try that and never buckled down to do it, maybe this will inspire me. Also, the starburst effects on the swags of lighting contribute to the fantasy-land effect of the image. Without those two special effects being carried off so well, it would be a rather humdrum image, but with those, it goes to another level of interest.
#2 - It's all about the color and old-world feel, makes us want to be that stately couple strolling down a cobbled, uncrowded (where on earth could it be?) European street with picturesque old buildings and overflowing flower boxes. The warm feeling over-rides the distraction of the blown sky.
#3 - My own favorite, I love the raggedy row of mailboxes, the antennas, the run down buildings, the curving dusty road with somebody kicking up even more dust, the sign giving mileage to little towns we never heard of and can't even imagine what state they might be in. Right out of Larry McMurtry or some other 20th century western writer.
#4 - the most artistic of the lot, IMHO, and the most fun to analyze - lots of subdued story, contrasts and artistic design here. Two way of ascending a curb. A rather masculine looking leg in flip flops ascending on a classic girly pink bicycle, and the lady clumsily teetering in her ridiculous shoes. All of it is laid out nicely in a graphic paradise of lines, squares, rectangles, curves, angles and such, that intersect with each other and the elements of the bike wheels, and lead the eye from lower left to upper right.
Hope some other folks will jump in. The water's cold but it's fun once you get in.