Bunkershot Loc: Central Florida

Comments pro and con will be welcomed. This image was shot by my daughter on St. Maarten. She knows nothing about street photography, but I thought it would be appropriate to post it here.

(Download)

Voss

I like your photo. I like the way the trees lead into the building, and I like the people in front of the building. A suggestion: try turning it into a vertical photo by cropping the left side enough to get rid of the white shirt, cropping the right enough to get rid of the trash can, and the bottom about half way between the edge of the photo and the base of the right-side palm tree. This will help focus attention on the building and the people in front of it, as well as emphasize the verticals of the palm trees.

Bunkershot Loc: Central Florida

Thanks for the suggestion Voss. I'll give it a try but I suspect that it'll cut so much out, that the character of the street scene will be lost. My thinking is that a street scene IS what it IS and probably should not be messed with...

Bunkershot

camerapapi Loc: Miami, Fl.

The visual design is great although I would have preferred less manipulation that tends to make it surreal.

ricardo7 Loc: Washington, DC - Santiago, Chile

I think this picture is a bit over worked and the photographer should have taken advantage of the symmetry of the scene rather than moving to the side.
As far as this being "Street Photography", I think it misses the point. Street photography is not about pictures of streets, but capturing the significance of the social landscape. Look at Winogrand, Friedlander and Cartier-Bresson for starters.

Bunkershot Loc: Central Florida

Thanks for the references. Looks like 3 different but similar approaches to street photography; very focused on closeups of people found on the street...

ricardo7 Loc: Washington, DC - Santiago, Chile

[quote=Bunkershot]Thanks for the references. Looks like 3 different but similar approaches to street photography; very focused on closeups of people found on the street...

Many of the early street photographers and their followers worked with 35mm film cameras using lens focal lengths of about 35mm to 55mm. They indeed, were close to many of their subjects. That requires quite a bit of chutzpah! I tell my students that if they really want to be a good street photographer they have to be willing to take an occasional punch.

Apaflo Loc: Anchorage, Alaska

Thats a bit of failing to see the forest because all these danged trees are in the way!

Winogrand and Friedlander certainly remained almost totally in urban environments, and Cartier-Bresson was mostly urban, but none of them were limited to street scenes or locations. They shot images on beaches, on rivers, in stores, in cafes, at social functions and many other non-street locations. A physical "street" has no significance to Street Photography. In particular Winogrand really detested the nomenclature "Street Photography", and Cartier-Bresson wasn't far behind. That was because they didn't see themselves as tied to a street in any way, they didn't see a road or street as the subject in any way, and since what they photographed was life itself they felt people missed the significance of their work if it was labeled incorrectly.

The reason why so much of Street Photography is shot on urban streets is simple though, because if you stand on a 5th Avenue corner in NYC there is a steadily changing stream of life passing by! It takes a lot less effort to get 1000 different shots there than it does parked next to a path in a dense forest 10 miles from a road...

Of course other well known Street photographers, Joel Meyerowitz in particular, adapted to that name very easily and had no problem with whatever misunderstanding there might be.

The point here though is that Street Photography is not focusing close up on people found on the street! The subject of Street Photography is life. It is documenting the relationships between people and their surroundings as they live. There is no necessity to even have a street or a person in the photograph! Most noticeable is that in good Street the subjects of the pictures are not the physical objects, but rather the actual subjects are the intangible relationships between physical objects. Straight photography, but mentally an abstraction.

Bunkershot Loc: Central Florida

What an interesting and educational discussion thread...Love it.

rgrenaderphoto Loc: Hollywood, CA

IMHO, and I Do it all the time, your HDR processing is creating halo effects. I apply the HDR treatment in a separate layer in Photoshop, then adjust the opacity to blend the effects. This was the first big thing that got me comfortable with layers.

Bunkershot Loc: Central Florida

Pardon my ignorance but what is the meaning of IMHO?

ricardo7 Loc: Washington, DC - Santiago, Chile

Just another annoying bit of net lingo.

See the following: http://www.netlingo.com/acronyms.php

rgrenaderphoto Loc: Hollywood, CA

In My Humble Opinion. As old as the Internet itself, right up there with LOL, ROFL, WFT and TINYFO

Bunkershot Loc: Central Florida

If I had to learn all of those acronyms to converse on UHH I'd never have time to enjoy shooting, processing, etc.

Bunkershot Loc: Central Florida

Actually, I've only experimented with HDR once and the St. Mar ten image wasn't it. I used the detail extractor in NIK Collection to get that effect. Probably overcooked it a bit.