FedEx

[RSL]

.

[Rob C]

Cracker!

Rob C

[WalterEG]

Is this 'ROAD' photography as opposed to 'STREET'?

Quite a telling picture.

W

[nemo295]

At first, I thought the foreground needed an additional half stop exposure. But after looking at it a bit I think I'd leave the foreground as it is, but dodge out the truck just a little so it stands out a tad more, but not too much (if this were a commercial assignment for FedEx they'd want it to really pop).

[RSL]

You're right, Doug, and if I were shooting for FedEx I'd have made the truck pop. But that's the nice thing about shooting for yourself. I want the confined sunlight on the hills to pop. It pops.

[Eric Myrvaagnes]

Is this 'ROAD' photography as opposed to 'STREET'?

Quite a telling picture.

W

Yes. That's why it has the "Truck of Man" instead of the "Hand of Man." 

I like it, Russ. The sunlight on the hills is just right.

[David Eckels]

And you were in the fast lane! Hasn't anyone told you not to shoot and drive? So forgive me, I like it, but it's weird. At the risk of asking a rube question, is "street photography" a style or mode that strives to be quirky? Hope this doesn't come across snotty, it's not meant to be so.

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

Is this 'ROAD' photography as opposed to 'STREET'?...

I would say it is a landscape photography. Or road-trip photography, a sub-genre of travel photography. I see it as landscape not only because it contains one, but also on purely esthetic grounds: lovely, muted, Earth tones; even the truck has one, echoing the sunlit hill in the background.

[RSL]

I didn't take it that way, Dave.

My wife was driving and I was shooting.

No, street photography is documentary photography -- documenting people and their activities -- which, among other things, doesn't tell a complete story. "Ambiguous" is the word people use to differentiate street from normal documentary, photojournalism for instance, but "ambiguous" doesn't really describe the difference. To understand the difference you need to study the work of people like Henri Cartier-Bresson who didn't invent it, but who defined it with his surrealistic early photographs. Other street masters worth studying are Andre Kertesz, Robert Doisneau, Willy Ronis, Walker Evans, Elliott Erwitt, Marc Riboud, Helen Levitt, Robert Frank, Garry Winogrand, and Lee Friedlander to name just a few. Some of these people were photojournalists, and you have to distinguish between the documentary photography they did on the job and the street photography they did in their spare time.

Last year I wrote a couple short articles on the subject. Having spent years submitting poetry to "little magazines," with a fair amount of acceptance but with too much work, I never got serious about sending out the articles. I enjoyed writing them, but I don't really care that I can't read them in a magazine. They're at:

http://www.russ-lewis.com/essays/OnStreetPhotography.html

and

http://www.russ-lewis.com/essays/WhyDoStreetPhotography.html

But FedEx isn't street photography. It's highway photography, or, as Slobodan points out, actually landscape. That's fun too.

[David Eckels]

I know of Bresson and Friedlander of course, but will look up the others. Thanks for the explanation. PS Glad you weren't driving

[rogerxnz]

You're right, Doug, and if I were shooting for FedEx I'd have made the truck pop. But that's the nice thing about shooting for yourself. I want the confined sunlight on the hills to pop. It pops.

Lovely colours and tones in the rocks but I'm confused. The title refers to the truck, so, I would have thought that was the subject but you made the sunlight on the hills pop and that area stands out more than the truck. So, why refer to the truck in the title if that was not your main interest?

I agree that, if you have to have the road in the frame, including the rear of any vehicle driving away from you is better than a bare road or a vehicle driving towards you, but I would like to see an image featuring just the rocks if that were possible—they look great. I agree you cannot just crop the truck out of the picture for what I am looking for and you would have to find a new spot to take the shot from.
Roger

[Rob C]

Russ: masochism?

;-)

Rob C

[RSL]

No, Rob, I think Roger's just confused. He seems to have the idea that a title has to identify the purpose of a picture. I sat in the right seat that morning and made a whole series of pictures through the windshield as we headed west toward California. I was fascinated by the shifting light on the hills in front of us, filtering through heavy clouds that gradually were breaking up. Here's the kind of picture Roger suggests would be an improvement. Can't say I agree, but whatever floats one's boat.

[stamper]

Now that is a very fine image Russ. Is that pipework on the middle left? Perhaps cloning it out? Either way it doesn't really detract. The processing is first class.

[Rob C]

Now that is a very fine image Russ. Is that pipework on the middle left? Perhaps cloning it out? Either way it doesn't really detract. The processing is first class.

Arizona Highways.

For me, the one with the wheels is it.

Rob C

[walter.sk]

Cool!  It successfully demonstrates the degradation that contemporary machines like the FedEx truck face when surrounded by those wasteful, unnecessary  artifacts of our past, such as nature  

[stamper]

Arizona Highways.

For me, the one with the wheels is it.

Rob C

That is also very good. When I saw it yesterday I wasn't all that impressed but after looking again I like it better. Leaving an image for a day or two definitely helps.

[RSL]

Now that is a very fine image Russ. Is that pipework on the middle left? Perhaps cloning it out? Either way it doesn't really detract. The processing is first class.

Hi Stamper, No what you're seeing on the left in the second picture is the other side of the freeway. The two sides are widely separated through this area.

[stamper]

Thanks Russ. That makes sense.

[nemo295]

I find the FedEx logo too distracting. The image works better without it.