A Quick Walk Through Town

[RSL]

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[wmchauncey]

I like the concept...but not with harsh light.       

[RSL]

Ah, but the light was harsh and that's the point. I made all of these shots in a three-block stretch during an hour's walk in downtown Manitou Springs.

[Jeremy Roussak]

Ah, but the light was harsh and that's the point. I made all of these shots in a three-block stretch during an hour's walk in downtown Manitou Springs.

I envy you, Russ. I don't get much harsh light in Manchester; I get lots of overcast days and lots of drizzle. 

Jeremy

[Bruce Cox]

Downtown 4 has proven memorable for me.  I didn't at first find it very exciting, but I liked its play with framing.  The restaurant's furniture and walls are waiting to frame and present the costumers much as the painted man is by his background and frame, as my go without saying.  I think you managed to integrate the painting into the photo and thus as they say "steal it"  Now if you can do that with a really good painting...

[RSL]

Thanks, Bruce. I had fun with the whole series. I decided to just amble down the street with my E-P1 and shoot everything that caught my eye. That incredibly wretched painting caught my eye. It does seem a nice touch for a little tourist restaurant like that one.

[graeme]

Downtown 4 for me too. I like the frame within frame thing that's happening & the restricted color palette.

Like Jeremy, I would also appreciate some harsh light ( I'm also in the north west of England ).

Graeme

[Ed Blagden]

No love for Downtown 3?  Best of the lot in my opinion.

[Bruce Cox]

No love for Downtown 3?  Best of the lot in my opinion.

I like the glare in Downtown 3, but, for me, not enough of the mural survives being intergated into the photo to be worth stealing.

[Ed Blagden]

I like the glare in Downtown 3, but, for me, not enough of the mural survives being intergated into the photo to be worth stealing.

I broke my own rule about posting here: never just say whether you like something or not, but also say why.  Otherwise you are not critiquing, your are just voting.

Quite hard to articulate what I like about #3.  My first and lasting impression of the image is that it looks religious.  Something like an icon, and the shadows seem to penetrate the mural and bring to mind barbs, or maybe a crown of thorns.  I have no idea if that is what Russ wanted me to see, but that is what I saw. 

Ed

[RSL]

Thanks all for your comments. #3 is on the west wall of a tourist shop that sells Black Hills gold jewelry and "Indian" crafts. Having lived in the Black Hills for a couple years in the mid fifties I have a hard time understanding why a shop in Manitou Springs, Colorado would be selling Black Hills gold, but there you are. And, having hung out in Santa Fe for a while in the early sixties where "native Americans" came in from the close-by reservations and traded their wares, (shot attached) I suspect the "Indian" crafts in the store are made in China. Those paintings on the wall have been there since the thirties. A couple years ago they did a restoration on the paintings. Somewhere I have a couple shots of the wall before the restoration. The restoration didn't improve things. I made the shot because of the light. The glare was clobbering my eyes when I looked at the painting and I wondered whether or not I could capture that feeling in a picture.