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Author Topic: After cycling through my screensaver..  (Read 511 times)

Michael Haspert

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After cycling through my screensaver..
« on: January 15, 2014, 08:39:32 pm »

After a few months of seeing this, I think I like it enough to work on it.
It's the layering of reflections that appeals to me.
Worth doing?
Any suggestions?
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RSL

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Re: After cycling through my screensaver..
« Reply #1 on: January 16, 2014, 10:14:51 am »

Michael, It's a good try, but what do you see here that you feel makes it worth "working on"? It's not landscape and it's not architecture and it's not fashion, etc., etc. It looks as if it was intended as a street shot. But what I see is a photographer reflected in a window and a woman walking toward the photographer. I don't see any interplay between the photographer and the woman other than the fact that the photographer is taking a picture of the woman. I don't see a story and I don't see ambiguity.

But don't let my nasty criticism get to you. You're obviously somebody who's trying to do street photography. Street is the most worthwhile and rewarding use of a camera, but it's damned difficult. Keep trying, and spend some time with people like Cartier-Bresson, Winogrand, and Frank. If you work at it you'll probably get there. In any case you'll have a lot of fun.
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Russ Lewis  www.russ-lewis.com.

Michael Haspert

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Re: After cycling through my screensaver..
« Reply #2 on: January 16, 2014, 01:36:37 pm »

Thanks for taking the time to comment, Russ. I don't think your criticism is nasty at all. It just show that I failed to convey what brought me to a stop when I saw the scene.

So, here's what I was trying to do. The window behind the seated woman looks into the entry of a restaurant. On the other side of the entry is a window into the restaurant's kitchen. The two windows both reflect and transmit recognizable images, so the shot has 3 separate spaces and 2 reflections. What attracted me was trying to capture the juxtapositions of the 5 separate layers in what would otherwise be a tourist shot. (My recent exposure to Friedlander is the reason I even noticed this--hence the title.)

1. Is it too difficult-- or perhaps even impossible-- to sort out the layers without having seen the scene in life?
2. From what you said about it not being an identifiable genre, I'm guessing that if a shot is not in a particular genre it's up to me to somehow leave more clues to make up for the missing expectations/conventions. Does this make sense?

As always, thanks to all on LuLa for the learning opportunity.
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