Market Stall

[seamus finn]

A woman holding a candle deep in the interior of a market stall in Ubud, Bali, with smoke drifting in from outside.

[RSL]

A stunning shot, Seamus. Bravo!

[Eric Myrvaagnes]

A stunning shot, Seamus. Bravo!

What Russ said.

[Rob C]

Apocalypse Now.

Rob C

[WalterEG]

Seamus,

You are blessed with astounding intuition when it comes to finding 'moments' with your camera.  Always a source of delight and reassurance to see your work.

W

[brandtb]

The atmosphere and "style" is interesting, but not nearly enough to carry this image. There is no connection to the woman and and who she is, and what she's doing...I think that might have been nice...not so "gauzed out"...the front edge of her face is "blurred out" to nothing unfortunately for me. I would have liked to seen a little more definition on her face and some light on it that relates to the flame and the pail(?) above. Some objects are interesting in the frame...but again too opaquely seen. Style is only one part of the equation in an image like this... /B

[RSL]

You should have been there, Brandt. You could have posed her and gotten a proper ratio between a speedlighted umbrella to her right with another speedlight with a softbox to her left. Maybe a hair light high and at the back of the stall. It's clear Seamus just didn't have the right equipment or the right approach to do the job correctly.

[Rob C]

You should have been there, Brandt. You could have posed her and gotten a proper ratio between a speedlighted umbrella to her right with another speedlight with a softbox to her left. Maybe a hair light high and at the back of the stall. It's clear Seamus just didn't have the right equipment or the right approach to do the job correctly.

Ah these aamachurrs!

;-)

Rob C

[seamus finn]

The atmosphere and "style" is interesting, but not nearly enough to carry this image. There is no connection to the woman and and who she is, and what she's doing...I think that might have been nice...not so "gauzed out"...the front edge of her face is "blurred out" to nothing unfortunately for me. I would have liked to seen a little more definition on her face and some light on it that relates to the flame and the pail(?) above. Some objects are interesting in the frame...but again too opaquely seen. Style is only one part of the equation in an image like this... /B

Brandt,
It was very dark in the back of that place, and there was smoke everywhere - plenty of gauze and a nightmare for any kind of shot!. In the gloom, a small candle shone, and only after looking closely did I notice the lady. As to who she is, well, it's pretty clear to me what she is - an elderly lady working a market stall in dire circumstances and still managing to retain her dignity.  Here is the original:



 

[brandtb]

Seamus - I like the color version much better...the tones are very nice... green, green-yellows, bluish, red-brown...and def. the red of candle. Understand, very tricky shot. With the color version you could dodge/burn some elements...perhaps highlight the bluish white smoke (I might crop off to the left edge of the light colored vertical element).  By the bye, have you ever looked at Taylor Weidman's Vanishing Culture's Project...especially images from Kingdom of Lo?  They're fantastic...you color version kicked up a memory of some of his images.  Some are in the news article following... /B

http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2012/04/mustang_nepals_former_kingdom.html

[Eric Myrvaagnes]

Both the BW and the color versions are quite fine, and I agree with Brandt's suggestion about the cropping, which is about the same as the BW version.