Candids from hometown crafts fair

[Bob_B]

I assigned myself to take candid portraits at this past Sunday's Crafts Fair. Beautiful blue skies. Lots of people having fun. And, I don't have a clue on street photography or portraits. With that in mind, here are four of the images from that day. If you have the time, please comment and criticize, so that I may learn a few things. Oh, by the way, _I_ had a great time. It surprised me how having a camera and a 'big ole' lens gets people talking.

Here they are:


I hope one or two catches your fancy.

  Cheers,

     Bob

[Bob_B]

And one more,

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

Cute... but "candid" (all but one are looking at the camera)?

[stamper]

Cute... but "candid" (all but one are looking at the camera)?

Imo, something that should be mostly avoided.

[Bob_B]

Thanks for the comments. I'll work on the candid aspect the next time out.

[Iluvmycam]

They are OK as snapshots, but that is it. They have no interest to people other than you and the people in the photos. Not trying to be harsh, but that is the bottom line with much of the street photos on the forums. Esp the ones that show a bunch of people on the street as a mishmash from far away and have nothing going on interesting. But, one guy said the same thing of my work saying nothing interesting in them and I should trash them all - so it is hard to argue taste.

I'm glad you are trying. I am not much of a landscape person. I prefer people pix. Seldom see good street pix here.

Here is a thread I started about AA. He was a crappy street photog.

http://www.fujix-forum.com/index.php/topic/28923-ansel-adams-wasnt-much-of-a-street-photog/

In the thread I show one of my street portraits shot with a 4x5. I had to give up on the view cam as it made pretty boring street shots. But still, my boring street portrait is much better than Adams street crappers. That shows you the difference between a high level landscaper versus a high level street photog. Sure, AA can out do me in his field, but once he comes into my field he is nothing.

I don't know how to tell you to do better. Look at lots of street work and learn from it. If you don't know the good from the bad with street you will never be able to do good work other than by accident. Maybe stick with landscapes or such if that is the case.

Here are sample from the latest artists' book I shot a couple months ago. This will give you a flavor of where I'm coming from with street candids and street portraits. (posed)

(nsfw)

http://whoopwhoopartistsbook.tumblr.com/

The bottom line is you should try to make photos that are interesting to a wide range of devotees of that genre, something that they would like a print of or to save the digital file to look at again. And if not, try to make something iconic where the person seeing it will remember it even if they do not like the genre.

Good Luck!

[RSL]

Hi Bob,

Slobodan's right and Stamper's right and "iluvmycam" (maybe one of these days he'll give us an actual name) is right. On the other hand, I'd qualify what Stamper said: Depends on what you're after. These pictures are technically good, but they're of no particular interest to anybody not connected in some way to the people they represent.

There are two kinds of critiques going on in User Critiques. The one you see most often is the technical kind, the kind that calls for a crop or a reduction in sharpening or a change in color management or a conversion to B&W. The kind you rarely see, but ought to see a lot more often is what I'll call the "impact" critique, which goes to the effect of the picture on the viewer. Sometimes pictures with high impact are technically imperfect. But technically high-quality pictures' impact frequently is nil. Far too often we see extended technical critiques on pictures with absolutely no impact value -- stuff that should have elicited a jab at the delete button as soon as it came out of the camera. LuLa's Users Critiques is a long way from unique in this respect.

Before you "work on the candid aspect" of this kind of picture, try spending some time with a book of street photography or photojournalism -- the real thing, not the "we'll get your attention with obscenity and excess" kind under the link in the previous post. People are the most interesting things you can photograph, but for a picture that features people to have impact the people usually have to be interacting with other people or with their surroundings in an interesting way. The exception is the rare case of a person showing an emotion that stabs the viewer's heart.

Keep shooting. You obviously know the craft.

[Bob_B]

Russ: Thanks for the encouragement and constructive comments.

I'm not by nature much of an 'artist', in fact in real life I'm a scientist. I tend to look at the technical aspect of a photograph. So, the impact aspect is something I have to work on, especially with people photography. I've learned a lot from others who have posted street and candid images here on LuLa. I respect their comments and criticisms and take them (for better or worst) as well intentioned and constructive. After all, I want to create images that are more than pretty snapshots. I learn through hearing where the faults are and hopefully correcting them over time.

I will take your advice and spend more time with street photography and photojournalism books. I'll also post one or two others from this group that I think have more impact and candidicity (just made that word up, sorry). lol.

Best wishes,

    Bob