Luminous Landscape Forum
The Art of Photography => Street Showcase => Topic started by: RBFritz on July 28, 2019, 05:21:46 pm
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Is this real street? C&C please.
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What's your intended narrative?
Is there an alternative narrative interpretation as well?
If not, no problem, but then I would think of this as belonging more to documentary then the narrow definition of street.
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Is this real street?...
This is a guy playing sax.
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What's your intended narrative?
Is there an alternative narrative interpretation as well?
If not, no problem, but then I would think of this as belonging more to documentary then the narrow definition of street.
OMG, the sheriff has a new deputy!
;-)
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OMG, the sheriff has a new deputy!
;-)
Exactly! Armed and dangerous. Remember: nothing worse than an underpaid overzealous civil servant with a chip on his shoulder.
"civil servant..." now there's an ambiguity!
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Exactly! Armed and dangerous. Remember: nothing worse than an underpaid overzealous civil servant with a chip on his shoulder.
"civil servant..." now there's an ambiguity!
LOL.
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This is a guy playing sax.
How can you tell?
He may be enjoying the silent memory of days past; have a thing for reeds; be a stolen figure from Madame Tussauds, abandoned when he wouldn't fit in the back of the Mini. Perish the thought, he could be a simple lickspittle who came upon the abandoned instrument under the bridge, the bypass or even the main portal to the Batcave.
This proves ambiguity, which in turn implies a certain street cred.
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This proves ambiguity, which in turn implies a certain street cred.
Ambiguity and Confusion are entirely different concepts...
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Ambiguity and Confusion are entirely different concepts...
...woven together so neatly in Rob's critical essay. ;D
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It's too static. There is no dynamic in the elements or its interpretation. For street, it requires a bit more dynamic. There needs to be a narrative, a clearly identifiable combination of elements or sequence of events. For example: a kid with his fingers in his ears and his mother dropping a coin in the case.
That would give it some dynamic, a train or sequence of events/elements interacting: the guy playing the sax, the kid clearly responding to the produced sounds, the mother performing a very common thoughtless act.
And because of the ambiguity in that sequence — does the kid find it just too loud, or does he also think it's horrible music-wise? — you now start to ask yourself about the common thoughtless act the mother performs. Is she paying him because she appreciates the playing? Or does she pay him because she feels sorry for him, or perhaps to please stop the noise? Did she even think about it?
In other words, the ambiguity regarding the appreciation of the music makes the viewer stop and think about a common act. A common act or mundane event. An event that at some point a viewer might experience himself; thoughtlessly adding a small contribution for a streetperformance, without even considering what the actual value of the performance was. As a consequence, the picture may then trigger a bit more thought if such an event occurs the next time. In other words, we learn something about life.
So, there. I'm just trying to explicate the difference. It is a spontaneous outdoor shot in urban setting of a person interacting with his environment or artefacts. In that sense, it can be considered street according to the wider definition. But it ain't street in the sense that it will make me question that interaction. It's a straight representation of reality. It's like Slobodan said: a guy playing a sax. Not particularly attractive, nor very evocative. Even at the very least, there is no dynamic in its visualisation of music reproduction. A longer exposure for example might bring out some dynamic in his playing, which would be more evocative of what it was like to be there, or perhaps of a musician "in the zone". Then I'd also like to see some more dynamic in tone, to better focus the subject. But now I'm straying into the critique part which I didn't intend to. I merely wanted to answer the question: is this real street? And especially for Eric I turned it into an essay.
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Nice shot. I was there too in Central Park. Different day; different bridge, different sax player.
(https://live.staticflickr.com/6181/6151377587_5c7d23979d_b.jpg) (https://flic.kr/p/anzqfg)Troupe (https://flic.kr/p/anzqfg) by Alan Klein (https://www.flickr.com/photos/alanklein2000/), on Flickr
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Ambiguity and Confusion are entirely different concepts...
Only if you can't make up your mind and take a stance. Or several, which return you to ambiguity.
:-)
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Thanks all for the very illuminating comments.