Luminous Landscape Forum
The Art of Photography => User Critiques => Topic started by: seamus finn on March 24, 2010, 02:44:46 pm
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I don't know if these qualify as street shots in the context of the ongoing discussion in the 'Street Shots' thread'. At any rate, they were taken 'in the street'.
Cheers,
Seamus
[attachment=21046:kids_at_...d_house2.jpg]
[attachment=21033:admirer_at_stall.jpg]
[attachment=21039:puppet_boy.jpg]
[attachment=21040:coffee_maker.jpg]
[attachment=21042:Boy_with_gull.jpg]
[attachment=21043:children..._temple2.jpg]
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Seamus ... the third one is GREAT. I love it.
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Some great work there. The fourth one certainly gets the nod for 'most unusual'. Would be nice to see the flutist and his entourage 'dance'.
Mike.
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Seamus, They're all very good. I agree with Jeremy that #3 takes the cake. The kid in that picture is what does it. I don't think I've ever seen a cuter bunch of little girls than #6. Bravo!
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#3 is my favorite too.
Great picture!
Bravo 2.
Fred.
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Ditto to the others. A great bunch!
Eric
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Thanks everybody.
I'm taking the liberty of offering a few more.
[attachment=21068:Banana_RepublicLL.jpg]
[attachment=21064:opera_Barcelona3LL.jpg]
[attachment=21067:girl_wit...ainer2LL.jpg]
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Seamus, this is a remarkable set of photographs. The two that stand out for me are the one with the boy and the bird and the last one with the street musician.
Compared to your other work I've seen here, these are on a whole other level entirely. You have met your metier, congratulations.
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Seamus, I agree with Pop. Wish I could see a book full of this kind of excellent work. Keep it up.
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Thank you very much - I'm very flattered. Now you've set me thinking hard. Maybe you'll change your minds after this:
[attachment=21121:beach_boys2.jpg]
[attachment=21122:cement_women.jpg]
[attachment=21123:granny_c...ng_child.jpg]
[attachment=21124:shadow_girl.jpg]
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Seamus - I won't be changing my mind. This last set is also wonderful.
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Seamus, Tell me something. For quite a while the stuff you were putting up -- the Druid's cottage for instance -- had all sorts of technical flaws. Now, the B&W's you're putting up are flawless -- even better than flawless, I'd call them masterful. The black point and white point are both there and the range of grays is exceptionally good. What changed? I'm sure I can learn something from you if you'll give away your secret.
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Seamus, Tell me something. For quite a while the stuff you were putting up -- the Druid's cottage for instance -- had all sorts of technical flaws. Now, the B&W's you're putting up are flawless -- even better than flawless, I'd call them masterful. The black point and white point are both there and the range of grays is exceptionally good. What changed? I'm sure I can learn something from you if you'll give away your secret.
Clearly, this isn't the same Seamus. Original Seamus was spirited away by Martians and replaced by another Seamus who looks identical, but just happens to be a much better photographer. It's the only logical explanation.
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I think he's shooting film.
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For better or worse, it’s the same me, Popnfresh – the one who spent years and years in a home attic darkroom trying to come to grips with the challenges of producing a decent print containing a pure white and a pure black and including as many shades of grey as the paper would yield. At the end of all that, I wouldn’t say I was very technically accomplished – maybe clumsily competent. Recently, I did a trawl of all my bw negs and threw about half of them in the bin on technical grounds alone. With the benefit of 25 years hindsight, they were woeful in every technical way – but was there any other way to learn? So, sorry, Russ, no big secret. Just application, learning the hard way and reading everything I could find on the subject. But, boy, it was a lot of fun at the time!
- Seamus
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Seamus, I love B&W too, and I've gradually been moving back more and more toward it. But I'm not sure my techniques are as good as yours. It's been quite a while since I've seen the kind of quality I see in your B&Ws. Yes, I agree, landscape is very difficult technically. The difficulties you run into in street photography are compositional, not so much technical. I have a feeling you drive your black point down farther than most, though here's one that's going in as an advertisement in B&W magazine where I may have taken the black point down roughly to the same place you're taking yours:
[attachment=21166:Rainstorm.jpg]
Still, I'm not sure I'm as happy with it as I'd be with, say, the little girls in your first batch of pictures above.
Ah well, I'm about to take off for three days and go over to St. Augustine on the east coast of Florida. I hope I can get some good shots over there -- maybe like this one, which I shot two years ago -- one of my favorites:
[attachment=21167:Fifth_Grade.jpg]
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Enjoy the trip, Russ. If you get anything good, please share here. I'm heading to Spain for a few weeks in April and I'll be on a similar mission.
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Very nice images.
Just too many to comment them all.
Bravo!
And I love seeing you doing it in B/W.
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I’m amazed at the reaction to the bw images here. I don’t think any one of them has a commercial potential. As has been mentioned in another thread here, would you buy a ‘street’ shot and put it up on your living-room wall? I doubt it. I’ve been fortunate enough to have had a few exhibitions over the years, and to have sold a few prints now and again, but, ironically, many of them were either sepia-toned (chemically) landscapes or colour (Epson printer).
Seamus - I have to respectfully disagree. People put all sorts of things on their walls, and some of the most important photographers shot street scenes more or less exclusively. Cartier-Bresson and Brassai come to mind, and they're on plenty of walls. I think if you marketed your work better you might be surprised at just how marketable some of these images are.
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Very true, popnfresh - my difficulty is that I don't market them at all! However, I'm in the process of putting a website together so maybe that might help - if it ever sees the light of day.
Too many images is right, ChristopherC - sorry about that. Put it down to a rush of blood to the head.
Cheers,
Seamus
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Very true, popnfresh - my difficulty is that I don't market them at all! However, I'm in the process of putting a website together so maybe that might help - if it ever sees the light of day.
A web gallery is fine, but people who actually buy art prefer to see the work in person. If possible, I would recommend getting your work on display at a gallery. I bet if you showed your portfolio around, some gallery would be glad to give you wall space. If not a gallery, then a coffee house, library or some other public space. A friend of mine owns a bar in San Francisco and he puts up art shows all the time there. And he sells a ton of art, too.
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Seamus
While it's useful and fun to follow this thread, I have to say I am simply enjoying viewing your photographs. I too admire the way they are produced, but it's the initial composition that really grabs me. Inspiring stuff.