Pages: [1] 2   Go Down

Author Topic: How's This for Street?  (Read 7423 times)

Slobodan Blagojevic

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 18090
  • When everyone thinks the same, nobody thinks
    • My website
How's This for Street?
« on: November 16, 2012, 10:29:56 pm »

Works?

degrub

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1947
Re: How's This for Street?
« Reply #1 on: November 16, 2012, 10:41:21 pm »

In a Rockwellian, Saturday Evening Post sort of way, yes.

Frank
Logged

Jeremy Roussak

  • Administrator
  • Sr. Member
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 8961
    • site
Re: How's This for Street?
« Reply #2 on: November 17, 2012, 04:28:20 am »

Well, it's obviously not indoors. I like the way you captured the moment.

Jeremy
Logged

amolitor

  • Guest
Re: How's This for Street?
« Reply #3 on: November 17, 2012, 08:41:55 am »

I think it works, in a way. It has elements of street, but it's more documentary.
Logged

RSL

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 16046
    • http://www.russ-lewis.com
Re: How's This for Street?
« Reply #4 on: November 17, 2012, 09:23:17 am »

Wow, Slobodan. You were lucky to get this shot before it got away.
Logged
Russ Lewis  www.russ-lewis.com.

Slobodan Blagojevic

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 18090
  • When everyone thinks the same, nobody thinks
    • My website
Re: How's This for Street?
« Reply #5 on: November 17, 2012, 10:19:45 am »

Why is it when you guys shoot hobos it is street, albeit cliche (according to Russ), and when I feature them it is not? Is it then documentary or photojournalism?

petermfiore

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 2705
    • Peter Fiore Fine Art
Re: How's This for Street?
« Reply #6 on: November 17, 2012, 10:24:46 am »

Why is it when you guys shoot hobos it is street, albeit cliche (according to Russ), and when I feature them it is not? Is it then documentary or photojournalism?

That's a feature?  Still a nice shot.
 

Slobodan Blagojevic

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 18090
  • When everyone thinks the same, nobody thinks
    • My website
Re: How's This for Street?
« Reply #7 on: November 17, 2012, 10:34:36 am »

That's a feature?...

Not sure I understand what you meant.

petermfiore

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 2705
    • Peter Fiore Fine Art
Re: How's This for Street?
« Reply #8 on: November 17, 2012, 10:36:26 am »

I'm sorry. The featuring of a hobo.

Slobodan Blagojevic

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 18090
  • When everyone thinks the same, nobody thinks
    • My website
Re: How's This for Street?
« Reply #9 on: November 17, 2012, 10:43:01 am »

I'm sorry. The featuring of a hobo.

Since it was a question you asked (that's a feature?), are you questioning the very presence of the hobo or the relatively small space it occupies in the picture? Just trying to understand, not argumentative.

Slobodan Blagojevic

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 18090
  • When everyone thinks the same, nobody thinks
    • My website
Re: How's This for Street?
« Reply #10 on: November 17, 2012, 12:18:57 pm »

Wow, Slobodan. You were lucky to get this shot before it got away.

I do not know, Russ, maybe. The guy could have awoken any minute and walked away.

Bryan Conner

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 539
    • My Flickr page
Re: How's This for Street?
« Reply #11 on: November 17, 2012, 01:10:21 pm »

I think two of the subjects look a bit stiff, and the third is a bit too relaxed.   ;D



I like it.
Logged

Eric Myrvaagnes

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 22814
  • http://myrvaagnes.com
    • http://myrvaagnes.com
Re: How's This for Street?
« Reply #12 on: November 17, 2012, 01:14:34 pm »

I do not know, Russ, maybe. The guy could have awoken any minute and walked away.
But you could have cudgeled him into submission with your Speed Graphic, couldn't you?

Being not entirely antihobo myself, I like the shot.
Logged
-Eric Myrvaagnes (visit my website: http://myrvaagnes.com)

seamus finn

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1243
Re: How's This for Street?
« Reply #13 on: November 17, 2012, 03:21:08 pm »


I like it too - the huge suitcase is great beside the prostrate figure; the load is too big for any human. No wonders he's weary and has resorted to hoboism!
Logged

kencameron

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 840
    • Recent Photographs
Re: How's This for Street?
« Reply #14 on: November 17, 2012, 03:38:17 pm »

Why is it when you guys shoot hobos it is street, albeit cliche (according to Russ), and when I feature them it is not? Is it then documentary or photojournalism?
I don't get these classificatory niceties. Who cares which pigeonhole? Nice shot - a bit dark lower down, but having to look a bit to see what is going on gets the attention in gear to notice the ironies.
Logged
Ken Cameron

Slobodan Blagojevic

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 18090
  • When everyone thinks the same, nobody thinks
    • My website
Re: How's This for Street?
« Reply #15 on: November 17, 2012, 04:38:17 pm »

... notice the ironies.

Yes, indeed!

The sculpture is the work of J. Seward Johnson, titled "God Bless America" (irony #1), made after one of the most famous American paintings "American Gothic" by Grant Wood (and on display just a few blocks down the street, in the Art Institute of Chicago).

In my picture, there is an ad for Fidelity Investments, which is supposed to provide for one's future (irony #2).

There is a further irony to be found somewhere in the juxtaposition of the giant statue, representing modern art, and a lowly common guy, minuscule in comparison, at its feet, oblivious to its meaning. But I digress in psychobabble, I suppose.




RSL

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 16046
    • http://www.russ-lewis.com
Re: How's This for Street?
« Reply #16 on: November 17, 2012, 04:39:30 pm »

If you want to see some good street look at Seoonmie's "Open Beaver," or Seamus's "Waiting." There's a story in each of them, but a story that's left unfinished on the basis of what's presented. That's the kind of ambiguity that makes the difference between documentation and street photography. Documentation explains things, as Slobodan's picture does in this thread. Street doesn't explain. It leaves you guessing.

How many on this forum have read Bystander: A History of Street Photography by Colin Westerbrook and Joel Meyerowitz? If you haven't, you might find it enlightening. The book wanders far beyond street photography, but as a result of that wandering it defines street photography in relation to other genres. It's a matter of degree. There's an element of street in Slobodan's picture because of the giant suitcase next to the hobo, but the ambiguity is missing.

The nomenclature doesn't really matter. But a good street photograph grabs your attention and hangs on to it. Simple documentation may grab you, but it usually turns you loose right away.

Logged
Russ Lewis  www.russ-lewis.com.

Slobodan Blagojevic

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 18090
  • When everyone thinks the same, nobody thinks
    • My website
Re: How's This for Street?
« Reply #17 on: November 17, 2012, 05:57:45 pm »

I like it too - the huge suitcase is great beside the prostrate figure; the load is too big for any human. No wonders he's weary and has resorted to hoboism!

Ah, yes, the suitcase.

The story about it, though not visible in the photograph: on the other side, it has the ubiquitous stickers from places visited. Guess what? All the stickers are from the countries where outsourcing is and American jobs went to. Contrast that with the sculpture's title: "God Bless America." The suitcase was not a part of the original painting, but a deliberate intervention by the sculptor's author.

None of that is readily understandable from the photograph, though. One just needs to know the background, the whole story, to get al the ironies involved (and I am not saying that in defense of my photograph, on the contrary).

amolitor

  • Guest
Re: How's This for Street?
« Reply #18 on: November 18, 2012, 04:01:37 pm »

I have to say, I felt like there was probably a *little* ambiguity and story here, but it was so unclear that I couldn't really give the photo credit for it. The fact that the suitcase is part of the sculpture is a new piece of information, for me.
Logged

walter.sk

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1433
Re: How's This for Street?
« Reply #19 on: November 18, 2012, 04:30:56 pm »

One just needs to know the background, the whole story, to get al the ironies involved (and I am not saying that in defense of my photograph, on the contrary).
I find the ironies quite poignant.  The building in the background appears to be of the 1930's vintage, during the depression.  The statue is, of course, a 3D implementation of Grant Wood's "American Gothic" plus the suitcase, and the little figure with the holes in his soles, almost under the foot of the giant vision of American Gothic, are the visual reminder, even in the 21st Century, of our economic reality for many people.  And, as if to comment on the veracity of that is the sign saying "Fidelity."

Quite a good capture for street photography!
« Last Edit: November 18, 2012, 04:33:05 pm by walter.sk »
Logged
Pages: [1] 2   Go Up