BW street view of New York

frel

Hi this is my first real attempt on street photography. I finally decided to force myself take my camera and shoot people from as close as they can accept (following picture is made using 18mm).So far I like this one.

What do you think (color version is also on my gallery) ? I appreciate any comment as my goal for this year is to improve my photography skills.



thanks

Kyle D

I like the overall composition of the shot but I would have preferred to see the top of the spire on the Empire State building. I know it may not be realistic to try to get that in from where you were standing and using a 18mm lens. You could have backed up a bit more to get it in.

What also would have worked wonderfully for a shot like this is possibly trying to do a vertical panorama. Choose the correct focal length to get everyone on the street in one shot and then do a couple more shots to get the rest of the buildings in. I think that would look really cool!

I also think the black and white conversion that you did does look a little on the murky side. You might want to try reconverting it to get more contrast in it. What program did you use to edit and do the conversion?

Also, you may want to play around in Photoshop with some layer masks and such in order to pull out some more detail in the foreground, so there isn't a black box and black legs of the one guy and jacket of the other. Maybe look into a way to create a digital neutral density gradient. I don't know how hard that would be to accomplish in Photoshop but in Nikon Capture NX/NX2 it's pretty easy.

frel

Kyle D wrote:

I like the overall composition of the shot but I would have preferred to see the top of the spire on the Empire State building. I know it may not be realistic to try to get that in from where you were standing and using a 18mm lens. You could have backed up a bit more to get it in.

What also would have worked wonderfully for a shot like this is possibly trying to do a vertical panorama. Choose the correct focal length to get everyone on the street in one shot and then do a couple more shots to get the rest of the buildings in. I think that would look really cool!

I also think the black and white conversion that you did does look a little on the murky side. You might want to try reconverting it to get more contrast in it. What program did you use to edit and do the conversion?

Also, you may want to play around in Photoshop with some layer masks and such in order to pull out some more detail in the foreground, so there isn't a black box and black legs of the one guy and jacket of the other. Maybe look into a way to create a digital neutral density gradient. I don't know how hard that would be to accomplish in Photoshop but in Nikon Capture NX/NX2 it's pretty easy.

Thanks a bunch. I appreciate the feedback.

For backing up I thought about that during the shot but did not find a correct and safe position. I take note of the panorama idea which is great and never came to my mind actually.

For the black and white conversion I had hard time as I am discovering photoshop (it was my christmas gift actually) and the original picture (link) gave me hard time as I had to under expose the foreground if I did not want to loose the building in the sky.
Trying to play with highlights/shadows was just bringing too much noise. But I will try to refine this based on your feedback or by trying other plugins I was using threw aperture before having PS or digg more in details to emulate a ND aspect.

Thanks again

Kyle D

If you're new to photoshop then you must check out one of Scott Kelby's books. I have his "Adobe Photoshop CS3 Book for Digital Photographers" and it is absolutely wonderful for the times I'm working in photoshop (I do most of my work in Capture NX2). He also has different versions of the book for the many versions of photoshop elements, lightroom, and cs/cs2/cs3/cs4 too. I highly recommend his books.

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_gw?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=scott+kelby&x=0&y=0

jeffmeyers

Kyle D wrote:

I like the overall composition of the shot but I would have preferred to see the top of the spire on the Empire State building.

frel

jeffmeyers wrote:

Well next time I'll take have a wider angle lens mounted on my camera
But I really like this idea of a vertical pano and will for sure try it on the next occasion I have
Anyway If I have time tonight I'll try to rework that I may have a little more of the spire but it was not complete on the shot anyway I'll see what can do and more importantly try to correct the BW contrast

Thanks for the book advice I'll definitely give it a look : Photoshop is powerful but also overwhelming

Kyle D

frel wrote:

Thanks for the book advice I'll definitely give it a look : Photoshop is powerful but also overwhelming

I thought so too, until I got my hands on Kelby's book. It'll take you through things step by step with screen shots to boot. It's very nice to have those too.

frel

Based on your feedbak I tried to get more from the empire state (at least all that was availiable on the picture) and enhance details both on the front plane and the sky

Here's the result

System

according to me
there is an issue whith perspective...

it looks like if you were trying to capture both the man and the empire arrow... what did you pionted exactly... where is the subject?

according to me there is not enough space at the ground (and the character on the left who is cut... is not welcome)

for me the buldings are only a background, I think they are too much present in the picture
(and the bright of the sky is underexposing the characters --> use spot mesured light )

I know all these things are complex...

frel

respawn wrote:

there is an issue whith perspective...

it looks like if you were trying to capture both the man and the empire arrow... what did you pionted exactly... where is the subject?

according to me there is not enough space at the ground (and the character on the left who is cut... is not welcome)

for me the buldings are only a background, I think they are too much present in the picture
(and the bright of the sky is underexposing the characters --> use spot mesured light )

I know all these things are complex...

Hi and thanks for the feedback

I was indeed trying to capture both the empire state and the guy in front. I tried to move further but behind me there was some traffic. Add to this the time pressure (I liked the pose the guy had by trying to kill is cigarette butt and this does not last long). I agree with the fact that this guy in the left entered in the frame with a bad timing but I did not find a good way yet to remove him (and I am reluctant to use "clone" like artifacts in general)

Definitely the more I work in this picture the more I see that the exposition problem i larger that I envisioned during my on camera quick review. I am in spot metering but obviously I did not do a very good job on this one which is too bad because I really like the overall thing but I can make it as good as I want mostly because of this badly selected exposure.

Anyway thanks again and next time I'll try to be more prepared based on what I've learned

System

by the way, i am completely unable to take such a picture

frel

respawn wrote:

by the way, i am completely unable to take such a picture

Well I'm sure that you would be (isn't it yours ?) But thank anyway

System

frel wrote:

Well I'm sure that you would be (isn't it yours ?) But thank anyway

I meant do such a picure in the middle of a street...