Get Money

anonymouscubananonymouscuban Registered Users, Retired Mod Posts: 4,586 Major grins
edited February 12, 2011 in Street and Documentary
Taken on Hyde & Powell cable car of conductor counting his fares.

1182729482_whCET-XL.jpg
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Comments

  • JuanoJuano Registered Users Posts: 4,890 Major grins
    edited February 10, 2011
    I like it. He looks more like a bookie at some underground betting place. Shady...

    This is great.
    Cristóbal


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  • jdryan3jdryan3 Registered Users Posts: 1,353 Major grins
    edited February 10, 2011
    A nice shot but there is something about his very sharp eye/glasses with the shallow DOF in front and back that makes it look too posed and less spontaneous, especially given the odd angle. Maybe if the money was sharp and he was slightly blurred this would work better, or slightly blur him. But the framing and composition is very cool.
    "Don't ask me what I think of you, I might not give the answer that you want me to. Oh well."
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  • anonymouscubananonymouscuban Registered Users, Retired Mod Posts: 4,586 Major grins
    edited February 10, 2011
    jdryan3 wrote: »
    A nice shot but there is something about his very sharp eye/glasses with the shallow DOF in front and back that makes it look too posed and less spontaneous, especially given the odd angle. Maybe if the money was sharp and he was slightly blurred this would work better, or slightly blur him. But the framing and composition is very cool.

    I know it's pretty sharp... what kind I say. I got skills mwink.gif But this is as spontaneous as it could get. I had just handed him a 20. He took it from me and as he was counting change, I brought my hands down to my lap, grabbed and tilted the cam and fired the shot from my lap. I got totally lucky in that I was able to guesstimate the center of the frame to it the focus on his face. It's not the best shot, but I thought it was interesting. I typically end up chucking these type of "from the hip" shots because they never work for me.
    "I'm not yelling. I'm Cuban. That's how we talk."

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  • JocoJoco Registered Users Posts: 86 Big grins
    edited February 11, 2011
    Great perspective. Interesting.
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  • rainbowrainbow Registered Users Posts: 2,765 Major grins
    edited February 12, 2011
    This captures the feel of the CC conductor really well as I recall seeing such a viewpoint as a kid riding the CCars. What surprised me is that you used a flash -- or even have it set up on your camera ready to go for a grab shot.
  • anonymouscubananonymouscuban Registered Users, Retired Mod Posts: 4,586 Major grins
    edited February 12, 2011
    rainbow wrote: »
    This captures the feel of the CC conductor really well as I recall seeing such a viewpoint as a kid riding the CCars. What surprised me is that you used a flash -- or even have it set up on your camera ready to go for a grab shot.

    Thanks Rainbow. You comment about the flash made me chuckle. Every time I leave the house with my camera, I go through a sort of ritual of deciding whether or not to bring my flash. I go back and forth, over and over, between not bringing it so I can travel lighter or having it just in case. I almost always end up bring it along because I'd rather go the day without using it, than running across a situation where I wish I had it and missing a good shot. Not to say this was a great example of why to bring it, but it worked out OK.
    "I'm not yelling. I'm Cuban. That's how we talk."

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  • bdcolenbdcolen Registered Users Posts: 3,804 Major grins
    edited February 12, 2011
    I have a real problem with this shot, and that is that it totally distorts reality. As someone notes, you've made the mundane conductor look like a bookie - I believe the term used was "shady." It indeed makes him look shady, so shady in fact, that it looks more like a shot of a gangster than one of a cable car conductor. So that totally misrepresents what you saw when you were riding the cable car. Beyond that, there's the idea of popping flash in people's faces. Magnum member Bruce Gilden has built a career on roaming the streets of New York popping his flash in people's faces from about two feet away. He says he is capturing the true person, showing who they really are in that moment of surprise; I would say he's simply being a bully, that anyone looks weird when surprised by a flash, and all is subjects are is surprised, startled, annoyed, and in some cases terrified.

    I am NOT saying you're Bruce Gilden. Nor am I saying that it's wrong to shoot the way you shot. I'm just making some observations, and giving people something to have a food fight over for the rest of the day. :-)
    bd@bdcolenphoto.com
    "He not busy being born is busy dying." Bob Dylan

    "The more ambiguous the photograph is, the better it is..." Leonard Freed
  • RichardRichard Administrators, Vanilla Admin Posts: 19,961 moderator
    edited February 12, 2011
    bdcolen wrote: »
    I have a real problem with this shot, and that is that it totally distorts reality.

    Reality is overrated.
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  • lizzard_nyclizzard_nyc Registered Users Posts: 4,056 Major grins
    edited February 12, 2011
    May I ask was Bruce Gilden ever beaten within an inch of his life?


    I gotta think more about the shot itself.
    Yes it's very sharp and the conversion is great, and it is ambiguous which is great, but there is a but and I can't pinpoint it.
    Liz A.
    _________
  • bdcolenbdcolen Registered Users Posts: 3,804 Major grins
    edited February 12, 2011
    lizzard_nyc wrote: »
    May I ask was Bruce Gilden ever beaten within an inch of his life?


    I gotta think more about the shot itself.
    Yes it's very sharp and the conversion is great, and it is ambiguous which is great, but there is a but and I can't pinpoint it.

    There's a difference between ambiguity, which is not only great but really necessary, and photographically creating something which, in a real sense, wasn't.

    And Richard, reality may indeed be overrated if this were the "art photography" forum - but it's not - it's "Street and PJ" - which entails capturing the reality of real life lived really. :ivar
    bd@bdcolenphoto.com
    "He not busy being born is busy dying." Bob Dylan

    "The more ambiguous the photograph is, the better it is..." Leonard Freed
  • RichardRichard Administrators, Vanilla Admin Posts: 19,961 moderator
    edited February 12, 2011
    bdcolen wrote: »
    And Richard, reality may indeed be overrated if this were the "art photography" forum - but it's not - it's "Street and PJ" - which entails capturing the reality of real life lived really. :ivar
    Your definition, BD, not mine. Art and street are not mutually exclusive. HCB proved that a million years ago. Reality, unaltered, in the street can certainly be art, and HCB didn't alter anything. But his greatest work, IMO, was that which used the street as a means to capture amazing compositions, lines, shadows, forms--all the usual components that painters have used for centuries. Don't misunderstand me, I love real life stuff, but I just think there are endless possibilities worth exploring. Documenting reality is a worthy goal, but so is changing the way one sees reality.
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