Lighting in street candids

jhefti

I'm a big fan of interesting lighting in candid street shots. Here are two I got recently:

This is a woman who was texting at a cafe in the Castro in San Francisco



and this is someone who was stretching while sitting on a bench waiting for a bus.




C&C always welcome!

John

torags

Well done John. #1 for the late light...

richardman

Did you play with the lighting in the background? It's almost as if you have a flash or studio strobe there...

jhefti

richardman wrote: »

Did you play with the lighting in the background? It's almost as if you have a flash or studio strobe there...

I does look that way, but both only used available light. Both were shot in late afternoon, with very intense sun and dark shadows. I set the exposure for the highlights, which fortunately fell as they did on both subjects. Got lucky on that! The I just thresholded out the background (all in shadows) in PP--all of it in the second shot; most of it in the first shot, but with some detail still present. Otherwise no altered content.

RSL

Both the light and the composition in #1 are exceptionally good, John. #2 is an interesting abstraction, but in my opinion it doesn't come close to the quality of #1. Having just enough light on the right side (from her perspective) of her face to make her a wholly realized human being, and the light on her hands and accessories, turns the thing into a quite powerful environmental portrait. The second shot just doesn't give me enough sense of place.

richardman

That's pretty awesome then. I concur with Russ' opinions.

jhefti

Thanks for the C&C. I have to agree that I like #1 better as well. #2 was very interesting to me as it is such an odd image of someone at a bus stop, but I realise this does not translate to an audience that didn't see the original subject.

Thanks for looking!

John