untitled

rdalland

richardman

You got a good crowd, an animated speaker with some people engaged. You got a photog chimping. A tourist bus driving by. So there are a lot of "right elements" there. However, unless the speaker is a famous person (which I do not know), we do not know why there is a gathering, why he is speaking. Composition is OK but nothing jumps out at you.

Good effort. Keep shooting.

TonyCooper

Yeah, the problem with this image is that we don't know what's going on.
Everything about it, as Richardman says, is good except for the who, what,
and why.

Is that Jimmy Hoffa up at the top left?

bfjr

I'll 3rd that and encourage you to keep at it

rdalland

Yep, not enough information to tell a complete story.

The when and where will hopefully clear things up. Photo was taken in Zuccotti Park, on Oct.13th, 2011. The guy speaking was just another person with something to say, some in the crowd were engaged, some were not.

I thought there was enough there without the "when and where", perhaps I'm seeing it as more of a "people" photo than a "Street or PJ" photo.

Thanks for looking and thank you for your comments!

Here's a couple more from the same day.

TonyCooper

rdalland wrote: »

Yep, not enough information to tell a complete story.

I thought there was enough there without the "when and where", perhaps I'm seeing it as more of a "people" photo than a "Street or PJ" photo.

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The reason the original needs "who, what, where" is that the group
is obviously somewhere for some purpose. When the photo is of, say,
a couple at an outdoor cafe, the setting tells us the "what/where", and
we are not concerned with the "who".

If the original photo had just one "Occupy" sign in view, I don't think
there would have been any questions. The actual "where" is unimportant,
but a thread title of "Zuccotti Park" would have helped.

In your third photo in the new submissions, the decal on the black object
tells it all.

rdalland

TonyCooper wrote: »

but a thread title of "Zuccotti Park" would have helped.

Then I would have gotten (rightly, in this instance) zinged for using a title...

TonyCooper

I don't know where you get that. There are many threads here with
explanatory titles with no zinging comments. Some titles are specific,
some are ambiguous, and some are wrongly chosen.

There have been objections to certain titles, but - as I remember it -
the objections have been based on the title leading to a conclusion
that the photo does not present.

Sam

I knew immediately without scrolling down what the scene showed. Well OK I had it narrowed down to two choices. The clues are simple. Look at the speaker. He hasn't been able to find a barber shop, has no idea how to ware a simple hat, is wrapped in a child's blanket, and the rest are actually listening to him.

This can only be an a funny farm alumni meeting, or an occupy group.

Sam

richardman

Wow Sam, tell us what you really think :-)!

Heh, of course I recognized it's the plaza opposite of the Zuccotti park. I spent nearly a week there myself, but as it is shown originally, it needs more, that's all.

As for title, I am not a fan of making title to compensate for the lack of impact of an image. For example, in this case, "scene from Zuccotti Park" or even "Someone who has not cut his hair, doesn't know how to wear a hat, wrapped in child's blanket, and holding an audience at Zuccotti Park" would be fine - well, may be. However, if it were titled "Deeply spiritual conversation with a sad commentary of photographer chimping rather than taking photos" would be stressing it - well, may be. :-)

rdalland

richardman • Jan-27-2012 03:09 PM
we do not know why there is a gathering,

But, apparently you do.

richardman wrote: »

Heh, of course I recognized it's the plaza opposite of the Zuccotti park. I spent nearly a week there myself, but as it is shown originally, it needs more, that's all.

Sam wrote: »

This can only be an a funny farm alumni meeting, or an occupy group.

Sam

I'm glad somebody got it!

RSL

Even if you title something like this, and even if the speaker is, as Richard M suggested, famous enough to be recognized, it won't stand the ravages of time. For proof, check Cartier-Bresson's pictures of the French "Popular Front." Unless you're pretty good on French history you won't even know what the Popular Front was, and the gatherings in the pictures will be meaningless. It's interesting to go through HCB's pictures and classify each one as street or photojournalism. The street shots are as striking as they were when he shot them. For the most part, the journalism shots, like the Popular Front stuff, aren't.