Not a Bar Shot

RSL

lizzard_nyc

Love this!

All those normal everyday people amongst some of the great.
The Algonquin roundtable vs. starbucks crowd. The hard liquor on the rocks vs. a venti mocha crappola hold the whip crowd--almost makes me sick.

EDIT: BTW, your conversion and tonal ranges are gorgeous.

Qarik

good stuff!

torags

that's more like it. Excellent conversion & choice of subject

bdcolen

RSL wrote: »

This, to me, is a terrific example of seeing a scene but not the photograph. The photograph is a square, for which the photographer should have taken about one step to the left. The left hand side then would have included the face of the woman in the lower left, and the right hand side would end in front of D. H. Lawrence. With that, the woman would have played off Virgina Woolfe, the man with pony tail links to the suited, fedoraed gent in front of Wolfe, the weird Tshirt dude becomes the center guy in the mural, Chandler, with his raised arm, connects to the polo-shirted guy - also with high forehead and glasses, also with raised arm, and Lawrence contrasts with Mr. Shades. Also, cropped this way, we see the people larger, and the weird T shirt becomes more of a modern, jarring element contrasting with the 30s literary scene.

And yes, nice conversion and tonality.

RSL

Thanks for the critique BD. Yes, in a perfect world all that would be true. Unfortunately, it's not a perfect world, there wasn't room to step left or step back to expand the view, and I was lucky to get this shot at all. The only way to fill the squares you listed would have been to get everybody to stop what they were doing and pose. But you're right: everything you mentioned would have been nice, had it been possible.

Hey! I love it! And I'll bet you love it too, BD. I just noticed the change of name. Nobody's going to have to try to define street photography any longer, and everything on here is going to fit inside the name of the forum. HOORAY!!!

Harryb

Wonderful image Russ. I keep coming back to view it. The B&W conversion is spot on.

lensmole

Yes beautiful B & W as usual Russ. Great image !

lizzard_nyc

bdcolen wrote: »

This, to me, is a terrific example of seeing a scene but not the photograph. The photograph is a square, for which the photographer should have taken about one step to the left. The left hand side then would have included the face of the woman in the lower left, and the right hand side would end in front of D. H. Lawrence. With that, the woman would have played off Virgina Woolfe, the man with pony tail links to the suited, fedoraed gent in front of Wolfe, the weird Tshirt dude becomes the center guy in the mural, Chandler, with his raised arm, connects to the polo-shirted guy - also with high forehead and glasses, also with raised arm, and Lawrence contrasts with Mr. Shades. Also, cropped this way, we see the people larger, and the weird T shirt becomes more of a modern, jarring element contrasting with the 30s literary scene.

And yes, nice conversion and tonality.

Your comment has been on my mind since you posted it.
In all honestly, I can't imagine ever seeing all that in that crowded enviornment w so much clutter and seeing it fast before anyone moves.
Since I am being honest, I do think I have a good eye but half the time I feel like it's luck, I can't imagine seeing that scene as you described it and then shooting it. Guess that separates the good from the greats.

RSL

Thanks, everybody. The mural was pretty powerful stuff, and it would have been nice, as BD suggested, to arrange all the people to perfection before I shot, but, as usual with street photography, it was now or never. Actually, the photograph's not a square. It's four-thirds on an E-P1 with a 25mm Summilux at f/1.4. I think about BD's critique and remember that there was no room to move left or back, so changing the framing was out of the question, but I wonder if I should have waited a second longer for the guy in shades carrying his coffee to get to the left of the guy with the polo shirt. Hindsight is always 20-20, but there's no guarantee that the scene wouldn't have dissolved completely in one more second. So you press your button and you takes your chances. I probably should have banged off a second and third shot, but I was being jostled.

RSL

lizzard_nyc wrote: »

...half the time I feel like it's luck.

Liz, I think it depends on how you define luck. If by "luck" you mean something like tossing the bones on a craps table, street photography's not really luck. But if you mean that hard work and enough study of the masters to give you an intuitive grasp of graphical composition can put you in a position to take advantage of a transient scene, then you can call the transient scene luck, but not the photograph that results. Your own posts demonstrate this again and again.

If you haven't already looked at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z4qZ3Z8shZE&feature=related, you might want to check it out.

rainbow

Wonderful shot, Russ.

With that understanding that I like it a lot, I would have liked a different exploration of the shot because the main subject in your shot is the mural with the people complementing it. I would have liked the opposite tack to have some people the main subject with the mural secondary. Not sure if it is doable or would require a different lens, but that is what first came to mind on viewing this.

RSL

Thanks, Dave. To me it boils down to what Liz said: "All those normal everyday people amongst some of the great." That's what caught my eye. When I look at the picture I don't see the mural as central, or the people as central; I see the relationship, maybe I should call it the contrast, between the two.

Javier

Pure $$$....Killer stuff !!!