Welcome back to part 2 of the /r/streetphotography analysis for the month of July! The top 10 of the month was a bit of a mixed bag: there were some really wonderful examples of street photography, for some there were great moments and interesting compositions, and for others they just liked the colours.
Last time I looked at the top 10, this time it will be posts 11 through to 20. Let’s begin:
In eleventh, we have Downpour in Pittsburgh, PA at 310 upvotes. Few things get a street photographer’s pants tighter than a nice umbrella, and when you add a splash of man’s back, with a hint of walking away, you’ve yourself a real /r/streetphotography stew going. The subject here is a man holding an umbrella facing away from the camera. Has it been done to death? Yes. Does that mean it can’t, in principle, make for a nice shot? Of course not. Here’s an example of a shot that meets that description by Saul Leiter, that I quite like. I think right away you can see the difference in composition and vision between this umbrella departure shot and the other. While it’s arguable that neither shot contains the typical decisive moment one might expect from a street photography shot, Saul’s framing gives us a clear subject, nicely abstracted by the vibrant blocks of yellow and red, and framed with hard lines by the crushed shadows of the car’s interior. OP’s shot gives us a subject who not only takes up a small proportion of the frame, but falls in a jumbled mess of colours, cars, cut-off legs, and distractingly desaturated bokeh. To me this is an ugly shot; I would turn down its invitation to prom. I’ll list a few of the qualities that make it ugly in my mind: The colours clash. OP has tried to minimise the clashing of reds and greens by desaturating the image, but the clash is still there. The subject is relatively dark and overlaps with a brightly lit car. A woman who adds nothing to the image has her body removed by the back of the bus. The tree and building across the road make for a very distracting and busy background. Had the photographer been standing maybe a foot to the left of the umbrella man, he might have framed him nicely with the umbrella/suit taking up a large portion of the foreground, and a simple red from the bus as a minimalistic background. This shot as it is, I simply do not understand what is praise worthy. I would love to hear from one of the 308 people who did.
Next up in twelfth is Daily grind At 295 points. I like this shot a bit more than the last. The photographer got close and filled the frame with his subject. The colours of the balloons are vibrant without feeling oversaturated, which is often a hard balance to strike. It’s a sight you don’t see everyday, and the photographer captured it. However, I think that’s about all he’s done. Take a look at this shot by David Alan Harvey Both photographers have spotted a rare opportunity, but Harvey’s take is much more refined. The balloons are composed wonderfully: their actual inflated bodies take up one third of the frame; their valves are all angled down as if they were alien space ships pointing their tractor beams at an unsuspecting hillbilly, and following the direction of the valves are literal leading lines in the balloon strings, which lead the viewer’s eyes from the colourful top of the frame to the subject’s obscured face. Moreover, the lower two thirds background is composed of cars of various colours, almost a metallic mirroring of the coloured balloons above. In “Daily Grind” There is no such rhythm. The balloons are there, but they don’t lead’s one’s eye. Moreover, their interaction with the subject is purely incidental; he is holding them and that’s it, but he may as well not be. In Harvey’s shot, the balloons, beyond being a part of the subject, are an essential compositional element of the photo; without them, the photo loses its structure. In the above photo, the balloons don’t even play a structural role. The subject is also facing away from the camera, and there’s no real engagement with him from the viewer’s perspective. Unlike the perfectly composed top third of Harvey’s image, this image’s top third is a mess of tree, leaves, and brick. The impact of the harmonious colours of the balloons is neutralized by the ugliness of the frame’s remaining colour. It’s a shame, because there’s definitely potential for an amazing shot here, but it probably involves getting even closer still, and waiting for the man to do something more than walk away beneath a tree
In 13th, we have “Manila” at 284 points. Compare this with the first shot in this post. Another rainy day, another umbrella, but the impact of the shots is miles apart. “Downpour in pittsburgh” framed its small subject against an ugly, messy, coloured background, whereas here, the photographer has shot from an elevated angle, meaning the subject is framed nicely against the simple monochrome street surface. The pole and wires provide a nice foreground element and mirror the directions of the erect subject and diagonal street lines respectively. There’s a lot of symmetry in this shot, from the pole of which I just spoke, to the subject’s reflection in the street, to the pairs of wires in the top right. I like this shot. Even though nothing interesting is happening, the frame itself has generated its own interest owing to how it has been composed. Credit to the photographer for turning a cliche into a compelling image.
Next is a Photo by YanKang Yang with 281 points. I like this image a lot. The subject, framed large in the image’s centre, is a blind man. His brow is furrowed, his eyes distant. The image feels sorrowful. On one side of the subject’s head are figures walking away, leaving him behind, on the other side a cross, which gives another sense of left behind. I would like to read up more about the history of this shot, but emotionally it resonates with me. Compositionally, I wish the couple figures were not intersecting with the subject’s head, but that’s a minor gripe to have with an otherwise wonderful picture. It’s nice to see a street photograph with emotional weight, and not, say, another shot of someone waiting in the underground in front of a moving train
And next up we have Waiting in the undergound at 274 points. A shot of, you guessed it, a person standing in front of a moving train. We get to see some lovely shoulders as our subject stares down at her phone, while a New York subway train glides blurrily by. For budding street photographers this sort of photo seems like a sort of trite right of passage (a trite of passage if you will.) I suppose it appeals because the effect of the contrasting motion and stillness looks cool, but that novelty wears off before long. There’s nothing wrong with using that effect, but it shouldn’t be the focus of the image, it should be a compostinal aid to capture the mood of a greater scene. I analysed a picture last week that used a moving train window to frame a couple, and while I criticised it for having a boring subject, it at least shows how the effect can be put to interesting use. In this photo, it isn’t. The subject is a woman on her phone. I’m not wondering what she’s doing; I can’t see her eyes so I get no sense of her emotion (and consequently of what my emotional response should be); and I’m not being wowed by an interesting composition. My emotional response to this image is boredom, and I think that’s the worst thing a piece of art can make you feel. I can see someone saying they like the colours of the shot, and I’m inclined to agree that they work well together, it’s just a shame that the pretty colours don’t come together to convey something interesting.
In 16th we have “Chicago 2019” A boy plays in front of a large dystopian image of a face. The use of black and white over colour emphasises the form and imposing scale of the image. I like how the eyes of the face are cropped out. By keeping them out of frame, we’re denied the normal window to the soul that they provide. Consequently, the face loses its humanity and the imposing, anonymity of its scale takes precedent. Having said all that, this image misses a trick. Everything to the left of the face is dead space. The trees, the buildings behind them, and the people beneath them are all surplus to the powerful image seen to the right of the frame. Had the photographer framed the image to include only the child, the face, and the reflection of both in the wet ground, I would struggle to criticise it, but the seriously sub-par framing subtracts from what might be a great shot. Thankfully a crop can easily amend this
In 17th is “Lady in Red. Val Proudkii”. I’ve seen a few of this sort of shot, where the photographer takes a photo through a train window, but focuses on the condensation, causing the subjects behind it to take on a soft painterly quality. Done right, it can have a really nice dream like effect on the image. It’s done technically well here, but I’m still not sold on the shot. I like that we have the symmetry of the two people with the same contemplative pose (though the man looks less like his gaze is distance focused, and more like he’s just seen the photographer, which breaks the immersion of the shot for me) But the pose the two more central figures are striking isn’t particularly interesting. Without the symmetry, I’d find it boring. I like the figure on the left, and I think there’s an interesting crop to be found there. I know some people will find this shot beautiful and question how I can find it uninteresting, but I can try and explain by offering this similar shot By Craigh Whitehead as an alternative which I do like. We have the same condensation effect, but here there’s a moment beyond a plain expression. On top of that, we have the words ‘Miniature masterpiece’ which is a nice light touch of comedy in appraisal of the child’s window art (and maybe a more sly pat on the back by the photographer himself). Compared to this, I find the other shot boring. As a part of a series of images taken in a similar way, it could definitely work.
Next up is “Manila” at 255 points. I said in my last post that I’m not always a fan of extreme minimalism in street photography, and this image is not one of the few exceptions. That said, the image nails that style. The colour contrast between the deep blacks and the nicely textured purple is eye popping. The pure simplicity of the shot really does give it an appearance of some sort of abstract expressionist canvas. This shot has been done before, quite famously by the likes of Saul Leiter, and personally I prefer his take more. It’s a little less abstract, so on top of the abstract qualities, we get a sense of story and mood which I feel is lost in the pure abstraction of this particular image. All that said, this is still a really nice shot, it’s just not quite to my tastes, a feeling which is heightened by my knowing that there’s a similar image which I do like.
The penultimate image is “WTC, NYC”. I see a lot of this sort of image posted on this site as well as instagram. It’s a similar style to a notable youtuber and photographer called Sean tuck. The image shows the silhouette of a man mid-stride as he walks past some dramatic monochrome pillars. The top and bottom of the image in which the subject walks are dark, and the patch of wall behind him is illuminated, so we are simply left with the form of the man. This image does not make me feel much, neither emotionally, nor in terms of the compositional skill. The subject’s body is cut in half by the light, so despite the high contrast, he’s not clearly outlined. But beyond that, I simply find myself unable to imagine the thought process of the photographer in an interested way. The scene has no energy, and while it may have dramatic lighting, it’s not used to any effect beyond reveling in its own drama. The photographer saw the light and waited for the token walker to make sure the shot met the mandatory street photography quota of having a person in frame.The person doesn’t add anything to the image, and there was little image to be added to anyway. As an architectural shot, it’s no more than ok. The angle and composition of the shot is bog standard, the grandeur of the building isn’t highlighted with a low angle, neither the sweeping arc or strong diagonals are framed in such a way as to be emphasised, I am just not blown away by any individual element of this shot, and I don’t feel like the sum is greater than its mediocre parts.
Last up is “current affairs”. Unlike most photos in this sub which show a person walking, here we have something entirely different: a bird walking. It’s interesting to see a street photograph eschew the tradition of human subjects that so many include in a purely token capacity, but that’s where I feel the interest ends with this picture. The background is busy, so the bird’s appearance is more messy than it is striking. The bird is the only element of the photo to which my eye is drawn, and yet when it arrives there, it’s not comfortable with what it has fallen upon. If the image is taken as a whole, maybe there is a message about the futility of our politics, as nature tramples carelessly over them, but whatever higher message the image might convey, I almost don’t want to give it the time to convey it. A message is nice, but photography isn't prose, and a message ought to be contained in an interesting composition, preferably one pertinent to the message it produces. Could you argue that the mess/chaos of the image is a commentary on the messy, chaotic political landscape over which the bird steps? Sure, but it doesn’t change the aesthetic deficiency which I personally feel the image to have. A creative idea, but I feel the execution could use some work.
Hope this analysis was helpful, or at the very least made for an interesting read. Here’s a link to part 1 in case you missed it. Otherwise, I look forward to the next entry in the series for the month of August.
Submitted August 13, 2019 at 10:02AM by AntinatalistPoet https://ift.tt/2YMevPh
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