Dolph Asked Me to Do This, Nikon D100
Fillmore Street Scene
I was talking to Dolph this afternoon and he asked me to post a "bad" picture. So to oblige him, here it is. I thought I had something here when I shot it, but in this original, uncropped version, it looks rather uninspiring.
So let's talk about this. What is wrong with this picture, and what, if anything, can be done to make it better? I have an idea, but I'll keep it to myself for the time being. While we're looking at it, is there anything good here?
--Warren
posted by Warren T. at 9:50 PM
4 comments
4 Comments:
This photo has no point of focus, lots of detail. My eye wanders looking for something and wonders what drew the photographer to snap the shutter. Was it the woman on the cell phone? Maybe the photo needs to be cropped so as the window display and the woman on the photo with the newspaper racks are shown. Actually the scene is pretty weak from the position you were standing. How many frames did you shoot of this? I find that shooting more frames, changing lenses or waiting for the situation to change may make for a better photo. Photography is not as easy as it seems, at times it's work.
This is a great exercise - can I contribute some bad photos as well? :-) I have plenty!!
As for this one, I agree with Martin- there just isn't any point of interest in the scene, nothing to draw me in. I like the slant of the street, which shows up compared to the buildings, but there is to much extraneous detail to build on that.
I'm with Martin - the woman on the cell phone and the window display might have been a good basis for a good street photo.
I have a post on my blog on a similar theme, called "Near Misses, Also-Rans, and the One That Got Away" at http://therosenblog.blogspot.com/2005/03/near-misses-also-rans-and-one-that-got.html
Best regards,
SteveR
Hey, if all it takes to get you guys to speak up is posting a bad picture, I can keep this site very busy. :) I have lots that nobody ever sees.
I'll wait to see if anyone else has anything more to say before I give you all the background on this, why I took this, including some answers to Martin's questions.
Thanks for the comments, I enjoyed reading your opinions, advice, and your unique perspectives.
--Warren
Since the silent majority seems to be remaining silent this time too, I'll tell you the background on this one. I often like to use a single, fixed focal length lens on various photo excursions. This time, I chose to mount the 50mm f1.8D lens on the D100. I then use the sneaker-zoom method (walk back and forth) if my shots need to be framed differently.
So there we were strolling on Fillmore street when I noticed the woman on her cell phone with her purple hair, leaning up against the newspaper stands. I thought that it might make a good subject for a street shot.
Since I could only use my sneaker-zoom technique, I couldn't very well run into the middle of Fillmore street thereby either getting run over or drawing undue attention to myself and ruining the candid nature of the picture.
So, I thought that I'd just shoot it from my relatively obscure position from across the street, then crop it later for the final image. I only shot the one frame because I wasn't interested in working too hard on this particular shot.
I did crop the image a while ago, but I deemed it not good enough to post onto FPCF.
--Warren
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