Street Photography Critique - X-Pro1 in Philadelphia, PA - Fujifilm X-Pro1 Discussions on Fuji X Series Camera Forum - Fujifilm X-Pro1 X-E1 X100S X100 X20 X10 XF1 X-S1

ragecat

Please please please take a look at what I've got so far and let me know what you think.

http://gettingcloser.500px.com

The order is from most recent to oldest

The first 19 are with the 18mm f/2 (slowly but surely becoming my favorite lens for street)

The next 10 are with the 35mm f/1.4

The last 5 were shot with my D7000 before I bought the Fuji.

I'll take anything. What was good, what was bad, what you guys think could've been done better while taking the shot, what could've been done in post as well.

PiTiLeZarD

First I don't think I could've done anything better hehe I like what I see, the pictures look nice, the black and whites are deep...

But if I had to say something, I would say that some pictures are great, others are just ... "people in the street"

For instance I like 9, 11 (not done on purpose I hope haha) 20, 33, where the composition is interesting, you get right away the message with something that leads your eye to the interesting part of the frame... but 3 the legs are cut, the guy is oddly placed on the frame with an empty space on the wrong side of the pic, 5 I'm looking more at the car behind, 14 and 15 I spent time on the picture to see what you were interested in, 30 everything is in the focus again, the wall is making my eye escape from what I guess you wanted to show... So you get the idea!

Again this is a harsh view on something I most probably wouldn't do better, and I liked seeing to begin with, it's always easy to say something when the work is done, when I have to do it myself, I don't apply my own remarks so no offense huh ;-)

ragecat

Hey thanks for all of the comments. Totally appreciated. And you're totally right these pictures are just people in the street because that is what street photography is. It's not about subject separation or bokeh or depth of field or anything like that. It's about capturing moments in the street. Capturing people and stories behind them so I guess in my opinion I feel I need a large depth of field to grab everything happening on the street in each frame at one moment. That's just me though. A lot of people have different definitions of what street photography is. As far as your comments go. I totally get it. I'm still getting used to the parallax on this thing. I'm coming from shooting dslr to shooting rangefinder style so it's all still kind of new to me. It's also exciting to get to know a different style of shooting! But yeah thank you so much for your comments. I definitely have something to work on next time i hit the streets!

jseltzer

Interesting set. From a technical point, they are pretty good (exposure, lighting, etc.). However, I must confess - I don't really don't think many of the images are very good examples of street photography at its best. There are some good ones, my favorite "Bird Hat" and "Sat in the Park." These images seem like there's a story - you've captured a very interesting moment in time.

But, many/most the shots look like you just happen to be standing there, and took what amounts to a snapshot. I also have a visceral, negative reaction to photos of homeless, especially when they are in vulnerable positions, like sleeping - to me it seems cheap and expected.

Overall, I think you are are on the right track, but look for more "decisive moments" and "stolen moments' that give us something unexpected. Also, careful of busy backgrounds. One other thing - several of the shots that look like "street portraits" seem like you had absolutely no rapport with the subject, and in fact, several subjects looks a little pissed or surprised you are taking their photo - these don't look candid, because it's clear they see the camera. To me, there's nothing interesting with basically sneaking-up on someone and snapping their picture.

Street photography is tough. It's not just about going around snapping what seems interesting, it's more than that. Ultimately, I decided street photography wasn't for me, and stopped trying several years ago. In full disclosure, I just found it too hard to get shots I thought were more than snapshots. But, here are a few of my personal favorites...

Gipper

I very much agree with "seltzer's" comment above. Covers my reaction and critiques. Street shooting is hard. I have done it a lot over the years. Getting a rapport can be hard, scary, tense, but when it works, wonderful, fun, rewarding. I will be coming out with an Apple iBook soon (I hope) called Face to Face that deals with portraits I have taken over the years around the world of strangers. And another book about capturing life's quiet dramas / everyday moments.

You DO have to find a moment or composition that SAYS something more than "I was there with a camera." A few of yours do, but too many do not. Study the work of Andre Kertesz, Henri Bresson, Robert Frank, and Alfred Eisenstadt to name a few. They created powerful compositions of evocative/provocative moments. One hard thing about street shooting, or any documentary photograph for that matter, is realizing that all that will endure is what is in the rectangle in the viewfinder. You are part of a scene, a moment, an event. The photograph is a piece of that torn out of context and later presented to people to view. As you look through the viewfinder, concentrate on that rectangle and ask yourself what will this look like, what will this say, what will this evoke out of context, isolated and abstracted from the moment you are in. Since much of my shooting was used in multi-image (slide) shows or now, multi-media projection, I pretend that the image in my viewfinder is an image on a big screen in a dark theater. And ask myself: "Is this worth looking at?" That is why I love viewfinders and hate holding a camera at arm's length and using the LCD. You cannot abstract the image using an LCD. The camera remains too much a part of the scene.

I also thought the images looked a little over-processed for my taste. I can post process, but I actually prefer the B&W JPGS right out of my X100 (and my new XPro1, I will assume). They have a rich, velvety quality rather than a brittle processed look.

Anyway, I think you will learn as you shoot, and you obviously have a good eye and instincts. Good luck and good light.

ragecat

Gipper and Seltzer:

Thank you so much for your comments. I am just starting to get into street photography so everything helps.

Hello Photographer!

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