Okay, she’s not a street walker. But she’s walking on a street. You’ve gotta give me that.
I shot this one today while walking around my neighborhood and, even after staring at it all through my post-processing (4 curves layers and a sharpening layer), I still haven’t decided what it is I like so much about it. I mean, I shot it from the hip (hence the angle and the strange cutoff points) because I didn’t want to spook the woman and — frankly — there just wasn’t time but I wanted to get the light on this building and the woman’s orange coat and such. And I like her hair. To that end, I think this shot is a success.
However, it is an unconventional angle and I didn’t get all of that woman (shoot!). Can’t exactly go back and get ‘em again….
11 Comments
September 30, 2005 at 3:05 pm
ok, so probably one of my favorites EVER. and that’s saying a lot. reminds me of garry winogrand’s stuff, except i might even like this better. just the details, like the splotches of color on the crosswalk stripes. well done, dude.
September 30, 2005 at 3:06 pm
I agree. And kinda humorous since it looks like she’s nonchalantly walking down an incredibly steep hill.
September 30, 2005 at 3:06 pm
LOVE IT!! I even think I like how she’s not all the way in the shot, it gives her a sense of motion and purpose. I also can’t get over the fact that people in NYC are wearing coats and scarves already – temperatures are still in the 80s down here! And then I realize, oh yeah, it’s September 30, people SHOULD need jackets by now, and I think maybe it’s weird that I thought jackets were weird. I’m going to stop now.
September 30, 2005 at 3:06 pm
i love the photo too…except for the glare at top left corner. one of the best ever, for sure. by the way, tell us what time of day you think most of your photos are taken, i’m curious
September 30, 2005 at 3:07 pm
thinking about it some more, definitely top 3 that i’ve seen from ATC. colors are perfect. except for that glare!
September 30, 2005 at 3:08 pm
UPDATE: Taking my brother’s comments as a challenge, I did my best to erase the lens flare in the top-left corner. I left a little bit of it — without it the image just looked totally fake — but I’m quite satisfied with the final result. Let me know what you think.
September 30, 2005 at 9:48 pm
By the way: New York has color? Quoi??
October 1, 2005 at 10:05 am
Yeah, I, too, was surprised when I discovered that this city *can* be captured in color. Odd.
I’m leaving this one up another day or so partly because I want to show it off but mostly because I went out yesterday with my camera and was totally, utterly uninspired. Ack.
October 9, 2005 at 12:58 am
First off, this is a nice picture. One of my favorites of yours, I think.
The problem with shooting without looking through the viewfinder is that you never really know what you’re going to get. I’ve done it myself a few times with most unconvincing results. In that light, you can get some really nice accidental pictures sometimes, but then I question if they’re really valid photographs, since a monkey could have taken it without knowing what it was doing at all. I guess you could say this for all photography, but I feel like there’s a distinction.
On the other hand, there’s really no way to get a shot like this unless a) the woman is completely oblivious, b) you’re unrealistically fast, c) this was a set up scene, or d) you’re Henri Cartier-Bresson. People inevitably start posing, or giving you unnatural/dirty looks when they see a camera pointed at them. This is why images such as this [http://www.tidalpool.org/about_me/photos/cartier-bresson_la_villette.jpg] are absolutely amazing. I think part of the difficulty of photography is also being able to capture the perfect moment where these little pretenses don’t matter, as in the best examples of Cartier-Bresson’s work.
November 16, 2007 at 4:55 pm
I think about this photo a lot. It has really sat with me. Not sure why I like to revisit it so often. I still, even quite a while later (good god, two years later), really love it.
June 7, 2009 at 6:27 pm
I don't know about Cartier-Bresson, I was struck with how Edward Hopper-esque it felt. Go check out some of his images and you may see what I mean. Good for you……I'd keep experimenting if you got a terrific result like this. There's something going on here, and you're on to it! Keep up the good work !