Faces of Istanbul

[dje]

Taking a lead from Mr Page ...

[Jeffbridge]

Beautiful captures; excellent series!!

[Mike Buckley]

I like the potential for the second image. Notice the woman's face on the right that is "cut in half." For me, that's a clear no-no. In this case, you wouldn't want to crop at the left side of her face because her arm would be awkwardly sticking out from the edge of the frame. So, the solution is to either crop at the vertical post she is holding or to crop to eliminate everyone but the subject. Whatever you decide about that, consider cropping on the left closer to the subject.

By the way, the second image would also work well in black-and-white.

[Shadowman]

Nice captures.

[dje]

Thanks for your comments Jeff, Mike and John. Good point about the woman's half face Mike, a bit sloppy on my part ! Here is a B&W cropped version.

Dave

[Mike Buckley]

I didn't want to prejudice you with my choice of crop but this is exactly what I would have chosen. It's also a great conversion. This is such a wonderful image that I would have been thrilled to have made it myself, as it's the style of photo I like to make. You have so expertly told the story: the man concentrating on putting the chestnuts in the bag.

One last minor suggestion: add a slight vignette to focus even more attention on the man and bag. Make it so you don't notice the darkness of the vignette, only that you notice that that area gets brighter and the image becomes less attractive when you remove the vignette.

[dje]

I didn't want to prejudice you with my choice of crop but this is exactly what I would have chosen. It's also a great conversion. This is such a wonderful image that I would have been thrilled to have made it myself, as it's the style of photo I like to make. You have so expertly told the story: the man concentrating on putting the chestnuts in the bag.

One last minor suggestion: add a slight vignette to focus even more attention on the man and bag. Make it so you don't notice the darkness of the vignette, only that you notice that that area gets brighter and the image becomes less attractive when you remove the vignette.

Thanks Mike, I am much happier with the image now too. Will try the vignette suggestion.

Dave

[FootLoose]

Nice shots, Dave, and good conversions of both. I like the crop of the 2nd shop, nevertheless, I think it would have been nice to see the vendor's customers.

[dje]

Nice shots, Dave, and good conversions of both. I like the crop of the 2nd shop, nevertheless, I think it would have been nice to see the vendor's customers.

Thanks Greg. My initial thoughts were to keep the customers in shot 2 also but I think the crop gave more emphasis to the vendor and am happy with this result.

Dave

[juznobsrvr]

The revised version is much improved. And I agree that a slight vignette would take it up a notch. Mike Buckley is a wise man :-)

[NorthernFocus]

I like the cropped version of the second image much better. Nice job.

[dje]

Thanks Rob and Dan.

Mike Buckley is a wise man :-)

Yes but let's keep that to ourselves, we don't want him getting a swelled head

[dubaiphil]

Nice shots, Mr Ellis.

Are you taking just the one shot or working the scene a bit? Now if I was shooting here with a prime I may be limited by not being able to 'zoom with my feet' because of the stall - haha, I had to use that phrase just to annoy a few people! The limitations of archaic prime lenses, eh.

But you've got no excuses with a 17-70mm f2.8 (!), and can be a lot less conspicuous doing so even with a bigger lens. I can see why you've gone for the wider shot in #2 to take in the customers' faces but maybe working the scene a little more trying different focal lengths you may have come up with a favourite of the set very similar to the final cropped image, or a wider view with the stall owner passing the bag of chestnuts to a customer at 17mm - the stall's quite deep so the stall holder and customer would both have to lean in to exchange money and nuts, if you're lucky they'd be side on and facing you. Half of it is trying to predict what may happen before it happens.

I'm like a lot of people and always watching edges of the frame but it's best to click and crop later if required. Sometimes a stray body part in the image can draw emphasis to a scene or help tell a story, but a straight down the middle guillotine rarely works. Having said that, when you're trying a photojournalism style of photography it is very difficult or sometimes completely impossible to get the composition as you'd like - best to click and see what's recoverable later than hesitate.

Cue heavily post processed image with stray body part - a combination of around my 5th attempted shot at street photography with a very early black and white conversion attempt - I've got to revisit these files, but you get the idea maybe!



As for #1, I like it - reflections is something I'm going to be working on, both for mirroring a street view and for using as a double exposure - shooting through the window to a scene and having a superimposed reflection of the street outside - there are lots of possibilities there. If I was to say one thing it would be again to take a few quick shots at different focal lengths - if there was a slightly wider shot I'd process that instead as those feet have been slightly cropped.

A good site I've found recently is http://www.streetphotographylondon.co.uk/ - in the blog section there are interviews with many street photographers (not just London based) with lots of tips and links to great sites - well worth a look.

[John 2]

Much prefer the second version of no 2 Dave for both the crop, the mono treatment and the fact that you have removed the distracting graffiti. In the original, I found myself reading the T shirts which distracted from what has become a very strong subject.

[dje]

Phil thanks for your detailed comments. I'm a complete novice at this type of photography so any tips and advice are always welcome. I had a quick look at that website and it does indeed look to be a source of some good practical advice. I'll have a closer look in due course.

These shots were both "once off" as I was on a guided tour rather than a photography excursion. And of course I had my personal assistant along to tell me when I had spent enough time on any particular shot ! One minute I was shooting the Blue Mosque in bright sunlight and the next something completely different. I had a polariser on for the sunlight and I would have been better taking this off for shots like the ones above to get a faster shutter speed but under the circumstances this simply wasn't practical.

I can see how this sort of photography grows on you - for the satisfaction in getting something that works OK. But I take the point very strongly that success is much more likely with multiple shots, angles and focal lengths.

That's a great shot of the girl on the scooter by the way.

Dave

[dje]

Much prefer the second version of no 2 Dave for both the crop, the mono treatment and the fact that you have removed the distracting graffiti. In the original, I found myself reading the T shirts which distracted from what has become a very strong subject.

Thanks John for your comments. That's very observant of you to see that I removed the graffiti on the utility box !! (Not particularly well when I re-look at it closely)

Dave