At the market

[Antonio Correia]

[escape]

Hi Anton, I would crop out the left half. I find it hard to get past the headless person. The right half makes a well-composed image in my view. It's an interesting street scene overall.

[Antonio Correia]

Thank you Daniel for your comment
Indeed the cropped body doesn't please me but street photography is what it is. Well, that is just my point of view
Perhaps a well experimented photographer could remove him in CC ...
The shot is just the action of a business transaction...
Cheers !

[escape]

A fantastic second image, Antonio.

[Geoff F]

Just a thought, Antonio. Crop a fraction tighter on the top (and a similar amount from the left side) so as to reduce the impact from that headless man?

[pschlute]

I love it. As a capture of a market street scene it works for me. The blurred money and slightly blurred lady (left) add to the scene in my view.

The headless man ? Perhaps he is a juxtaposition to the dismembered chickens on the slab !

[Antonio Correia]

Thank you Daniel, Geoff and Peter !
I have to agree that the first shot is not among my best ones. The cropped head is not pleasant even if as Peter said, "...As a capture of a market street scene it works..." but if there are others why have I chosen this one ?

This was shot in India, back in 2016 and only now I am working on many of the photographs I made then. Many others are good enough to be shown and I should say that they are better than the first and as good as the second one or as good as. I posted this one as one among a couple of them. A poor choice !

A book for "domestic consumption" is in the horizon

[Wandjina]

Hi Anton, I would crop out the left half. I find it hard to get past the headless person. The right half makes a well-composed image in my view. It's an interesting street scene overall.

+1

[rpcrowe]

I think that shot #1 could be part of a photo collage on this market. However, I like shot #2 the best of the three! The vendor sitting amidst his wares is so indicative of third world market scenes... I have viewed similar scenes in markets from Mexico to Vietnam...

[Antonio Correia]

Thank you Richard for your comment !
Are you OK ? Hope so !
With the shot above inside a shop I end this small collection.
Cheers !

[DanK]

I find the first one confusing and lacking a real center other than the chicken pieces, but I think the others are very interesting shots. They are worth more processing, in my opinion. E.g, the second one has too much distracting detail on the sides, particularly the right. The shadows could be lightened, and that in turn would let you add some contrast. For example, just quickly doing those three things gives the following. Is this a direction you might want to follow?

[Chataignier]

Nice series - lots of interest and great colours
David

[Manfred M]

I agree Antonio, market scenes are among my favourite subjects when I travel. You have some excellent images here.

[Antonio Correia]

Thank you David and Manfred for your comments !
Much obliged !
Cheers !

[lovelife65]

Antonio, Can completely empathize in regards to the COVID stuff. Been a really tough year.
That along with increasing heat and drought and everything else, along with a parent with dementia that does not ever go backwards, life remains pretty depressing.

Your images however, are AMAZING. I just love each and every one of them. I especially love the scene with the man smiling at you. His expression tells a lot, and you captured that scene very well.
Thank you for posing, you are very talented.

[Antonio Correia]

Dan, your comment is much appreciated. Thank you !
In the mentioned photograph as in many others, I try to attract the viewer to the person or persons in the scene or to a specific area.
This vignetting must be hardly apparent... you can see clearly what I mean looking at post number 10 (father and son).

I have experimented your suggestion and yes you are right, when you say that lightening the shadows would increase contrast. But that option returns a photograph which I could consider flat, meaning by that all the light equally distributed. And this is what I am trying to run away from.

Now, another area. The crop.
Stubbornly I use a crop factor of 3/5 which in fact I have been tempted to quit somewhere in time.
But the crop factor didn't come by chance but was thought to fit nicely in A paper more specifically in A5 in which I print some photos, at home.
Needless to say that I do agree that your crop is better than mine.
I am tempted to move into a free crop but I hesitate...

Meanwhile...
As if it was on A5 paper. 3/5 crop and other at will

[Antonio Correia]

Antonio, Can completely empathize in regards to the COVID stuff. Been a really tough year.
That along with increasing heat and drought and everything else, along with a parent with dementia that does not ever go backwards, life remains pretty depressing.

Your images however, are AMAZING. I just love each and every one of them. I especially love the scene with the man smiling at you. His expression tells a lot, and you captured that scene very well.
Thank you for posing, you are very talented.

Sharon... don't say I am talented. I am not. Well, never mind. Let's go on
Thank you for your comment Sharon.
Don't go down. Sometimes it is hard indeed, but we all have to hold on. Better days will come.
And remember that there are people in far worse situations than us without possible escape.
Cheers !

[DanK]

I have experimented your suggestion and yes you are right, when you say that lightening the shadows would increase contrast. But that option returns a photograph which I could consider flat, meaning by that all the light equally distributed. And this is what I am trying to run away from.

I understand. I didn't understand your intent before.

Stubbornly I use a crop factor of 3/5 which in fact I have been tempted to quit somewhere in time.
But the crop factor didn't come by chance but was thought to fit nicely in A paper more specifically in A5 in which I print some photos, at home.
Needless to say that I do agree that your crop is better than mine.

There is an English phrase you may not have seen yet: "you are shooting yourself in the foot." It means that you are undermining your own goals. Your main goal is to draw the viewer's eye to the vendor. That's why you used a vignette, and that's why my lightening the shadows harmed the image. However, leaving all that high-contrast, irrelevant detail on the sides of the image, quite far from the face, undermines your goal, just as my lightening the shadows did: it draws the eye away from the vendor.

Re aspect ratios: there are people here who disagree, but with a few exceptions, I have never been able to understand why an arbitrary ratio (the sensor aspect ratio, the paper aspect ratio, or just some arbitrary pair of numbers) should determine how an image is made. (One exception is abstract photography.) Often, I'll compromise if the aspect ratio I want is close to one of the standard ones, in order to make use of standard frames. But for images that matter, or for images that are clearly far from a standard ratio, I let the image determine what the aspect ratio should be.

for example, the two images below are both ones that I've shown publicly, and I have both hanging on my walls. Would it make sense to force them to the same aspect ratio?





Another example I've used is camera sensors. I have one camera with a 3:2 aspect ratio and one with 4:3. Should I print the image with a different aspect ratio if I happen to have with me?

Dan

[Antonio Correia]

...
There is an English phrase you may not have seen yet: "you are shooting yourself in the foot." It means that you are undermining your own goals. Your main goal is to draw the viewer's eye to the vendor. That's why you used a vignette, and that's why my lightening the shadows harmed the image. However, leaving all that high-contrast, irrelevant detail on the sides of the image, quite far from the face, undermines your goal, just as my lightening the shadows did: it draws the eye away from the vendor...

The expression is also used in Portuguese. I do understand your point of view.
Here nothing to add it is just a matter of opinion, aesthetics, deliberate option...

...Re aspect ratios: there are people here who disagree, but with a few exceptions, I have never been able to understand why an arbitrary ratio (the sensor aspect ratio, the paper aspect ratio, or just some arbitrary pair of numbers) should determine how an image is made. (One exception is abstract photography.) Often, I'll compromise if the aspect ratio I want is close to one of the standard ones, in order to make use of standard frames. But for images that matter, or for images that are clearly far from a standard ratio, I let the image determine what the aspect ratio should be.

for example, the two images below are both ones that I've shown publicly, and I have both hanging on my walls. Would it make sense to force them to the same aspect ratio?...

Again... options, choices...
It doesn't mean however that I don't agree with you.
The examples - whitch I have seen before in you site and where you have superb images - are very well chosen but I wouldn't be disappointed to have the flower with the same crop factor and/or the other way around.
Obviously you are putting things in a rather radical way when you refer the size of the sensors... but when I photograph I try to frame more or less the way I see the scene so I can crop as less as I can.
I am a bit stubborn yes, but not that much. Perhaps a thematic collection of images (say portraits for example) with the same crop factor makes sense while roofs and one flower... but hey, why not ?

Below the flower with the crop factor of the roofs and the other way around. No problem. Both OK even one may think that the original crops are better which in fact, I agree with !

Anyway, thank you so much for the extensive text and time spent advocating your point of view.
I promise to think about it !
Oh BTW I also use the square crop factor.
Cheers !

[DanK]

I take a different approach: I try to fill the frame as much as possible, leaving some margin for error. That sometimes means filling one dimension but not the other. The only reason I try not to crop more than I need to is to preserve pixels.

I wouldn't be disappointed to have the flower with the same crop factor and/or the other way around.

Indeed, some people would have different preferences for the aspect ratio that would look best for each. My point isn't so much that I got the best one, but that people should choose the aspect ration that they like for their specific image.