street portraits from Sokcho city - 1

[teokf]

I was there with my wife for the Fall colours in Mount Sorak. Besides the mountain, we took one day to walk around the city of Sokcho. I maanaged to shoot some street portraits.

If I may ask for your critique or comments on this first portrait. I like his 'look' but not sure how to go about the metal bar that is right across it. I tried the 'content fill' in CS5, but it didn't work well.

Thank you.

[reima000]

Hi!

it's a bit bulky object to clone away or to make disappear in any way. Perhaps a little crop from below would help? It would move the bar lower and further away from the middle of the photo, and then you could get the head of the man little to either side, so it wouldn't be just in the middle either. Also you could make the bar a little darker, if not make it go away, so it perhaps would not distract the viewer so much.

Hope you don't mind, took a shot at it. really not sure if any improvement here tell me what you think.


Reima

[Donald]

I think Reima is onto a good idea there. It's about trying to make that metal as unobtrusive as possible. Otherwise, I think it's a good bit of photography. It's a point for consideration that you maybe could look at the lighting on the face and maybe lighten up the darker shadows (for example, under the peak of his cap) and give it bit more structure through local contrast enhancement.

[teokf]

Hi!
Hope you don't mind, took a shot at it. really not sure if any improvement here tell me what you think

Reima

Glad that you did the improvement for me to see it. Thanks. It looks so much better.

Donald, thanks for the pointer from a B&W 'sifu.'

[rpcrowe]

The bar is a problem because it splits the image into two parts. Of course, this is an after thought but, if you had approached the subject closer or used a longer focal length lens, you might have avoided the metal bar. I tend to be able to see things like the bar better using an eye level viewfinder than if I were trying to shoot with live view using the LCD.

On another note, shooting with fill flash will often help balance the exposure of a subject against a bright background. I always (although it is often a PITA to carry) have a flash attached to my camera. If I suspect that I will be shooting a lot of people up close, I will carry my 430EX. However, I always carry and often use the little 270EX which hardly weighs anything. This will occasionally be enough to brighten my subject. Combining the 270EX in bounce position with a Joe Demb Photojournalist FlipIt (with the reflector postioned at about 45 degrees forward) will often provide just enough soft light to illuminate close up subjects and to add catch lights to the eyes.

[teokf]

Hi Richard

thanks for a detailed explanation. I tried to be as descreet as possible when shooting people on the street. Maybe I would consider that the next time.

BTW, what's PITA?

[rpcrowe]

Steven...

PITA... is a polite and acceptable (I hope) cyber way to write "Pain in the A _ _...

My standard kit for travel and street photography is the Canon 17-55mm f/2.8 IS and 70-200mm f/4L IS lenses on a pair of 1.6x cameras (7D and 40D). The 70-200mm lens is absolutely great for portraits of people, both formal and candid. Being able to stay off a bit and still frame the portrait helps because the subject is unaware of the camera and therefore is not influenced by the photographer. The long focal length is often valuable in separating the subject from the background using selective deoth of field.



The 70-200mm f/4L IS lens is pretty expensive but, the Canon 55-250mm and the several 70-300mm lenses by Canon and third party manufacturers are less expensive but are viable options. Nikon has similar lenses and third party manufacturers offer similar lenses for Nikon cameras.

A long lens is an integral part of my portrait, travel and general photography kit.

It allows selective depth of field,



allows fairly unobtrusive photogrphy (even the "white" Canon L lenses),



allows framing in the camera,



and compresses distance which can make a mundane scene interesting...

[teokf]

Richard

thanks for the samples of pixs to show your point. It does give people like me another thought of what lenses to shoot with in street photography. BTW, love the pixs.

BTW, I use the Sony a580 with a Minolta 24-105mm lens