Street Portraits

[John 2]

Spent a day recently at a local event known as the Kendal Mint Festival. Kendal is a town in the English Lake District (as near as..) where a sweet mint confection called Kendal Mint Cake is made. It's been a staple energy boost favoured by mountain climbers for many years. One of the company's proud boasts is that it has been up Everest. As with most festivals, there were too many people around for serious photography but I was able to catch some people shots of the street performers.

Fuji x
55-200mm Fuji X lens

1. The Mad Professor - Entertaining children (and the rest of us) with explosions etc.


2. Your guess is as good as mine. The entertainment consisted of a six sided box with a set of headphones plugged into each side. Those listening through the headphones would in unison, shout something indecipherable every few second. Strange! ..........Mono because he virtually was.



3. I just found her attractive.

[deetheturk]

Well captured John, did you use a filter on #1 ( his face )?

Cheers David

[smcrews]

Hey John,

I like the framing and overall moment you have captured in each of these shots. The biggest problem I have here is that it seems like you went a little overboard with the processing. I don’t know if that was the look you were going for or not.

I would love to see what the original shots looked like.

[Shadowman]

Nice captures.

[bnnrcn]

Nice shots and #2 is a WOW! for me

[John 2]

Thanks for your comments.
David/ Shawn. Shawn I hope you are only referring to the first image. It's the image that I am least happy with. Somewhere in the PP he has taken that sallow look and I think I will have to redo it. Probably happened whilst I was trying to protect the blue in his beard etc. So no filter David just not watching the colour balance during PP.

[Geoff F]

They look good to me. Possibly #1 seems a fraction 'over processed' but it is a fun image so that doesn't really matter.

[Teton Chuck]

I like them all, but #2 is my favorite.

[Stagecoach]

All very good John, as for the processing in No 1 it helps make the image for me.

[IzzieK]

Grahame beat me to the same remarks by 2 hours! I am of the same opinion as he has -- I love that shot and the post processing. Don't hate it, John. It is a fun photoshoot after all...I also like the fact that you go places for events to practice your people photography that I actually look forward to your posts, thinking like, what was he up to now...????

[John 2]

Thanks Geoff, Chuck, Graham and Izzie. I don't think 1 is so much over processed as carelessly processed. I needed lighten his face and in doing so, lost the blue in his beard. To compensate I increased the blue saturation but there must have been some blue on his skin (skylight). The effect has been to add blue to the natural redness in his face and it looks brown. I don't dislike the shot but the hue is in fact, slightly wrong.

Thanks Izzie, I have just made a point this year of getting out and using the camera. It is too easy to just sit in front of the computer and play. Events like these also mean that my wife has an interest at the same time as providing potential subjects for me - and it's fun. We are off to the English Lake district first thing tomorrow for a weeks break. Hired a cottage in the middle of nowhere near a river. Can't even drive the car up to it. We have to park about 100yds away down a path. Should be good for some Landscape and wildlife though or even, because there will be no light pollution, a starscape or two if we get a clear night.

[DanK]

Great shots. I'm in the 'something is amiss in #1' camp. However, I am not sure what it is. When I first looked, I thought perhaps it had been oversharpened, but looking again, I don't know what it is. For some reason, his face looks unnatural. I don't think it is color cast, because his hands look OK. Sorry I can't pin this down enough to be helpful.

[John 2]

Thanks for the comment Dan. The hands are OK because I had selected just the face before making any adjustment. However, I think I have sorted it. Used the Shadows/Highlight tool to lighten his face some more and then just used the Colour Correction slider to adjust the hue. Magic. Don't know what the problem was but it's better.

[IzzieK]

......
Thanks Izzie, I have just made a point this year of getting out and using the camera. It is too easy to just sit in front of the computer and play. Events like these also mean that my wife has an interest at the same time as providing potential subjects for me - and it's fun. We are off to the English Lake district first thing tomorrow for a weeks break. Hired a cottage in the middle of nowhere near a river. Can't even drive the car up to it. We have to park about 100yds away down a path. Should be good for some Landscape and wildlife though or even, because there will be no light pollution, a starscape or two if we get a clear night.

Good for you! Be safe...
(...now if I can get rid of my alligator scare, I'd be fine here in the next few days.)

Son of a friend of hubby caught an 11-footer three days ago in his backyard (a lake). They live about a block from us here, walking distance. So I suppose we're going to have some alligator meat at the party there tomorrow... haven't tried that before... so I'll make sure it is really dead first before I bite into it...