Street celebration-Kensington

[RBSinTo]

This was taken a few years ago during one of the Pedestrian Sundays in the Kensington Market district here in Toronto.
As part of the street festivities a Latin drum marching band wound through the streets playing extraordinarily wonderful music that had many dancing in the street.
Backing up in the middle of the street as they approached, I grabbed this shot.
motorized Nikon FA
Vivitar 17~28 f4.0-4.5 AIS manual focus
Fuji 100 ISO colour slide
about 5.6 @1/500th

[DanK]

A great scene, but the exposure mostly obscures the people. If you just pull up the shadows, you can reveal more of them:



Did you intend the tilt? It's about 15 degrees. I tried straightening it, but with this much tilt, straightening it takes away a lot of material from the sides.

[RBSinTo]

A great scene, but the exposure mostly obscures the people. If you just pull up the shadows, you can reveal more of them:
Did you intend the tilt? It's about 15 degrees. I tried straightening it, but with this much tilt, straightening it takes away a lot of material from the sides.

Dan,
I agree about the shadows, after reading this comment by a couple of people, and like your fix. I've since gone back into Photoshop and corrected my version as well.
About the tilt: Because I was walking backwards and looking through the viewfinder at the same time, it was difficult to keep the camera level, and I assumed incorrectly that shooting at 17mm, I'd have enough around the edges to level the composition and still have everything I wanted in frame to be there, so I didn't worry about the tilt.
When I corrected it in Photoshop, I found (as you did) that I had to crop so much that the wide, open space feel to the shot disappeared, so I rationalized that the tilt gave it a casual, festive feel and left it as shot. Truthfully, I like it as is, but again that's only my opinion. Others obviously don't.
Robert

[Manfred M]

I definitely like Dan's direction here.

With respect to using a Dutch tilt, there is always a fine line between rotating the camera too little, so that it looks like poor technique and too much, where it can seem "over the top". Sometimes lady luck smiles on the photographer and the image works, in spite of an apparent lack of conscious effort by the photographer. That has happening in this shot.

[RBSinTo]

Thanks Manfred.
I like the tilt as well.
Robert