[Leica] PAW

[tedgrant at shaw.ca (Ted Grant)]

B. D. Colen offered:
Subject: RE: [Leica] PAW


> Well...The only problem with that assessment,
> Ted-from-whom-I-have-learned-and-will-continue-to-learn-countless
> things, is that in many, if not most, of the world's great photo
> portraits, the subject is looking right smack into the lens. For that
> matter, in zillions of great street photos, the subject is engaged with
> the photographer. <<<<<

B.D. mon ami,
As usual you are correct in your comment and because you made the point for 
both cases, set portrait and street photo, I agree with you.

So I went back and looked at it again and given as we do, I'd say some, we 
tend on occasion to dismiss a photograph too quickly when there isn't that 
instant grab you by the throat and "oh jeeeeesh look at that!"  Bam in your 
face and one spends extra time to view a few moments longer.

However, on occasion a sleeper, such as yours comes up. And we tend to 
dismiss it too quickly because it doesn't have the throat grab. But that's 
just the time, and I say this from doing many critiques and judging news & 
commercial photographer competitions, it's the time we are quick to cut and 
dump!

When in reality it's exactly the time we need to take a second or third 
look! Just in case. Obviously this doesn't apply in every photo situation, 
because even if you looked at some a hundred times you'd cut it.

In the case with the lady looking at you?  The light... "shooting from the 
shadow side" perfect. She has an expression hard to describe, questioning? 
However it might have been some un-repeatable wordings for the screen.;-) 
It's sharp, properly exposed and creates a question if nothing else... "Who 
the hell is this guy and why is he taking our picture? " :-)

Or in the case of many of the old-time photos of this nature it creates a 
viewer question... "Who are these people and why are they sitting in this 
back alley?" By the same token one can read too many things into a photo to 
kind of justify why the shot was taken or why it wasn't dumped. However, not 
in this case.

As a street photo when I look again I see the one thing that should have 
grabbed me right off and that was......... "the light on her face!" How I 
didn't see it right away, sorry bad day for me. :-(  And your shooting from 
the shadow side! And if any reason not to dump it, it's the lighting so 
beautifully her face. Yep simple, but it makes her stand out more so than 
the man.
That's why the second look and all my words. :-)

ted