[Leica]New Leica IIIf photos

[tedgrant at shaw.ca (Ted Grant)]

David Cochran said:
Subject: Re: [Leica]New Leica IIIf photos
>> I am happy to say that my Leica IIIf came back from the shop and the 
>> streaks are gone. It happened to be the curtains.
>>Here is a sample of last weekend stroll on the Old City of San Juan.
>>Hope you guys like it....specially Ted, ;-)
>>
>> http://www.photo.net/photodb/folder?folder_id=538940<<<

Hi David,
OK you asked! ;-)

1: Nude....behind the figure to the left as we look at the photograph 
there's a window brightly lit... This is so bright you should've noticed it 
and moved to your left or right and blocked it off.   However, there's 
another immediately to the upper right, a reflected light off the wall 
behind. Another missed highlight not doing anything for the "Nude."

If you could've eliminated these two light areas, heck even with PS, then 
maybe the picture could've been made into something. However at the moment I 
have to ask a question. "What was your motivation for making this exposure?" 
What turned you on visually to say to yourself, "Jeeeeesh look at that 
neat....... click!"

Or were you making "test frames" checking the refurbished camera? Therefore, 
the picture content wasn't meant to be anything more than a test shot 
exposure?

It's possible this is a figure in a window, therefore not possible for you 
to have made any movement to lose the light. That being the case why did you 
shoot it?

2: Old city lamp..... Not much to say, as I and I assume many others on 
list, have been attracted to an old lit lamp at night and shot something 
along the line as this. The most important thing in this case is a correct 
exposure and being in focus and that's what you have. In other words it's OK 
and works as a simple illustration shot.

3: Walker by Fountain. Very nice! :-) I like it as the action works along 
with the back lighting. You're close to having the walker's head with a lamp 
post growing out of it. Yep that might be a tad nit picking but what it does 
is, it makes you look at the scene harder next time and you will look for 
those little things very quickly as you are focusing the camera or just 
looking through the view finder before you go "click!"

It's simple little things like this that make the difference between a shot 
that works perfectly and one that has a post or tree growing out of a 
subjects head.

In this case you were luckier than planned! :-) That said, I still like the 
shot and I don't think I'd have done much different other than I'd have let 
him take a few more steps into the frame where he was directly inline with 
the sun.

If for no other reason than he'd have cut down the flair off the tiles and 
the ring around the fountain.  But a walking subject is prone to not walk 
exactly where you want them to go, so it's best to shoot as you feel 
comfortable with the scene which means to shoot several as the subject 
continues to move partiularly where he wasn't directly inline with the sun. 
Then edit on the light table later selecting the best frame.

It's a fine bit of seeing and re-acting to the moment.

ted