Jack Flesher was so bold (or so unwary) as to ask to see some of my pictures. Here are a few recent ones:

TO SEE THE PICTURES

I don't know if these qualify as 'street photography' or not. Certainly kids and water seem to be my theme for the summer.

Enjoy (I hope!)

Andy

-- Andy Piper (apidens@denver.infi.net), August 26, 2001

Answers

VERY nice shots here, Andy! (Must have been a long night uploading? - being a European early bird I seem to have a pole position with your fresh post...)

The cityscapes indoors and outdoors are my personal favorites. The lady with umbrella in the far distance makes your plaza shot a winner. And the 90mm eyedrops handheld @ 1/15 tell me that you don't need any of her's... ;o)

Thanks for sharing.

-- Lutz Konermann (lutz@konermann.net), August 26, 2001.

I agree that these are very nice images. I especially like the woman putting drops in her eyes. Nice composition. I was wondering why you shot Velvia and then converted to BxW in Photoshop.

-- David Enzel (dhenzel@vei.net), August 26, 2001.

Like others have already said - nice stuff! I love the composition in Capitol Light. And the eyedrops - just the idea of shooting available light with Velvia makes me smile.

Nice b&w conversions, too. Do you desaturate, or convert to grey scale, or do something more arcane? The tonality is terrific.

-- Paul Chefurka (chefurka@home.com), August 26, 2001.

Andy:

Thank you for sharing - you do VERY nice work. Eyedrops at 1/15th - WOW! But the word "Visene" on the bottle was a little fuzzy - better clean up your hand-holding technique ;-) The Girl with Puppy made me smile :-) And yes, IMO those are great street shots!

-- Jack Flesher (jbflesher@msn.com), August 26, 2001.

I love "Capital Light"! It would be average if it were not for the silhouetted figures in the doorway. You had a very good eye to wait for that important addition to a scene that had so much potential. Additionally, the curve of the banister makes the slight tilting of the wide-angle lens totally acceptable. I would love to see a real print on paper of this shot.

Thanks for sharing.

-- Al Smith (smith58@msn.com), August 26, 2001.

David & Paul:

If I see a picture, I take it with whatever film I have loaded.

I convert some Velvia shots to B&W if the picture works but the color doesn't (if that makes sense) or sometimes just for consistency within a portfolio. For a long time I ALWAYS got better B&W tones from slides than from negatives (my scanner just doesn't like negs for some reason) but I've been working on my technique and now I can get pretty nice scans from negs as well. Leica lenses help a lot. 8^)

"Conversion" is probably a misnomer, since I USUALLY just make a gray scale scan of the slide. But sometimes I do 'convert' a color scan, because I can use the selective color controls in Photoshop's "saturation" adjustments as color filters - e.g. to lighten reds/ yellows and darken blues/cyans. A straight grayscale scan sometimes renders reds and blues as the same gray, which isn't always appropriate.

The short version: Open the saturation adjustments and desaturate the whole image, but DON'T exit the dialogue box. Instead, go into the separate R/Y/G/C/B/M "channels" and use the LIGHTEN/DARKEN slider to lighten or darken specific colors - even though the image is desaturated the grays will change based on the underlying color. E.G. "darkening" cyan and blue will darken skies and blue jeans, "lightening" reds and yellows lightens skins tones, "lightening" greens can add the look of infrared film.

Then click OK to close the dialogue. If you like the results you can THEN convert the image to grayscale. But if you aren't happy, "UNDO" the conversion and you get the full-color image back for another try.

-- Andy Piper (apidens@denver.infi.net), August 26, 2001.

Your velvia to b&w idea is exactly what I have decided to do with my travel shots. If i use 2 bodies i know i will miss something. I love the fact that you can shoot B&W anytime of the day and of any subject but with col you realy need to shoot in perfect light and look out for strong colours. eg In asia they use so many of those blue plastic or orange plastic tarps in their markets. They can destroy the feel of the place. It can be the difference between running a shot in a mag or not. Well done man!

-- Tim (timphoto@ihug.com.au), August 27, 2001.