Hi Hi there,

Long time no see but I finally decided on the Nikon Coolscan LS 40 for my purposes. The first of my scans from Providence are in my personal portfolio at photo.net. Actually, they are shots taken with both the 75 lux wide open and the 35 cron wide open. A little creative manipulation in Photoshop sets the tone of the photos.

Here's one:

http://www.photo.net/photodb/photo?photo_id=339852

Give me some feedback.

Thanks always,

John.

-- John Chan (ouroboros_2001@yahoo.com), August 29, 2001

Answers

On the picture of the woman, I like the subject's expression and pose, but am not crazy about the backround. Even though it is blurred, it still seems distracting to me.

-- Andrew Schank (aschank@flash.net), August 29, 2001.

How (and why) did you mount the Holga lens on your Leica?

-- Wilhelm (bmitch@home.com), August 29, 2001.

Interesting and unique photo.

Social comment: Is it just me or does a cigarette in the hand of a woman take her from being a 10 down to a 3?

-- Jeffrey (juniper@juniper.com), August 29, 2001.

Actually,

She had offered to put the cigarette out when I started shooting but I declined. I think in street photography if you make it so the subject isn't comfortable with who they really are then they won't relax enough in front of the camera for you to get truly spontaneous shots. They'll always be mentally en garde.

Besides, I liked the attitude of the photograph with the cigarette in her hand. Picture this sweet little girl (mid-west conservative) taking a few drags on a butt. Gives the picture interest and a storyline.

-- John Chan (ouroboros_2001@yahoo.com), August 29, 2001.

When I stayed in Providence last autumn I did all my shooting in rural R.I. and down at Newport...height of fall colors, beautiful little state. Anyway, about the photo in question, I'm not a portraitist, but the subject has a different kind of softness than I would find pleasing. Also, I'm not much into digital altering, but the subject being in color already makes her stand out from the background, so I would rather see the b&w background in sharp focus as well...for me, that would work better.

-- Jay (infinitydt@aol.com), August 29, 2001.

The photo didn't look really sharp to me in any plane. Just a little soft, even in the eyes. Is this a scanning/electronic problem? Or was there some camera movement?

-- Bob Fleischman (RFXMAIL@prodigy.net), August 29, 2001.

The left thumb looks sharp to me. I wish these were sized so the whole frame fit the computer screen. Focus point is really critical with this lens.

-- Phil Stiles (Stiles@metrocast.net), August 29, 2001.

What for? There is no center in the photo. No story, no feeling. Just a woman who is smoking in a relaxed situation without any evidence of the reason why she is on relax. It does not express neither peace, nor transparency, only a smile a bit sardonic. A soap face woman with no tension or dramma to communicate. There is no solitude in this photo, and in the mean time no social engagement. It is a typical symbol of the vacuum of our cities that are even enable to express their inutility. Unluckly this "symbol" does not symbolize nothing of the absence of sense in a modern town but only itself. Joe

-- joe pelizza (breglumasi@hotmail.com), August 30, 2001.

What?

-- jeff voorhees (debontekou@yahoo.com), August 30, 2001.

Throw the diffusion filter away. What I find wrong, is that this photo is all about you, and not about the subject. This photo tells us nothing about the subject other than she's there. In a good portrait, the photographer should never enter in, but rather, be a silent observer.

-- Leicaddict (leicaddict@hotmail.com), August 30, 2001.

Thanks all for the constructive input.

-- John (ouroboros_2001@yahoo.com), August 30, 2001.

Hi John,

After reading some of the hot and heavy responses I had to see the photograph. Basically I like it and if I were that girl there's a good chance I would put it in a frame but one thing that really stood out and that I found disturbing was how yellow her teeth look. I think once I were manipulating I would have gotten creative with those teeth!

Gail

-- Gail Hammer (gail@hammerphotography.com), August 31, 2001.

The biggest problem I see with this photograph is that there is sharp focus and it's in a place that it doesn't work, which is the black bag and possibly her thumb. It should either be sharp somewhere else or not sharp anywhere, because it's a distraction. I have no problem with blur or lack of sharpness, but it has to be done properly. The burned out highlight on her dress is a problem also. Otherwise, I think it's a fairly interesting and evocative portrait, it has an appealing modernity aobut it.

One comment on the comments:

In a good portrait, the photographer should never enter in, but rather, be a silent observer.

This runs entirely contrary to any reasonable construct of human behavior. A portrait is an interaction between two people (or more if there is more than one person in the portrait.) Interaction means that some of it will be the subject and some will be the photographer. There is no completely "silent observer," at least not once the camera comes out.

Think about three people given cameras to take a portrait of Adolf Hitler - a Polish Jew, a Chinese peasant who had never heard of Hitler, and his favorite photographer, Leni Riefenstahl. Each does a portrait. I would bet the clothes on my back that putting those three portraits next to each other and you would learn more about each photographer than about Hitler.

-- Jeff Spirer (jeff@spirer.com), August 31, 2001.

Jeff Spirer and leicaddict: I think you are both(?) right, in that great portraits have been taken under both the involvement and non- involvement philosophies. But I tend to agree with Jeff that there is a "Heisenberg" principal in photography and unless you have the extreme detachment of, say, a Cartier-Bresson, the observer will have some effect on the observed. One of my long-time friends and teachers, a documentary photographer, once told me that the reason he did his projects was less for the photographs he took than for the experiences and human contacts he had while taking them.

John Chan: As a single picture this has some aspects of a nice moment, the tilt of the cigarette hand, the expression, the overall laid-back posture. It has some nice seeing, but it doesn't hold my attention long, yet.

It may just be my personal taste for multi-picture projects over individual pictures, but I feel like this is just a piece of something - an essay on this woman, or this part of Providence, or maybe just a larger body of work. I feel like I've seen one move on the chess board, but not the whole game.

What was your experience in taking THIS picture like?

-- Andy Piper (apidens@denver.infi.net), September 01, 2001.

Hi, John:

Thanks for posting your image. I know what it means in terms of facing critique.

John, I also think that your picture has a focus problem. I mean that besides the soft background that you purposedly sent OOF the main subject itself seems to be OOF too. Though slightly I think it is enough to be distracting.

Now, aside from tecnique I think that street photography has more to do with spontaneous situations we find appealing in the everchanging life in streets as opposed to posed subjects even if in the street. Did you think of taking the same lady's image without any previous agreement . . .?

Just for you not to be left alone in the heat and trying to make myself clear, I brought these examples of people caught in the streets: a man in a bench, same as your lady but in a very different situation, and the main street in Concepción (my city)early in the morning.

My own (benign) critique:

In the case of the man, I wasn't the same as succesful as you in throwing the background OOF and the lady in the second plane clearly is a distractor because I didn't risk to use a shallower DOF in order to be sure that (at short distance) the main subject would be sharp enough though the picture was made while passing by and holding the camera in one hand only. The M3's silent shutter helps a lot: the street noise makes it inaudible for the subject even at such short range . . .

The case of the Early Worker was far easier because I could use both hands and compose and point carefully but still unnoticed. The main difficulty was the frontal light so I stood up in the shadow of the tree in order to avoid the awful flare of my 1957 Cron.

Neither picture went through digital manipulation other than "autobalance" in Microsof Photo Editor.

John (and anybody else, of course), please feel free to make your own critique and have fun at it. I'd be pleased to hear from you.

Regards, John

-Iván

-- Iván Barrientos M (ingenieria@simltda.tie.cl), September 01, 2001.

One of my long-time friends and teachers, a documentary photographer, once told me that the reason he did his projects was less for the photographs he took than for the experiences and human contacts he had while taking them.

Although I want the photos, I am the same way. I can talk to people with a camera I would never talk to without, and I am a lot more relaxed about it. I also enjoy the edge of photographing in difficult or dangerous environments. I would never climb through fences with No Trespassing signs if I didn't want the photograph, but I really enjoy the intoxicating adrenaline rush.

-- Jeff Spirer (jeff@spirer.com), September 01, 2001.