c+c on this interesting guy

So some of my street photography shots were heavily criticised a few days ago, left me rethinking my whole portfolio. The problem was all I got from people were, oh this sucks, that sucks etc. No contructive critisicm. You guys here are great, I love what is going on here so i decided to upload one of my recent images and see what you think.

Only thing I can say about this photograph is try and get the entire body in the photo next time, the one thing I see mentioned all the time is not to cut off legs, arms, etc. But over all you can clearly see this individual has seen a lot, just his expression and mood in his face tells his story.

Thank you Yeh, chopping the legs is something I have certainly noticed that i need to improve on, thanks for pointing it out though

The composition isn't the best as someone else pointed out. It looks soft as well, your shutter speed is relatively slow at 1/100, I would up that.

I looked through the street photography on your website. There are some patterns:

1. Lots of limbs are chopped off, in general the composition just isn't there. Often people are chopped completely in half, which would be OK if it was a tight portrait, but instead the other half of the frame is completely uninteresting or empty.

2. Most of your subjects just aren't that interesting. Don't get me wrong, some are VERY cool (I dig the guy with the guitar). But most do not grab me. Two guys facing away from the camera, a guy sitting with his eyes closed, two guys walking far away from the camera with a huge truck mear them, these really aren't interesting subjects.

3.Up your shutter speed. Some are sharp, some are not and upping the shutter will help.

4. Muddy black and white conversion. Skin tones are often too dark, bring some more detail to this.

Keep shooting, some of these are good (I personally like the man playing his accordion).

Thank you for your honest opinions

Damadsetta wrote in post #14234931
I looked through the street photography on your website. There are some patterns:

1. Lots of limbs are chopped off, in general the composition just isn't there. Often people are chopped completely in half, which would be OK if it was a tight portrait, but instead the other half of the frame is completely uninteresting or empty.

2. Most of your subjects just aren't that interesting. Don't get me wrong, some are VERY cool (I dig the guy with the guitar). But most do not grab me. Two guys facing away from the camera, a guy sitting with his eyes closed, two guys walking far away from the camera with a huge truck mear them, these really aren't interesting subjects.

3.Up your shutter speed. Some are sharp, some are not and upping the shutter will help.

4. Muddy black and white conversion. Skin tones are often too dark, bring some more detail to this.

Keep shooting, some of these are good (I personally like the man playing his accordion).

1. Yeh as iv said already I did notice that myself, so next time ill definitily be looking out for that.

2. Totally understand, thanks. Im not the most confident person in the whole and having only actually been out to Edinburgh (Where most of the shots were taken) 3 times i think its just lack of experience just now thats preventing me from getting the most out of the images. I am learning though

3. Noted, thanks

4. My editing skills are, well... well, they are pretty bad. Are there any good tips to get a good B&W conversion? I currently use photoshop with Silver Efex plugin.

Silver efex is great! I just got it yesterday. Start using control points to brighten the faces that are darker, and add some structure to bring out detail, especially for men when you want that gritty look.

Good to know i'm using the right software then haha, i got photoshop student edition a while back for one of my earlier college courses, but was only ever taught the basics, if that. I am getting better, but loads of room to improve...

Bodster, checked out your site and dig a lot of those pics. Only advice (and I'm far, far from an expert myself) would be as Damadsetta said. Some of the pics just lack the sharpness, although other pics are clearly very sharp.

Question, like you I'm just getting into PP and I'm curious to what your workflow looks like for converting these? I really am a big fan of B&Ws in the style you have posted, but I never seem to acheive this "street" look in my images...

I'm unfamiliar with the silver efex plugin, I'm holding out on buying photoshop until the next version drops so I don't need to get it twice

Dnomyar220 wrote in post #14236856
Bodster, checked out your site and dig a lot of those pics. Only advice (and I'm far, far from an expert myself) would be as Damadsetta said. Some of the pics just lack the sharpness, although other pics are clearly very sharp.

Question, like you I'm just getting into PP and I'm curious to what your workflow looks like for converting these? I really am a big fan of B&Ws in the style you have posted, but I never seem to acheive this "street" look in my images...

I'm unfamiliar with the silver efex plugin, I'm holding out on buying photoshop until the next version drops so I don't need to get it twice

Thank you

Work flow, not too sure. At the moment, because I really am just starting out with photo editing, i dont really have a certain way of doing anything.

With photoshop, I start off with the RAW converter. Get everything looking fine there and then decide whether it would look better in colour or black and white.

I then open Silver Efex (You can get a 15 day trial here - https://www.niksoftwar​e.com/site/) and (most of the time) I immediatly up the brightness and tweak the contrast as my photo's normally gets quite dark when i open it in Silver Efex.

To get the street look actually took me ages to figure out. (I didnt really find tutorials online so i tried everything really and it eventually started to look half decent).

I increase the structure in Silver Efex up until it looks good and then I go straight to 'Toning' and 'Vignetting'. I like to give my images a slight purple hint to them. Whether it works or not I don't know, but I like it I certainly know that a lot of photograhers give a green tint to their images.

Whether this is a good way to do it or not, tbh i dont know haha.

Here's a couple of pictures to show you one image, not the best picture ever, but it was the one I have open just now

Anyone thats good with photoshop/Silver Efex could maybe let me know whether this is a good way to do it or awful haha

I like this kind of thing and I think you chose well. This is a very interesting guy. When I first saw it I thought of the musician Tom Waits. You used the attire of the guy combined with the c.c. to really make it feel like (to me) one of those 1800's settler pics. Back when people were just being people. Some posed for the newly invented camera with extreme enthusiasm and others just posed like they lived day-to-day. I think the angles of the background bother me a little bit and make the image feel "tilty" but that is often the case when opportunity knocks. great image!

Thanks SM I did actually have a look at straightening the image up, but in my opinion it kinda looked a bit weird. I could upload it if you would like to see for yourself, or feel free to give it a download and try it yourself

I just want to say aswell that I really appreciate all of your comments in this thread! As I have said before, I have a lot to learn still with both photography and in image editing, but it is with discussions like this that really help me improve

No doubt, any time. I know what you mean because it cant be rotated. The guy is already situated on the actual center of gravity. if you rotate the frame you rotate him and then its not visually captivating. I have shot a few in the same kinda background that you cant fix because of the orientation of the camera vs. the angles of the things in the background. One of the solutions is a fixed lens that shallows out these objects and the other is to tell the subject to move their arse to where you want.

The problem with the shallow lens is that society does not often like it because you gotta get close for candid things. And the problem with the subject is that if you tell them "I want to take your picture" then they change character into some face that does not describe or expose their true nature.

It's a bitter-sweet deal. I am a beginner with street photography, but I know if I were to smoke a cig with half of these people and just talk to them about random stuff before I shot. They will forget that I want their image, and hopefully fall deaf to the sound of the shutter. Keep it up bro!

The composition is off a bit for me. There is a lot of empty space upper right corner. Cropping from bottom left to upper right, stopping just above the sign brings him more to the front.

He does look a bit OOF but there is also some motion blur on his right hand I think.

Cropped to about here?