Bob Patefield
@bobpatefield2 Jul
What do you hope viewers feel or understand...
when they look at your street photographs, or is it purely about the aesthetic?
Depends on the photo, usually my pictures are never about the aesthetic. Most of the time I’m looking for the feeling of the scene, either chaos, peace or just funny.
What I find fascinating about how people view street photographs is that often people have a different interpretation of an image to the one you may have of your own or others work and I really like that ambiguity. An image I might view as, say, melancholic somebody else may see and feel something else entirely or may just love it because of the composition, use of colour or viewpoint.
edited
Yes! And sometimes the difference in someone else’s first impression of an image can be jarring. I’ve had several such experiences that sent me off mumbling to myself. But they usually help inform future judgements.
Not at all specific to “street” photography…
I want a viewer to see what I saw, to get the impression I tried to capture and broadcast. I use aesthetics — composition, tonal modulation, forms, relative sizes, sharpness/blur — in service to fine-tune that message.
What message are you trying to convey Ken? Can you give me an example please?
Here's a very raw example from a walk last week. I don't know if I'll eventually keep it -- I let images cure for months after an initial cull before working with them. But it serves a ready specimen for illustration of my point.
Look at the first image. Layers of people, foreground, mid-ground, background. The structure of human forms, the overhead surface, and shadows on the sidewalk send your eye ahead down the sidewalk...as you would if you were actually walking this scene. The color of light on the foreground woman's side suggests the time to be early/later afternoon on a sunny day. You see a dapper gent walking across the center, what appears to be a FedEx truck in the background. As you look closer toward the center (the 2nd image posted) you suddenly notice that the "dapper gent" may be walking with a woman. And there's a young fellow with a blue shirt and water bottle standing in the shadow of the steel column. And there must be a theater nearby because the text on that green sign says "Theater Parking". Etc. Just a simple image...densely loaded with stuff.
One of my most frequent goals with an image (but not EVERY image) is to enable viewers to "discover" more information on each successive visit...for as long as practical. Like a Hieronymous Bosch painting.
Thank you for the explanation. That's helpful.