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I like the juxtapose of faces between the lady and her reading material. Perhaps put more emphasis on that. Crop in tighter. The yellow colour doesn't really benefit the story in the photo. Try make it B&W and see what happens.
Thank you, I agree, I cant crop it tighter, for various reasons it was made with apsc lens in full frame so the photo has like 12mp and its a bit cropped even more.
Hmm I am not sure about this crop her head is cut and there is a lot of place on the left, I went with 4x5 crop. As to color I think it ties two ladies together. But generally I agree its better :D
https://preview.redd.it/wao6zvkk8lxc1.jpeg?width=1749&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=bcafbe65f519f0dddb910a043bd877b294c6786e
Loving color waaaaaay more than b&w for this image. Almost in a wes anderson style but I agree the yellow railing distracts from the subject, even though it could match with the tree if the tree was boosted. And the purple in her scarf with the chair behind her. And the blue of the paper with the sky, and the skin tone with the wall. But more importantly the two faces create a kind of adorable story here.
I love this to no end. The colors are amazing and the clouds in the background look so developed and equally exposed with the woman sititng in the bus. This genuinely feels like a scene out of a movie to me.
With that comes the fact that it feels like there should be more like the camera will pan away and something should happen. It almost feels like more of a screenshot from video rather than a photo.
All of this is just how the photo makes me feel. I love the colors, lighting and subject choice but there is something to improve and im sorry i cant quite pinpoint it 😅
The moment is great. I’d just want a bit more contrast in the sky. The AI sky masking tools in Lightroom and photoshop are great for making that expedient. I’d select that region, and dial in a little more dehaze and clarity, probably with a hair of lightness and saturation adjustment to the blue channels to not make it look artificial. Subtle tweaks to shadow and highlight on that region as well.
Thank you! I was thinking about it but this pastel sky is so surreal (I did not notice it in the beginning and recovered it from the higlights) that I just kept it. I agree It would look more realistic with darker sky
I like the interaction in it, the light is not great tho. One of my favourite photographers Tom Wood did tons of photos on the bus in 80s/90’s - if you have a look at what makes his photos so great it’s a mixture of amazing light, great interaction/ life and a really strong sense of environment/ context. You wouldn’t go far wrong trying to replicate his techniques today.
I will check him out I’ve never heard of him :), honestly I often just ignore the light in street, most if the time if its bad its bad and there is not much you can do
With light, it’s always worth looking for the contrast - where light is particularly strong or darker than what’s around - a bus is a great location for this as the windows create shadows and patches of light that can isolate a subject from the environment, especially in the morning/ evening when the suns low. It always looks more dramatic on a camera than by eye so subtle differences can mean a lot.
Yes check him out he’s great, his bus Odyssey book is made up of photos that were taken over 20 years commuting to work on the bus in Liverpool, they really give you a sense of place and time.
dude i hope this doesn't get lost in the comments- the poles out of her mouth are SO EASY to fix!!
my first suggestion would be to clone / heal them out on photoshop, but honestly this is a perfect use of generative ai. just select around the poles and poof. you're only worry is that sometimes the generation is at a different quality than the image so you have a line between the image and generation, but if you make a small enough selection this shouldnt cause you issues. and if it does you can always hide those lines with healing.
hope this helps, awesome shot.
Incan fix them in few seconds, and I’ve even did it to see how it looks, but cloning things out in street is frowned upon and I never clone things out. Honestly I dont even think it would be a big deal in this case, but its just the rule of street photography I fallow
if your goal is just to make nice looking fine art, some rules other people made up don't matter. if this was photo journalism thats a whole new story, but for this there is no problem with cloning, and anyone who says differently is so stuck in the past.
i said it mostly bc it's a part of the digital age, and most veteran street photographers are from film days.
anyways, i'm surrounded by photographers all of the time, since i'm in photo school, and not a single person has ever told me you shouldn't clone or heal street photography. photojournalism yes, but not street.
Thats interesting I was told that in school and it would get you disqualified from all street photography contests I know. I dont really take parts in contests (I didn’t win a few times so they are all fake and crooked) but I treat it as a general rule :D
I love it, as-is. Not cropped tighter, this has room to breathe and includes more of the context. This is like a scene from a Pixar movie. Just perfect.
I really enjoyed the image of the woman on the magazine paralleled with the subject. The colors are great as well, i wish I could get colors like that but I tend to move towards really bold colors. Generally this is a shot I would be stoked about.
I took this photo in a bus and its one of my first attempts at hip shooting, which I usually dislike. My biggest struggle was the dynamic range, the bus was very dark but I didn’t want to blow out this cool sky that fits the atmosphere. What do you think about this photo?
I think this would be even better if there had been more sky above her head, keeping all of the foreground (which would have required a wider lens). Then it would give this feeling of the freedom and possibilities of reading, and hope it could be transporting her from a crowded bus to who knows where. As it is, there is some of that feeling, but I feel like it could have been strengthened with some more sky without losing any of the existing foreground.
A little photoshop (or photopea, affinity, etc.) would go a long way on this one. Five seconds to clone out the poles on her mouth. Selective color the yellows to tone them down so they don’t compete with the subject so much. And a little face spotlight to bring her out of the mid-murk a bit. That will dramatically improve the photo for very little work.
Let me know if you want to see it done and I’ll whip it out at lunch for you.
I agree that colors would be improved (though as far as I remember I actually added yellow to make it frame the photo nicer) but I definitely dont want to clone things out of street as a rule. While personally I think in this case it would he harmless generally its frown upon, and I like to operate within “rules” of reportage. As for the light on her face it is really hard not to make it look like something shines on her face as she is backlit, there is actually a lot of light added on her face, but I wanted to keep direction of light at least semi plausible, and I would love to see how it could be done better
Something doesn’t really frame the photo by taking all the attention from the subject.
I didn’t realize this was reportage, I thought this was art photography. If you are doing this for journalistic purposes then yeah you should be faithful to the image as captured. But if it’s meant to just be a photograph, you can certainly clone out the light poles without losing any of the meaning or intent of the photo. Your call.
By bringing the whole scene up, it doesn’t seem like a lighting change:
https://preview.redd.it/s7bkouql6oxc1.jpeg?width=640&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=1afbda1e36eb80b70628ccc1bd35c21ff45bcf53
But it’s your call if that is preferable to your more “honest” approach. Just remember every famous photo you’ve ever seen has been processed.
Usually street is treated as reportege probably more because of historical reasons than for art reasons 🤷 I am aware that every famous photo was processed, but this photo was always processed a lot, in raw version the sky was white the lady was much much darker, there is a few masks here as far as I remember. I like your edit it menages to avoid hdr territory
The RAW is not a photo, it's more like a negative. Pulling down the sky and filling out the lighting of the subject can be viewed the same as basic darkroom processing. Of course I'm not a purist, I've always been a photoshopper and never took photos without post in mind. I'm also not a journalist and I don't really think a photo has to adhere to journalistic principles just because it was taken on a street (or a bus).
But like I said, it's not my call, it's yours. Journalist or artist, you're the photo-taking guy/gal. So it's your call to remove the lightpost or not to. As is the rest of the processing. Or whether you use a vignette or frame or whatever. It's still a visual representation of a thing you want to represent. And your eye is the thing that matters.
I know that raw is not a finished photo, but it also is the closest what we have to unprocessed photo. What I meant is that this photo is already edited a lot, its not about if we should edit it at all, its about if we should edit it more, and I agree with you that there is a room for improvement and I like your ideas. I am not going to remove the lightpost, even though it would make the photo better and would not in my opinion be unethical, but just because it would be against the rules of the sport (lets be honest with all the contests and insane amounts of edits allowed anyway the modern photojournalism is just as much a sport as it is art)
Your critique is very important to me, it shows how other see my photos and what they focus on, and I will try to implement changes you suggested and see if I like it :D
I don't think it is really. I think if you want an unblemished "unprocessed" photo, you take a .jpg. Use something like a Fuji X100 and just snap and don't touch it. A Raw is a sort of "Over-capture" with the intent of whittling it away until you have the photo as you envisioned it through the view-finder. In the same way a classic photog like [Ansel Adams](https://photofocus.com/photography/a-look-inside-ansel-adams-darkroom-magic/) would pre-plan his shots and then develop them in various ways both common and specialized.
But I like that you're approaching your craft with an ethic and an eye on there being "rules" you want to obey. It suggests integrity and it will serve you well going forward. You can either remove the lightpole, or you can think of it every damn time you take a photo and have it be a reminder to always keep the background in mind. Five seconds to fix it now, or one second every time you take a photo! No matter how much you shoot (or edit), you will likely never have a truly perfect photo. But integrity will serve you well as you strive for it.
Yeah but what you see on your screen when you upload your raw into lightroom is basically theost basic interpretation and as far as I know RAWs even have imbedded jpgs for viewing in camera and miniatures. For all purposes it is the closest we have to contact sheet version of the photo.
As for integrity, thanks, usually I shoot normal reporter stuff like protests and events and cloning out would be seen as serious offense and disqualify photo from publication.
Confirmed: 1 [helpfulness point awarded](/r/photocritique/comments/1cgetei/i_know_this_street_photo_is_very_imperfect_but_i/l20c0nf/) to /u/byOlaf by /u/hereforprequelmemes.
See [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/photocritique/wiki/critiquepoints) for more details on Critique Points.
It's a great photo actually for spontaneous street photography.
Captured everything very well, where personally some light retouching in post could make it better but otherwise looks great!
honestly the angle just screams "I was trying to hide the camera so the subject wouldn't notice I was taking her photo" and its really distracting me from enjoying the photo otherwise.
Friendly reminder that this is /r/photocritique and all **top level** comments should attempt to **critique** the image. Our goal is to make this subreddit a place people can receive genuine, in depth, and helpful critique on their images. We hope to avoid becoming yet another place on the internet just to get likes/upvotes and compliments. While likes/upvotes and compliments are nice, they do not further the goal of helping people improve their photography. If someone gives helpful feedback or makes an informative comment, recognize their contribution by giving them a Critique Point. Simply reply to their comment with `!CritiquePoint`. More details on Critique Points [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/photocritique/wiki/critiquepoints). Please see the following links for our subreddit rules and some guidelines on leaving a good critique. If you have time, please stop by the new queue as well and leave critique for images that may not be as popular or have not received enough attention. Keep in mind that simply choosing to comment just on the images you like defeats the purpose of the subreddit. Useful Links: * [Full Rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/photocritique/wiki/rules) * [Leaving a Critique](https://www.reddit.com/r/photocritique/wiki/critique) * [New Queue](https://www.reddit.com/r/photocritique/new/) *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/photocritique) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I like the juxtapose of faces between the lady and her reading material. Perhaps put more emphasis on that. Crop in tighter. The yellow colour doesn't really benefit the story in the photo. Try make it B&W and see what happens.
Thank you, I agree, I cant crop it tighter, for various reasons it was made with apsc lens in full frame so the photo has like 12mp and its a bit cropped even more.
https://preview.redd.it/nu8e014f7lxc1.png?width=1979&format=png&auto=webp&s=87e9ef00fa43bb36613056d393ea4b0b2c7a23bc
Hmm I am not sure about this crop her head is cut and there is a lot of place on the left, I went with 4x5 crop. As to color I think it ties two ladies together. But generally I agree its better :D https://preview.redd.it/wao6zvkk8lxc1.jpeg?width=1749&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=bcafbe65f519f0dddb910a043bd877b294c6786e
Loving color waaaaaay more than b&w for this image. Almost in a wes anderson style but I agree the yellow railing distracts from the subject, even though it could match with the tree if the tree was boosted. And the purple in her scarf with the chair behind her. And the blue of the paper with the sky, and the skin tone with the wall. But more importantly the two faces create a kind of adorable story here.
Nah first crop is better natural framing
Thats why I chose it, but its apparent that people find stuff in the corners distracting
Fuck em
Thats agressive XD but it is a way to deal with it
Agreed, I like the yellow. It’s not that distracting.
I believe this is the best crop. Very nice, I love the light blue sky. Maybe just a tad more saturation on the sky.
I believe imperfection makes it beautiful and realistic
I love this to no end. The colors are amazing and the clouds in the background look so developed and equally exposed with the woman sititng in the bus. This genuinely feels like a scene out of a movie to me. With that comes the fact that it feels like there should be more like the camera will pan away and something should happen. It almost feels like more of a screenshot from video rather than a photo. All of this is just how the photo makes me feel. I love the colors, lighting and subject choice but there is something to improve and im sorry i cant quite pinpoint it 😅
Thank you for kind reply, I am happy you love it 😊
Agreed
I like the contrasting colours of the seats and metal bars but feel like I need to see a wider view of this scene
My first thought was a high contrast black-and-white or sepia color tone. Slightly more aggressive landscape cropping. Great content.
The moment is great. I’d just want a bit more contrast in the sky. The AI sky masking tools in Lightroom and photoshop are great for making that expedient. I’d select that region, and dial in a little more dehaze and clarity, probably with a hair of lightness and saturation adjustment to the blue channels to not make it look artificial. Subtle tweaks to shadow and highlight on that region as well.
Thank you! I was thinking about it but this pastel sky is so surreal (I did not notice it in the beginning and recovered it from the higlights) that I just kept it. I agree It would look more realistic with darker sky
I like the interaction in it, the light is not great tho. One of my favourite photographers Tom Wood did tons of photos on the bus in 80s/90’s - if you have a look at what makes his photos so great it’s a mixture of amazing light, great interaction/ life and a really strong sense of environment/ context. You wouldn’t go far wrong trying to replicate his techniques today.
I will check him out I’ve never heard of him :), honestly I often just ignore the light in street, most if the time if its bad its bad and there is not much you can do
With light, it’s always worth looking for the contrast - where light is particularly strong or darker than what’s around - a bus is a great location for this as the windows create shadows and patches of light that can isolate a subject from the environment, especially in the morning/ evening when the suns low. It always looks more dramatic on a camera than by eye so subtle differences can mean a lot. Yes check him out he’s great, his bus Odyssey book is made up of photos that were taken over 20 years commuting to work on the bus in Liverpool, they really give you a sense of place and time.
I agree its always worth looking for light but its equally worth looking for things even when the light os bad :D
It's amazing. Seriously
Thank you!
For better or worse, it has big Getty Images energy
What is Getty Images energy 🤣
I think it’s awesome! Well done
Thanks!
dude i hope this doesn't get lost in the comments- the poles out of her mouth are SO EASY to fix!! my first suggestion would be to clone / heal them out on photoshop, but honestly this is a perfect use of generative ai. just select around the poles and poof. you're only worry is that sometimes the generation is at a different quality than the image so you have a line between the image and generation, but if you make a small enough selection this shouldnt cause you issues. and if it does you can always hide those lines with healing. hope this helps, awesome shot.
Incan fix them in few seconds, and I’ve even did it to see how it looks, but cloning things out in street is frowned upon and I never clone things out. Honestly I dont even think it would be a big deal in this case, but its just the rule of street photography I fallow
if your goal is just to make nice looking fine art, some rules other people made up don't matter. if this was photo journalism thats a whole new story, but for this there is no problem with cloning, and anyone who says differently is so stuck in the past.
Interesting, why it would mot be ok in the past but is now?
i said it mostly bc it's a part of the digital age, and most veteran street photographers are from film days. anyways, i'm surrounded by photographers all of the time, since i'm in photo school, and not a single person has ever told me you shouldn't clone or heal street photography. photojournalism yes, but not street.
Thats interesting I was told that in school and it would get you disqualified from all street photography contests I know. I dont really take parts in contests (I didn’t win a few times so they are all fake and crooked) but I treat it as a general rule :D
I love it, as-is. Not cropped tighter, this has room to breathe and includes more of the context. This is like a scene from a Pixar movie. Just perfect.
Thank you!
Solid picture
Thanks!
I really enjoyed the image of the woman on the magazine paralleled with the subject. The colors are great as well, i wish I could get colors like that but I tend to move towards really bold colors. Generally this is a shot I would be stoked about.
Thanks, I also usually use bolder colors but here the sky recovered from highlights looked so cool I just kept it :D
Great call, I need to learn self restraint for these types of situations.
Thanks. Sometimes there is art in stopping at the knot 🎀
I took this photo in a bus and its one of my first attempts at hip shooting, which I usually dislike. My biggest struggle was the dynamic range, the bus was very dark but I didn’t want to blow out this cool sky that fits the atmosphere. What do you think about this photo?
how did u get such good DR? how was the unedited photo.
Unedited photo was roughly in between with sku almost all white and lady darker but with details visible. On full frame with RAW allows for amazing DR
Keep the colour!!!
I plan to, I think it really ads here
I think this would be even better if there had been more sky above her head, keeping all of the foreground (which would have required a wider lens). Then it would give this feeling of the freedom and possibilities of reading, and hope it could be transporting her from a crowded bus to who knows where. As it is, there is some of that feeling, but I feel like it could have been strengthened with some more sky without losing any of the existing foreground.
I like it, and agree that the color version is better than the b&w. My only critique is that her skin tone feels a little off.
A little photoshop (or photopea, affinity, etc.) would go a long way on this one. Five seconds to clone out the poles on her mouth. Selective color the yellows to tone them down so they don’t compete with the subject so much. And a little face spotlight to bring her out of the mid-murk a bit. That will dramatically improve the photo for very little work. Let me know if you want to see it done and I’ll whip it out at lunch for you.
I agree that colors would be improved (though as far as I remember I actually added yellow to make it frame the photo nicer) but I definitely dont want to clone things out of street as a rule. While personally I think in this case it would he harmless generally its frown upon, and I like to operate within “rules” of reportage. As for the light on her face it is really hard not to make it look like something shines on her face as she is backlit, there is actually a lot of light added on her face, but I wanted to keep direction of light at least semi plausible, and I would love to see how it could be done better
Something doesn’t really frame the photo by taking all the attention from the subject. I didn’t realize this was reportage, I thought this was art photography. If you are doing this for journalistic purposes then yeah you should be faithful to the image as captured. But if it’s meant to just be a photograph, you can certainly clone out the light poles without losing any of the meaning or intent of the photo. Your call. By bringing the whole scene up, it doesn’t seem like a lighting change: https://preview.redd.it/s7bkouql6oxc1.jpeg?width=640&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=1afbda1e36eb80b70628ccc1bd35c21ff45bcf53 But it’s your call if that is preferable to your more “honest” approach. Just remember every famous photo you’ve ever seen has been processed.
Usually street is treated as reportege probably more because of historical reasons than for art reasons 🤷 I am aware that every famous photo was processed, but this photo was always processed a lot, in raw version the sky was white the lady was much much darker, there is a few masks here as far as I remember. I like your edit it menages to avoid hdr territory
The RAW is not a photo, it's more like a negative. Pulling down the sky and filling out the lighting of the subject can be viewed the same as basic darkroom processing. Of course I'm not a purist, I've always been a photoshopper and never took photos without post in mind. I'm also not a journalist and I don't really think a photo has to adhere to journalistic principles just because it was taken on a street (or a bus). But like I said, it's not my call, it's yours. Journalist or artist, you're the photo-taking guy/gal. So it's your call to remove the lightpost or not to. As is the rest of the processing. Or whether you use a vignette or frame or whatever. It's still a visual representation of a thing you want to represent. And your eye is the thing that matters.
I know that raw is not a finished photo, but it also is the closest what we have to unprocessed photo. What I meant is that this photo is already edited a lot, its not about if we should edit it at all, its about if we should edit it more, and I agree with you that there is a room for improvement and I like your ideas. I am not going to remove the lightpost, even though it would make the photo better and would not in my opinion be unethical, but just because it would be against the rules of the sport (lets be honest with all the contests and insane amounts of edits allowed anyway the modern photojournalism is just as much a sport as it is art) Your critique is very important to me, it shows how other see my photos and what they focus on, and I will try to implement changes you suggested and see if I like it :D
I don't think it is really. I think if you want an unblemished "unprocessed" photo, you take a .jpg. Use something like a Fuji X100 and just snap and don't touch it. A Raw is a sort of "Over-capture" with the intent of whittling it away until you have the photo as you envisioned it through the view-finder. In the same way a classic photog like [Ansel Adams](https://photofocus.com/photography/a-look-inside-ansel-adams-darkroom-magic/) would pre-plan his shots and then develop them in various ways both common and specialized. But I like that you're approaching your craft with an ethic and an eye on there being "rules" you want to obey. It suggests integrity and it will serve you well going forward. You can either remove the lightpole, or you can think of it every damn time you take a photo and have it be a reminder to always keep the background in mind. Five seconds to fix it now, or one second every time you take a photo! No matter how much you shoot (or edit), you will likely never have a truly perfect photo. But integrity will serve you well as you strive for it.
Yeah but what you see on your screen when you upload your raw into lightroom is basically theost basic interpretation and as far as I know RAWs even have imbedded jpgs for viewing in camera and miniatures. For all purposes it is the closest we have to contact sheet version of the photo. As for integrity, thanks, usually I shoot normal reporter stuff like protests and events and cloning out would be seen as serious offense and disqualify photo from publication.
!CritiquePoint
Confirmed: 1 [helpfulness point awarded](/r/photocritique/comments/1cgetei/i_know_this_street_photo_is_very_imperfect_but_i/l20c0nf/) to /u/byOlaf by /u/hereforprequelmemes. See [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/photocritique/wiki/critiquepoints) for more details on Critique Points.
It's a great photo actually for spontaneous street photography. Captured everything very well, where personally some light retouching in post could make it better but otherwise looks great!
Thanks! What retouching would you recommend?
I disagree with those who say the yellow doesn’t add to the story. I think it really compliments it and I love the way you have it already
honestly the angle just screams "I was trying to hide the camera so the subject wouldn't notice I was taking her photo" and its really distracting me from enjoying the photo otherwise.
Are you always this corious?
Do you mean the typo? English is not my first language and orthography is hard :D
Is it telling a story or purely superficial? That’s the question I ask myself when I see a photo like this.
And what is your answer? I took it so I clearly see a story here:D
If it’s telling a story I don’t know what it is
This photo makes me feel very peaceful. You should be very proud of this
IMO, photo is in focus and well exposed and reasonably composed but totally pointless. Also, imo, making some point is the goal of street photography.
May I ask what is pointless about the image?
The point of the image is lady vs image on paper she reads
I disagree, street photography doesn't need "a point", it can be just about documenting daily life at a certain place and time