Once again, I swung downcity at lunch to do some street photography. The forecast is for rain tomorrow and Thursday, so I wanted to get in at least one more street shot before the weather turned bad. It was cold and damp today, so it took some time to find an interesting photo. That's when I spotted this RISD (Rhode Island School of Design) student standing at an intersection, waiting for the light to change, and staring at what I thought was a map. I asked if she'd mind a photo, and as you can see, she agreed. It turns out that she was not looking at a map, but was doing some last minute studying as she walked to class. I really liked the setting with her standing along the Providence waterfront with Citizens Bank Plaza in the background.
Post processing started with a classic filter in Topaz B&W FX. I adjusted the color sensitivity sliders followed by adaptive exposure, regions, boost black, boost white, protect highlights, and contrast. When I brought the image back into PSE, I noticed that her student ID was displayed, so for privacy purposes I removed all personal information and blurred the rest of the ID. The top layer of the image is a sepia photo filter.
The setting's really appropriate with gritty snow and stuff. I really like seeing the Smugmug versions of your photos. She looks like she has been cut out of the picture and stuck back on? Rather like a subject stand out against a blurred background, yet this background is in focus. I don't quite know how to explain that. And she has posed very kindly and nicely for you. Thoughtful of you to remove personal information.
@medusa Diana, the contrast is what makes her jump out like that. No cutting and pasting involved! As to the focus, well, that's a little trick using the hyperfocal distance of the lens. Without going into the physics of it, there is a focus point based on the aperture, and the distance from the subject where your subject will be in sharp focus and everything behind it will also be "reasonably focused." I make use of that quite often. That's why those distant buildings are still reasonably focused. I made sure she was standing at the hyperfocal distance for my lens.
@aponi@victorypuzzle Thanks Katheryn and Dominique! As an interesting aside, that bridge was built in the early 1990s when they rerouted three rivers to make room for that Citizens Bank building. Sadly, in so doing, they destroyed what was the widest bridge in the world, and had its roots in Colonial Providence.
@kannafoot Hmm. I was yearning for that contrast in my laundry picture. I have read a bit about the hyperfocal distance. How do I find out what this distance is?
@shelldunn No specific reason, Michelle, other than I really like b&w photography. When I started Year 2 of this project, I wanted to work on improving my b&w technique. I really neglected b&w in Year 1, so this year it's become more of a focus. So has street photography since that was also neglected in Year 1.
although I think I've done a bit of studying since I started this photography obsession
Nice pic, I like the bridge curving around
http://www.dofmaster.com/dofjs.html
Wonderful composition
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/in-pictures-21188741