Funny, I did not intend to make even a single one of these extremely tall images, and in the case of the first, I spent a lot of time with different variants until finally I ended up with this extreme crop, the image reduced to the absolute essence.
In fact, I lost quite some attractive things on the way, for instance color was not completely wrong, to the contrary, there was some nice color contrast between the upper and the lower half of the image, but then, B&W allowed me contrast adjustments that would break color.
And not only that: had I included more from the left side, I would have had a bicycle rider in the image, and he was quite nicely balanced with the couple, and had I included him, I would also have had a nice sweeping curve of street lights above.
But then, fully concentrating on this couple, two people full of tension, dancing their Tango on the streets of my mind, concentrating radically on the unfathomable meaning of a chance meeting, I just had to give in, had to give up what was not absolutely necessary.
The other image is of the fringe of the red marquee of that very bar that we last had in “1258 – Walkin’” and before in “908 – At The Break Of Day”. I took a series of eight or ten images, pretty unusual for me, but that’s the problem with things that move in the wind 🙂
The third image is a good illustration for the only really annoying effect of working with such a long lens: You are constantly tempted to make images of long perspectives, but here in this image there are at least 50 meters between me and the two people out on the street. This is not a very busy way, but even here it can task your patience.
Originally I just wanted the dog and no person in the view. The problem was, that constantly someone was either walking into the image, slowly all the way through, or a van held out on the street, just in front of the door, or this person on the right simply would not vanish, and then a second person came from the left. From time to time I made an image, actually more to bide my time, waiting for the people to go on, and when they finally did, and when I finally wanted to take my image, a woman came out of the bakery and led the dog away. Life can be hard with a long lens 😄
The Song of the Day is “More News From Nowhere” from the 2008 Nick Cave album “Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!!”. Damn fine music. The video on YouTube will cost you 7:58 minutes of your life, but believe me, it’s worth every second. Oh, the T-shirt, oh the mustache! And besides, there’s nothing wrong with the dancers 🙂
Cedric (2010-04-08)
The red marquee has me totally engrossed. Well seen and perfectly executed. The photo of the couple is equally engrossing not only for the composition and crop which I think is perfect but for the story it tells. However the story I got from it (before reading your post) is different to yours. I see the girl as being in front of the man and so I see it as a missed opportunity, a chance meeting that was not meant to be, two people who came so close to each other and yet may never know of each other's existence. In any case it's wonderful photography Andreas.
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