(A Busy Street: Before reading on, think of one desirable element which will improve this image)
The other day I had a shootout with a friend who had been into photography lately. We had a coffee break and soon, leaving the cafe, noticed people bustling about in the street. At a confined corner facing the street near an entrance to a shopping centre, I asked the fellow, “Now, how would you express this busy street?”
Shoppers were trooping past us. The confined conrner didn’t allow much room for maneuvering for a good angle. So, my friend pointed his camera to the crowd on the street and pressed the shutter, ending up with a usual image of a street full of passers-by. It was as bland as bland could be.
So, I cued him to notice a flight of stairs behind us and the reflection on the ceiling. At once, I stood a step higher on the stair for a better view of the street, zoomed my GX200 to 72mm to tighten the frame and for the desired perspective, dialed the exposure to one step down to darken the heads appearing at the near end and took this picture. I got the information in the background (more passers-by), the foreground (passers-by) and on the upper part of the image which says something interesting about the busy street (people crossing the street and a lady on her cellphone), forming progression in the image. The middle part of the image with the character “Eat” and the name of the shopping centre also add to the story for the theme. I used almost every part of the frame.
This is my expression of the busy street. Not too bad at a confined corner. But It has left much to be desired IMO.
If there is one element which I can add to the photo, I will fire the flash to brighten up the faces nearer to the camera. In this way, I can let the viewers “smell” the street as if they had been there. The sense of progression of passers-by from afar, crossing the road to appearing in the foreground is much stronger too.
(Digitally engineer-ed to illustrate my point)
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