Friday Photopost: Minneapolis, Minnesota

13 April 2007

"Pacing in rhythm... Race the oncoming night...

Headfirst humanity... Pause at a light... Then flow through the streets of the city."

I'm not much of a photographer. I like taking pictures and sometimes get lucky on a shot. I see now that I really missed on this one. I was only looking at the buildings and cut off the people at the bottom of the picture. I think if I would have panned down to include the curb it would have been a much better shot. (Let's include a vertical for comparison purposes...)

Three things worked against me: One, I was hurrying to catch a bus. Two, as usual, I felt self-conscious about taking my camera out and shooting away like some kind of tourist, so I followed my normal MO and quickly and furtively snapped a couple of pictures before hurrying on my way. Three: General ineptness.

These were taken with a six-megapixel Canon SD600 camera. Click on the pictures to find 2048x1536 and 960x1280 versions suitable for framing or wallpaper.

Please feel free to copy, rip, mix, burn, and otherwise make use of these pictures under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 license.

by Scott Carpenter on 13 April 2007 at 3:00 am
permalink | comments (5) | filed under photos

Comments

I think it's a great shot especially since you cut off the people. Just call it "Lamppost". :-)

Posted by Mario Stargard on 13 April 2007 at 8:53 am

:-) Thanks, Mario.

It may be a sign of my amateur status or that I'm antisocial, but outside of my family, I usually try for pictures without people in them. On the other side of that, I like seeing people in pictures, so maybe that tells me I'm missing out on some good material.

Posted by Scott Carpenter on 13 April 2007 at 4:08 pm

Hello Scott.

That camera certainly takes a quality shot. Despite the hype about Nikon (more about elitism than anything else), Canon has surpassed Nikon lens quality at least 25 years ago. In fact Canon has more lens technology patents than ALL other lens manufacturers put together. The result can be seen in your pictures. You have a good eye and that is what makes a great photo. A majority of "professional" photographers take technically excellent photos and yet the pictures are largely boring and uninteresting. The majority of interesting and exciting photos are often full of technical "faults". The picture value is in the eyes of the Picture taker and that is why family albums are full of astonishing and exciting photos.
Remember that people are alive and this helps give life to pictures of the human habitat. Even when you do photos such as the ones shown here try to use a tripod. When people see that they immediately consider you an ardent photographer and you will be simply amazed at how their attitude changes toward you and it will show in the pics.
I recommend that you login to the following site which I know will inspire you. Look through all the photos there, you will not be disappointed and of that I am certain.

http://sensitivelight.com/blog/

By the way, I have been a successful Pro Photographer for the past 27yrs and was doing photography since I was An RAAF Radio & Radar Apprentice in 1951.

Keep up the good work and go getum mate. Cheers.
John.

Posted by John Bujack on 15 April 2007 at 4:10 am

Hi, John. Good to "see" you again. :-) Thanks (again!) for your encouragement and advice. I enjoy taking pictures and sharing them, so it's good to know when people see them and enjoy them in turn. (And I hope that they fit in to the free culture aspect of this site.)

And! Thanks for the link -- there are so many beautiful pictures at Graham's site -- it really is inspiring.

It sounds like you've had an interesting career. You've seen more of these amazing times we live in, and I hope like you I can maintain a lifelong interest in learning new things and be open to change. (At least, that's what I detect in your comments.)

Updated: Reading the about page at sensitivelight.com: I like what Graham has to say there and it goes along with your comments above. Thanks again for pointing me his way.

And now a pointer for you that I found via Rambling Traveler: Stuck In Customs. Trey Ratcliff shares many pictures there using the HDR imaging technique.

(At the moment he seems to be mixed up on his licensing terms. The bottom of the page links to the Creative Commons Share-Alike license, but the top of the page says no commercial use is allowed without permission. In any case, he has some striking pictures and it's nice that he is sharing them on his blog.)

Posted by Scott Carpenter on 15 April 2007 at 8:29 am

Thanks Scott for the referral. Lots of truly nice Photos and Pictures.
Sorry but I regard HDR as making Pictures. Certainly very beautiful in their own right but manufactured. I am not saying they are not art because they are but they are no longer Photographs.

The Photos of Greece are beautiful and remind me of my trip there back in winter 1978. Loved the country. Just an aside....did you know that Melbourne, Australia is the largest Greek city population outside of Athens, Greece ???. Yep.

Graham's work is my regular haunt. He hasn't put up anything new for a while but when he does he never disappoints.
I hope to see lots more of your work in the future.

Cheers. John.

Posted by John Bujack on 15 April 2007 at 11:41 am

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