Street Portrait

[patatas21]

This is the first time I shot a person head-on in the street. Good thing there are a lot of people so put my camera down afterwards undetected. I like this photo but I kept on thinking there's still something lacking.

Camera Nikon D90
Lens: Tamron 90mm f/2.8
Exposure 0.001 sec (1/1000)
Aperture f/3.2
Focal Length 90 mm
ISO Speed 800

[SwissJon]

I think the problem you have here is that it's a portrait, rather than the low down dirty street photography that looks like it was taken from the hip.

I had a quick play.. First converted it to black and white, which seems to work best for street work, then set the picture at a slight angle, and added a vignette and some noise.



On another tack, I converted to greyscale, made it tritone and adjusted the levels.. Then added noise and a vignette and then deliberately over exposed the photo and played with the contrast.



I'm not saying these are finished products, just a direction to go, and I wanted to play with some new techniques.. I think you need to concentrate less on getting the photo "perfect" in the street, and more about giving context an meaning to the photo. Don't take pictures of people that could have been taken in a studio, take picture of people doing things.. Waiting for a train, ON the train, sweeping the street, playing on a skateboard.. That kind of thing.