This competition at Farnborough Camera Club was for “Street Photography” images on the 27th October 2022. Members of the club’s sister German club also submitted images. Judging was via Zoom so that everyone could see the competition. Members were asked to submit two PDIs.
Both my images came from the Inspired by Saul Leiter workshop that I attended in March 2022.
Coffee shop conversation
Summary of judge’s comments
… two young ladies having a chat, you can see that the one on the left hand side while speaking is looking off to infinity probably not seeing and but kinda concentrating on the talk or at least that is what I’m taking from it
… then from an artistic point of view you can see the reflections in the windows
… so there is a little bit of interest from that, we can maybe see little bits and pieces through the windows [into the bar or restaurant, whatever, it doesn’t really matter it is overall – o yes it is of course a coffee shop]
… we can see handbags in there [I am always interested in a good handbag because my wife makes them and I always need to do my homework …]
… do we need the top of the image? Is it pulling us up and away from the intimate conversation that these two young women are enjoying?
… it could be argued either way because we have a bit of interest here, we can see the reflections bouncing off the windows and therefore it adds to the composition
… or as it is a little bit light one could argue that it is distracting, it doesn’t really matter I suppose
… one thing that we have is that the woman is wearing red, which is great, but then of course we have red above and around her as well, one could argue, slightly pedantically, is if that was muted even more then that area of red would not be in competition with her blouse, buts I said I am just probably being too pedantic overall
… the good thing about this is that you’ve seen this, you’ve taken it
… thank you
Window cooking
Summary of judge’s comments
… an interesting one this in so much that you’ve seen that there is something interesting to take a photo of and then you’ve given us the sharpness on the window itself, which is creative, which I respect
… we can see here in the bottom left hand corner there’s a kinda bamboo thing, which is kinda steaming and then we have the chef that you can see enough detail of in there
… what is creative from the point of view of this photo, for me at the very least, is that you can see how the condensation is on the window and slowly but surely all the little rivulets of water are coming down
… we have a slight distraction of the hotspot at the top right of centre
… generally speaking an interesting image, thank you
Original images
“Coffee shop conversation”:
This was in Soho, and as I passed I noticed these two ladies deep in conversation.
ISO 1000, 65mm, f/4 1/200 sec
“Window cooking”:
This was my first visit to the often photographed restaurant window in London’s Chinatown
ISO 1000, 105mm f/4 at 1/320 sec