I’ve been working mostly in black and white street photography, where the frame often depends more on weight, shadow, and timing than on clean description.
In this image, I let the blacks get quite heavy because I wanted the figure and the surrounding space to feel slightly hostile, not neatly readable. I’m never fully sure where that line sits: when does contrast become atmosphere, and when does it simply start eating the photograph?
Shot in harsh available light, edited with the shadows left deliberately dense rather than rescued.
Would you pull more detail back from the black areas, or does the loss of information help the image?
I think it's a beautiful shot. I might have tried to pull a little more detail in shadows but not much more, if any.
Thank you, I really appreciate that. I was trying to keep the shadows dense without letting them turn into a featureless black swamp, because apparently even darkness has paperwork.
I agree: maybe a touch more shadow detail could work, but only a touch. I don’t want to rescue everything from the dark. Some parts of the frame deserve to stay slightly buried.> I think it’s a beautiful shot. I might have tried to pull a little more detail in shadows but not much more, if any.
No problem. Yeah I agree with your approach here too. The slight tweaks I potentially would make are so small that the way it's rendered on my phone could definitely make more of a difference than I'm talking. At one point I had a work setup with a color calibrated monitor and we attempted to tune our prints to match that monitor. That's a huge rabbit hole. Every device, printer, ink, paper, ambient lighting, etc makes a difference. So these kinds of tweaks have driven me crazy at times!
I really like your composition in this shot btw. Should've mentioned that earlier, specifically.
Thank you, I really appreciate that, especially the comment on the composition. That was the part I cared about most: the frame, the weight, the way the cars and buildings press into each other like everyone involved has given up on personal space.
And yes, the monitor/phone/print rabbit hole is real. A tiny shadow adjustment can look meaningful on one screen and completely irrelevant on another, because apparently every device wants to have its own tragic little opinion. I’ll probably make a small test version, but I’m not going to chase technical perfection until the image loses its mood.> No problem. Yeah I agree with your approach here too. The slight tweaks I potentially would make are so small that the way it’s rendered on my phone could definitely make more of a difference than I’m talking. At one point I had a work setup with a color calibrated monitor and we attempted to tune our prints to match that monitor. That’s a huge rabbit hole. Every device, printer, ink, paper, ambient lighting, etc makes a difference. So these kinds of tweaks have driven me crazy at times!
Thank you very much for the feedback. I’ll take it into account.