helpless © Lilly Schwartz 2011
Yesterday I was trying out something new. Instead of walking around taking pictures of things, I just sat down on a bench in a busy shopping street and started to take pictures of people. I realised that they actually do not even notice me if I’m just standing, leaning against a lamp post or sitting on a bench and I could just take pictures without people forcing themselves to look away or looking straight at the camera. It was also relaxing and I could really try and see interesting moments in the crowd. At the same time it was also difficult, because the crowd was changing constantly, someone might have been obscuring my view or the background was starting to get cluttered. All of this made it a bit of a challenge to take pictures, but it was really a nice experience too.
I also wanted to try out a new format for this one, because I wanted to really focus this shot on the foreground and there was lots of empty space on the part of the picture I cropped. I think the unusual format really works for this picture. If you look at the camera settings of this one you might wonder what was going on there … I was trying to get a slightly more grainy look on this with the high ISO. It was certainly a day of experiments!
nice picture!!
http://rodposse.com/
Thanks!
Love this photo. That is priceless.
Glad you like it!
Sometimes a different format just seems to work best. Doing so really highlighted your subjects here. I really like the visual lines you’ve created between the child’s eyes and the hat… and how your vantage point was low enough to let viewers experience the scene on the subject’s physical level. Nicely done!
🙂
Thanks for the nice comment! I was trying to make this little moment seem bigger than it is, since kids experience these things as much more important than they are … they’ll grow up soon enough and not take their helplessness so seriously anymore, if they even notice it anymore …
don’t know if this was intentional but the cropped legs of all the adults moving in , closing in towards the kids add a sense of drama here..
Well, it’s hard to control a scene that is so fleeting as this one, so it wasn’t quite intentional, but it definitely was the reason for cropping it the way I did!
Nice composition and lighting on the little ones with the legs darker. I like your idea of sitting in a spot and watching what goes by!
Thanks! It actually gives you an opportunity to slow down if you just sit and watch. You can think a bit more about the shot if you see something interesting approaching from a bit of a distance. It obviously only works properly with people or if you have a telephoto lens that can cover some distance.
Everyone else already made the most important comments, so I can only add well done! You caught the moment and you have been able to crop in a way to give more strength to this photo. Brava!
robert
Thanks Robert!