Spread Table

[Robert Watcher]

It was an interesting sight seeing this frail older woman sitting out in public with her food consisting of loaves of bread - spread out on the picnic table, and garbage bag at her feet.

 

[Asher Kelman]

It was an interesting sight seeing this frail older woman sitting out in public with her food consisting of loaves of bread - spread out on the picnic table, and garbage bag at her feet.

Robert,

What an unusual shot that's so clearly broken into successive zones: face, food, private skirt examined and then feet almost missed.

Was her face in the shadows in the original shot? I like the backlighting. You camera seems to have almost penetrated her privacy, reaching under the table in making that the most well imaged part of the photograph.

It's interesting that, unlike most of your pictures, this is angled, feet cut off, as if the shot was fast and surreptitious. BTW, she has a variety of other foods in containers, so she seems pretty organized.

Did you make eye contact?

Asher

 

[Robert Watcher]

Was her face in the shadows in the original shot?

No - she was out in the open with strong late evening backlighting

You camera seems to have almost penetrated her privacy, reaching under the table in making that the most well imaged part of the photograph.

I had the LCD screen of my E-PL3 swiveled up so that I was looking down into it and shooting from about waist height.

It's interesting that, unlike most of your pictures, this is angled, feet cut off, as if the shot was fast and surreptitious.

A lot of my older work was heavily tilted and cutting off body parts was a common practice of mine actually. Just haven't done it a lot lately - especially with my non-commisioned work.

I was intending to crop in tighter so that she would be cut off part way up her leg (more like the first shot I took of her) - - - but I actually liked the bit of foot showing and the bag and the haze, so chose this crop instead. Likewise I was going to straighten the table a bit in post, but it wasn't level to start with and I prefered to leave it this way with the womans body being straight up and down and actually compensating for the lean of the table. I really liked the dead center composition as well - and especially when I tried a square crop with it. I have been centering more the last few years, for some variety from my always off-center (thirds) "properly" composed images.

As for shooting - I attempted to remain out of view and had Anne stand slightly in front of me as I shot with my long lens. It was taken fast enough so that I wouldn't be noticed - but not too fast. I got off 2 shots a few seconds apart.

Did you make eye contact?

No, I didn't want to.


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Here are the 2 shots that I took just as they came from the camera without cropping or processing.