Le Général

[Cedric MASSOULIER]

Among political scandals and football shame, France is also celebrating General de Gaulle...
Definitively another era ! Imagine : he was known to pay himself electricity and gaz invoices for Elysée palace...

 

[Asher Kelman]

Among political scandals and football shame, France is also celebrating General de Gaulle...
Definitively another era ! Imagine : he was known to pay himself electricity and gaz invoices for Elysée palace...

Remarkable that you have the gazes of both faces in the same direction. That gaze, the hope behind it, was his contribution to France.

Asher

 

[Winston Mitchell]

My Mother was French. My middle name is after him. My Dad won the coin toss.

 

[Rachel Foster]

I like this image a lot. The juxtaposition of the woman to the mural is intriguing and works on several levels.

 

[Ken Tanaka]

I'm afraid that your photographic scene is completely upstaged by the mural of de Gaulle. The woman passerby is not really insteresting at all. (The coincidence of the gaze directions is not a powerful attribute here.) And the geometry of the pavement pattern and the sculpture are all just distractions. As soon as I saw that the mural was actually a mosaic of portraits I wanted to see more of it, to know how and why it was produced.

Scene-stealing elements, like this unusual mural, are hazards to watch for when shooting candid scenes.

 

[Asher Kelman]

I

Scene-stealing elements, like this unusual mural, are hazards to watch for when shooting candid scenes.

Ken,

It's interesting that you see the picture as a candid of the woman with emphasis stolen. I see the picture as being not of her, but rather of the General with the face of the woman remind us to go back to the General and look again.

I too am interested in the mural itself. But for this picture, just for this I had a good experience.

Asher

 

[Asher Kelman]

And the geometry of the pavement pattern and the sculpture are all just distractions.

Here Ken, I'm in full agreement. I'd have at least blurred the detail so as to make these less distracting. The sculpture, itself might be removed in framing the image in the first place. One could, of course, limit DOF and its plane of focus with a tilt-shift lens or LF camera. But who has that for snapping images around Paris!

Asher

 

[Ken Tanaka]

This is certainly a location that teases potential. But, like nearly all such locations, it will probably require immense patience and tenacity to land a usable image. Sometimes you can just get lucky while passing by. But, contrary to the what the glorious work by Meyerowitz, Davidson, Erwitt, et.al. might suggest, that's very rare.

 

[Cedric MASSOULIER]

Hi Ken,

In fact, you're totally true !

Cedric.