People portraits El Salvador

[Robert Watcher]

Anne and I travelled a few hours to a quaint town north-east of San Salvador, that we have never visited. A real hidden gem.

Anne is a artisan with fabric and has been checking all over the country over the last year that we have been living here - to find and purchase yardage fabric called Añil, based on a process similar to tiedye using natural hand made dyes from an indigenous plant (blue/azu). It is easy to buy clothing and products made from it, but no one has been willing to sell her the raw material.

She found out that the town/city of Suchitoto, is known for their Añil, and so we thought we would go there and ask around. It turns out that one woman whom Anne had contacted before online who said that she wouldn’t sell yardage - agreed to make a custom batch for Anne once she saw her in person today. A bit later a woman left her vendor stand and ran home to get Anne a 2-1/2 meter piece of finished fabric.

While Anne checked out the town, I put my camera into action capturing some of the people of the town. A totally different vibe and comfort level that other cities I have photographed in.

 

[Robert Watcher]

 

[Robert Watcher]

Anne finding a woman who would sell her Añil by the yard.

 

[Robert Watcher]

 

[Robert Watcher]

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[Robert Watcher]

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[Robert Watcher]

KINDA COOL

I don’t pay attention to my Facebook and Twitter accounts. I use the IFTTT App to post anything I upload to Instagram, onto both of those accounts.

I just happened to check into my Twitter account for the first time in over a year —— and noticed that the President Bukele (new president of El Salvador who is really trying to promote tourism in the country) Twitter page, has RETWEETED several of my images from last weekend.

 

[Asher Kelman]

Fabulous!

Asher

 

[Asher Kelman]

KINDA COOL

I don’t pay attention to my Facebook and Twitter accounts. I use the IFTTT App to post anything I upload to Instagram, onto both of those accounts.

I just happened to check into my Twitter account for the first time in over a year —— and noticed that the President Bukele (new president of El Salvador who is really trying to promote tourism in the country) Twitter page, has RETWEETED several of my images from last weekend.

View attachment 2750​

Congratulations on the recognition, Robert!

I wonder how large you have been able to print these pictures as I have never tried with the MFT cameras.

Asher

 

[Asher Kelman]

Robert, your pictures are so rich in color. You seem to have a knack for choosing where one dominant color is in all the parts of the picture!

By chance, the water bottle, shirts, jeans and car number plate are in the same swatch of blues

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Here, the “swimming-pool” green gives a suggestion that the fellow is in his own unique world. The forward diagonal shadows send him down the slope of the hill.

In usual terms, he is going back down hill and not progressing. It’s certainly not an uplifting picture of growth and process. Rather it’s an extraordinary simplified view of likely a rather harsh but healthy working life.

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The restaurant or bar! Again a clean unusually pristine image! Just red tiles and orange colored wood door. Again a lone man. This time he has foods to sell, perhaps nuts

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This one is very special for me. There is a magnetic human attraction that emanates from this shop. I feel I know the waitress. I am rooting for her to have a good family and loving husband!

The colors are again blue in various shades. In the mirror boys sit on a disused railway line that once went through that Store!

....or else that’s a superb framed photograph of the same scene!

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How more tidy can a picture with two men and a woman in a doorway be? They are embedded in the base blue by their feet which is balanced by just enough boldness in the blue window shutter on the right.

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I imagine that these pictures were not untidy with litter and dirt marks you removed from all over the place.

Are just these neighborhood streets so clean and well kept or the folk take home their litter ....or you are fast with the spot remover tool?

In any case, these are exhibition quality images that I keep returning to!

Kudos and thanks,

Asher

 

[Robert Watcher]

this image is the only one that I used a healing tool on - not to clean up garbage - but so I could include a bit more of the wall and the window, by taking out the back end of the car.


I was walking on the other side of the street and from the end of the block noticed this family all looking the same direction away from me (same way the woman is looking), talking with someone. I saw the potential as I got closer and so kept my camera discretely aimed toward them, looking down while keeping an eye on the flip out lcd screen. At one point the two turned my way and looked. I snapped the pic, smiled and kept on walking.


Original Straight from camera:

after taking out the car using the healing too, in Snapseed:

final image showing the processing steps in Snapseed:

 

[Robert Watcher]

Congratulations on the recognition, Robert!

I wonder how large you have been able to print these pictures as I have never tried with the MFT cameras.

Asher

i have no problem printing 20x30 and 24x24 prints from cropped micro 4/3 - and have printed 16x20 to 30x40 for portrait clients. The biggest print I made was an 8’ x 2’ print - but it was 4 or 5 vertical frames stitched together. It hung in our kitchen wall for several years while living in Nicaragua.

 

[Asher Kelman]

What is cropped micro 4/3?

Is that you have cropped a shot to only use part of the frame or is it different from the MFT which gives one a multiplication factor of 2.0 for lens focal length?

Asher

 

[Andy brown]

Well done Robert.
Great feedback on your fantastic work.

 

[Asher Kelman]

Well done Robert.
Great feedback on your fantastic work.

 

[Asher Kelman]

Andy,

We are a modest membership here but some really fine photography. This work is awesome!

Thanks for your support

Asher

 

[Andy brown]

Andy,

We are a modest membership here but some really fine photography. This work is awesome!

Thanks for your support

Asher

Very true Asher.
I’ve dabbled in one or two other photography forums but found the amount of dross was hard to wade through.
When I first joined (a while back now), I was almost daunted by the quality of images on offer. This is still the case but I like that, t keeps one thinking.

 

[Robert Watcher]

What is cropped micro 4/3?

Is that you have cropped a shot to only use part of the frame or is it different from the MFT which gives one a multiplication factor of 2.0 for lens focal length?

Asher

sorry for the confusion. True, micro 4/3 is a crop sensor factor of 2.

i consider it full frame however. So I was referring to cropping of the frame in post processing creating an even smaller pixel dimension.