With or without the women?

[Martin Evans]

I was in Rochester, the Kentish town on the River Medway, taking photos of some of the bollards. I was doing this for a study of street furniture, and not in order to create any artistic images - I am without talent in that respect. However, this view did catch my eye and I thought it pleasing.

One image has people in it, the other does not. I personally like the scene that has no people in it; it seems to have an air of expectancy. What do you think? Or is that just latent misogyny on my part?

Would people prefer the change-of-address poster in the window to be fudged out?

The camera position was not quite identical in the two photographs, and the zoom settings slightly different (focal lengths 21.7 mm unpopulated, 17.3 mm with the people). Each image has been slightly cropped to make them as alike as possible. Camera: Canon Powershot A620, ISO 100, aperture priority at f/5.6, exposure 1/160 in both, original images 3072x2304 'superfine' JPEG.

 

[Asher Kelman]

Could you perhaps try removing just the lady with the red skirt (or else the lady with the white pants, but then remove the red skirt!). B&W would be a worthwhile option to consider too.

Having one human figure or else a stray dog, cat or a visiting bird adds some life. Leave the text!

Of course, correct the perspective!

Asher

 

[fahim mohammed]

Agree with Asher. Red skirt lady is distracting ( always..for good or bad !! ). The text, I would leave it if
I wanted show the environment. Perspective correction yes. I would also dim the sunlight part.

 

[John Angulat]

Agree with both Asher and Fahim.
The red-skirted lady serves no purpose within the image, however the other individual lends a sense of perspective to the alley.
On a side note, I would have removed the bag of garbage out of the frame.
Just my two cent's worth...

 

[Martin Evans]

Many thanks for your thoughtful comments. It's interesting that you all like to have a human figure in, if only to add scale (and I agree that the red skirt is out of place!). It convinces me that I must be a crypto-misogynyst; I still prefer the version without any people! For one thing, I like the composition better: in the right-hand image the near bollard merges with the middle-distance lamp-post. In the left-hand image there is a more satisfactory spacing, and I think that the bicycle leaning against that lamp-post gives some scale. A cat, dog or a couple of blackbirds in the alley would, as Asher says, add interest. The absence of humans creates, for me, an air of mystery, of anticipation... I must come across as a miserable old codger.

Sorry about the garbage bag, John. You are perfectly right. I just didn't notice it when taking the photos in a bit of a hurry and concentrating on the bollards. I was thinking that they were rather uninteresting bollards, and I would not have taken the photos at all except that the grouping, up the alley, with the old lamp housing, looked nice to me.

I have tried reducing the brightness at the end of the alley, but the small sensor on my compact camera does not have the dynamic range and the flagstones there are bleached out at 100% saturation in the JPEG. Perspective: yes, I could correct that. Many of our ancient buildings do lean over significantly, but not to the degree that this low-level viewpoint suggests.

Thanks again for sparing the time to look and comment.