New photo added: Street photography gallery

I took this photo in 2021. Yes, I’m three years behind with editing, but let’s go with it. I remembered this particular photo because it’s a shot I’m quite proud of, and I remember also the moment. I was in the center of Rome, on Via del Corso, with other street photographers. We were playing with the light of a setting sun, capturing passersby in juxtaposition. There are also other shots, some better than others, but this one, in my opinion, is the best one. First of all, I appreciate the pose with the slightly bowed head and half-closed eyes. The elongated neck (perhaps it was indeed a priest, I was really lucky) gives me the impression of a mystical blessing or something of the sort. There’s a sense of sacredness in this photo. The image is simple, easily readable, and its meaning comes across immediately and effectively. I also like the figure in the background moving in the opposite direction—it adds dynamism to the scene and balances the main subject, filling the frame. The second person Is crucial for a more balanced composition, sometimes I’m lucky, or maybe it’s only statistic, I’ve talked better about this on a previous post. What about post-production? I intentionally avoided excessive contrast; the shadows needed to remain legible to reveal the expressiveness of the main subject. No clichéd silhouette at this time! The post-production was fast because the raw file was really good as contrast, shadows, lights and colors.

I’ve included other selected shots from this brief session. Lately (and also recently, as today) I find myself returning to the same crossroads, but capturing a photo like this seems impossible. The thing that makes capturing shots like these difficult is having the sun directly in your face. You can hardly see anything, especially if you’re shooting like me with a Ricoh camera that has an LCD screen and no viewfinder. It’s a bit of a hit-or-miss approach, anticipating the arrival of a subject in the scene. The technique is, of course, waiting patiently for the right subject in the right place. You can find here the link for my street photography gallery (there is also another one for landscape).

I found also a nice soundtrack for the main picture of that post: the legendary Masked Ball from beautiful Eyes wide shut movie directed by Stanley Kubrick.

street photography Rome