Stills

Also ISO 800. But you have to stop thinking like that!
 

I'm not sure whether my first response got through as it only features when the comment box is opened, not under the picture itself nor as an e-mail. What I said was:

"...Also ISO 800. But you have to stop thinking like that!..."

I'm inclined to follow up with a question, so...?
 

John,

All sorts of Blogger problems at the moment.

As for observation about the medium, I suppose I was thinking depth of field. Push this photo back 50 years (ISO100?) and up to 35mm (50mm lens?) and you get a lot less depth of field imposed by the technology.

Working with, or around, such impostions is one of the fun things about the current rapid change.

That sky is probably also too clean for film.
 

It's nice to get a 'clean' sky at ISO 800 from an E-1! Focal length 34mm (at 35mm equivalent) at f4 and 1/80.
 

Cleans skies and over-abundant DOF aside for a moment, there's something missing in this photo. On one level, I can appreciate the timing involved, but I find myself asking why it doesn't work out in the end. I think the answer lies in the geometry. Unlike in the similar shot by HCB, there's no geometry at play here. Without the geometry, it's just picture of a guy on a bike.
 

Matt, I don't think that I agree with you about the geometry. I've always found that HCB shot slightly forced.

There is geometry in abundance here - particularly the splaying diagonals, the barrier verticals and the austrian blind semi-circle.

I think perhaps there is more to be made of those elements through different tonal selections, but they are there. Places like this are in my history (my narrative) so maybe I'm adding a layer of recognition that you are not.
 

I confess to having spent a long time looking at this with little inspiration as to what to say.

I could say that for me the image gets stronger with a closer crop from the top, but I won't say that because I know John prefers the standard format. :-)

The interest for me is in the path, the puddles, the light on the path, the rain, the reflection and the cyclist. The rest is accompaniment.
 

It's interesting that the majority of the nearest poles are aligned with the high/low point of the hanging leaves. Interesting that you have not given the cyclist much room in the frame (any reason). This is not a critism as I think given the angle of the shot a much further to the left capture of the cyclist would not have worked as well. However, I'm from the school of not having things grow out of people's head. So the fact that the arm of the cyclist has a pole growing out of it detracts a little from my enjoyment of the shot presented. Those poles go on for miles in the background. Also an interesting slope to the shot. I haven't even got started on the reflections yet...
 

It could well be that if I was presented with a shot like this by someone else, I might not wax lyrical but from the moment I converted it to b/w, I was attracted to it.

Matt - I'm glad that Colin made the point that he did about HCB. I think his work is amazing but the one you quote is oddly contrived for him: there is no way he got that except by saying to himself, I like the view from here and now I need a cyclist. The angles are also too overwhelming. Which moves one on to Colin's other point about narrative (his or anyone else's): my picture is about any number of things and is clearly not taken from on high in an interesting French town and, as a result, the comparison is somewhat invidious.

Rex - you are right about cropping and I would like to think that Guy's point about the overhanging ends of branches goes some way to justifying full frame presentation.

Guy - the post and the arm is something for each viewer: a fraction earlier would have been better professionally. I can't give you a rational answer for the position of the cyclist - it was an instinct thing and the end result feels right (to me!).

This was taken towards evening on a day when it had rained almost continuously. We had been to three galleries to see the exhibition and had just left the Watershed (from which I photographed two cyclists through a window but the shot was vetoed because it also contained my wife who has not allowed photos for more than 30 years!). Frustrated by the rain and low light, I was determined to get something before it got dark. First off this park with tennis courts - one of the more enlightened public spaces in an English town and then the track divided in half for pedestrians and cyclists. There was also a man fishing in the Wye with a big green umbrella to give some protection against the elements. The near posts gave some nice reflections that have not been caught in this shot, which otherwise includes the elements I was trying to get of the dark and wet scene. All taken from under my own umbrella. Voila.
 

Perhaps I should have said that the geometry doesn't seem to add up to anything. If the HCB photo is a bit forced, I find this to be undercooked.
 

BTW, I'm entirely sure what it is that's going on in the background, so perhaps that's part of what I'm missing.
 

"not entirely sure"
 

Like Rex I have been coming back to this and finding it difficult to thik of what to say about it. I guess that must mean that it doesn't really speak to me in any specific terms 'content' wise. Oddly, one thing I do like is the lower half excluding the cyclist.....the dark...light...dark of the grass...path...grass.
 

Oh, and as for that HCB image. We do know for sure that he only took one frame right? Let's not ignore the possibility that he stood there for ten minutes and filled up a memory card .....excuse me...filled a roll of film or two.

Excuse my ignorance on this issue. I've seen the image countless times but I've never read any text on it.
 

johnjo: try HERE -

I've printed off all the lessons and it's on my list for next holiday reading materials.
 

...also continues discussing the picture in lessons 8 and 9.
 

Or for another take on this, go here - link
 

Johnjo - why do you need text about the HCB photo?

There are certainly some silly points on the Flickr site but one can never tell what is irony and what is not. On a scale of 0 to 10 for an HCB photo I rate the cyclist as 8, whereas the second photo of 2 boys on a street in the RAW lessons from Akikana I rate a 10: he may well have had to go back, wait or in any other way 'manufacture' the situation but the important thing is that one can't tell; the picture stands as a freshly seen instance.

That covers 'contrived'. My other point above dealt with the use of the HCB cyclist photo to make a critique. I am perfectly happy for Rex and Johnjo to say that it is not grabbing them (for whatever reason) but find difficulty being shown someone else's work and told that that is how to do it. Angles may well be an exciting component of composition and most photos will contain some element of angular relationships - but not all. Now find me a picture of cyclist in the rain on a path by a park in a town!
 

"Johnjo - why do you need text about the HCB photo?"

I don't John, though I did enjoy the links provided.
 

I'm sorry if you felt the comparison was irrelevant or invidious, but a reference to the HCB photo was what immediately occurred to me when I started to think about why your photo wasn't working for me.