We just finished our first photo tour of San Cristóbal de las Casas. The group left yesterday and I’m finally finding time to process and post pictures from the week. It was a fun-filled week and the group learned many things from me, Nevada Wier and Holly Wylmeth. If you haven’t seen Holly’s work, visit her website. She has a great sense of humor in her work, and a new, fresh perspective on both travel and documentary photography.
My group always started out with very early mornings to capture the lamplit streets at twilight, and once the light became brighter, to seek out colors, textures, patterns, and, well, just about anything that captured our interest! We moved slowly through the streets, exploring.
This one street was pretty amazing for its wild colors. The light was soft that day, with broken clouds, and there were a few moments to create the balance of light and soft shadow that I wanted. But the image above was not true to how the scene really looked! (See below). As an artist, I chose to remove the water meters, but as an editorial photographer, I would keep them in. They are part of the reality of Mexico after all! I was drawn to the geometric shapes, the colors and textures of this scene. The circular meters are also shapes, and they were asymmetrically positioned so they work within the composition.
It’s one of those images that I will have to ‘sit’ with when I get home to decide which I like best. What do you think??
Thanks for your input, Gail! In just a few days, you’ll be creating your own great pictures of Mexico!! Hasta la pronto (see you soon).
Brenda,
I love the shape and color –
But being such a fan of photoshop and the clone tool-
I have no problem removing things-
I agree it is more of an Art Print that way–
Can’t wait to see you in Mexico-
We ( Ginna,Jane,and Janice) were all together last night for our Photo Banquet and we were talking about the trip.
Save some of the good shots for us- Don’t take them all!!
Thank you for your comments, Amanda. I agree with you – they both have a value and it depends what the intent would be in terms of usage. But even the water meter version could be a print that someone might want as it’s just how you’d see it here in Mexico. It’s a tough call on this one. If you make it all too pristine, as you friend did, the picture may not look right, I agree. Here, it could be OK because plenty of walls don’t have them in sections that we as photographers might choose to compose.
The original photos with the electrical meters shows the “times”. It makes me think how times have changed for that culture. The photo where you removed them is a piece of art.
I took a photo of a historical building in my hometown and chose to leave the stop lights, street signs etc. to give a sense of location. Another person in my photography group photographed the same building. He photoshopped all of the distracting high wires, lights etc. out of the photo. It didn’t look right to me.
Thanks for sharing.