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I’m working on a project showing the lower end of the economic spectrum here in Mazatlán. It doesn’t go much lower than wearing a trash bag for a dress, sad. She does have smoking materials, sad.
I’m not real comfortable with this shot so I have purposely darkened and blurred her face. Should I do more to make her unrecognizable?
1/200, f10, 45mm, iso100
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I can see why you’re uncomfortable with it Lenny. I think life is hard enough for this person without being immortalized in an image. I would definitely make her unrecognizable.
I would ditch the pigeon and whatever is encroaching in the upper right corner too. What I do think works is the beer umbrella as juxtaposition to this woman’s unfortunate state of affairs.
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Hi Lenny,so the aim is to put into pictures the poverty of life that some people live………..well if your going to take some great images to tell the story(happen to think this is a powerful image) and hopefully make a difference then you have to show the face…..the pain,the ageing,the anguish and most important..the eyes.
She should be the focus point not the beer umbrella.
Pigeon ditch….why….I would bring up the shadows so we see a real person,then we can connect!
Top right part of umbrella i think needs removing,or better still crop down but keep the corona logo as it adds massively to the story.
There are a few images through history that really sum up their era………..just thinking about the image of the migrant women with youngsters in the great depression…………really hard hitting because you can read the situation in her eyes.
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Hi Lenny. My problem in looking at this is that I don’t immediately recognize what it is that it is. I see an underexposed woman dancing on a beach, wearing what might be a crepe dress. I respect that you don’t want to violate this woman’s privacy or too blatantly exploit her poverty, but I don’t see how your project is going to work unless you accost people and ask permission for a shot. The faces are such a big part of the story. I find that difficult to do, which is why I take pictures of landscapes and kitchen knives. And birds.
As for this shot, one approach might be to lighten the “dress” while leaving the face in the dark. I changed the crop to give woman/dress more prominence. Not sure about the gull…
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I like this shot better because the power in the message comes from the garbage-bagged person compared to the umbrella. This version isolates these two elements and, to me, makes the message stand out from other distractions.
Oh, and, for the stated reason, I’d get rid of the bird.
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Thank you all for the ideas. Here is what I ended up with. The bird is gone and the upper right corner is cleaned up. This woman was incoherent. No way to ask for permission. I left her face in the shadows and unrecognizable. I shoot lots of street shots but I don’t know why this one bothers me so much. It will be in a book/collection with with simmilar shots with faces so I think people will get the message. Thanks again!
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My first reaction to this photo was to try to guess what she was doing, rather than noticing her dress and what it was made of. So, it is important to keep the dress description in your title. like the movement and her face is not too recognizable.
Approaching this woman, I would compliment her dress and her imagination and would ask if it was okay to photograph her. Cameras are so prevelant that people do not seem to mind having their photos taken if you ask, then show them the results.
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Allows Edits? Yes@el-dub Hi, Lenny. This is a powerful shot. And I like the project idea. My suggestions are in my edits below. I don’t like the 2 dark walls dominating the photo, so I removed the left one (quickly – it’s rough at the steps). And I removed the umbrella. This helps the eye focus on her. I can’t tell she’s dancing, but the garbage bag tells the story. So does the fact she tied it with a nice checked ribbon shaped into a bow, which I tried to emphasize.
I think you could return to see if you could shoot again, offer to pay her, in the same spirit that photographic models are paid. You could look her (or others) in the eye, talk to her, ask permission to shoot and offer a model fee for 15 min or whatever you need. It may work, it may not (such as if someone is high). But it can be a dignified way of being with someone in poverty.
Also you can offer her copies of the photos. I did this when I lived in Colombia – I asked permission and with low income folks I always provided copies of the photos, multiple copies if requested. This was before the digital revolution, but you could still offer hard copies if you don’t want your digital images floating around. Good luck on this project!
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@annehornsby Hi Anne thanks for looking and for your edit too. I like seeing the texture of her “dress” in your edit. I also like what you have done with the wall. My wife mentioned that on a runway at a Paris fashion show her outfit would be cool and expensive. BTW, when people in her group pass out their buddies take their clothes so they wear a trash bag. Some of the police even carry bags in their cars to hand out but I have never seen someone wearing this large of a bag. The guys poke two holes in the bottom for their legs and tie it around their waist.
Paying her is out of the question. It would only feed her addiction (s). I was sitting in a restaurant when I shot this and she disappeared before I could get her some food.
I do email photos if requested but I doubt she has email. I have given prints to some people but I doubt if she has anywhere to keep one.
A lot of my shots are used in a daily rotation on a website here that is a calendar of events with lots of tourists looking at them. Most of the shots they use are the super colorful and chamber of commerce like but the gal in charge likes BW street shots and had already used this one If I include this one in the book I am doing (I hope to finish it “someday”) I will do something like you have done and have her face recognizable and include the pidgin too.
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Hi Lenny, my main problem with the image is that I do not get the story without you telling it in words. I regularly have people on the boat pull a garbage bag over their heads when it starts raining and they do not have a poncho. So wearing a garbage bag is not such a strange view for me. In addition, it really is not clear to me what she has in her hands.
With you telling the story, now I know what I am looking at, I would definitely want to see her face.
Like Anne, I removed the left wall but I kept the Corona umbrella. It gives some depth.
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Lenny, I can understand your reluctance to show her face, but I see dignity in her pose and body language. Perhaps you can make that dignity in spite of her circumstance the focus of the image.
I like Anne’s crop. With it, having the bird in the image works well, to me. Balances the remaining wall and gives some depth.
Poignant image!
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