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Black and White Portraits

Your Best Monochrome Portraits
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2.15 - "Needs Work" 

This is Tony. I met him on one of my street photography walks. Tony is 77 and walks 2 miles most days to sit in a park in Brighton. The first time I met him he said said I was the only person to stop and talk to him for as long as he could remember, which I think is quite telling about our interactions with each other.
Tony was one of the first computer programmers, when computers had knob and switches. He has no interest or understanding of modern computers.
I asked if I could take his picture and another time when I met him on the street I took this. He is a religious man as you can see by the cross (he has several crosses). He is always dressed well and on this day was wearing all red tartan. The tartan looked great but I didn't want the colour to detract from his remarkable face.
It's a no fuss, no plan, no finesse kind of photo without flash under a tree on a street in Brighton. I feel it goes against the grain with today's glossy, technically 'perfect' photos which I am bored of. Not that these kind of photos don't take skill to produce, it's just that I feel the world of images has become a place where a false image of human beings is being pushed and we are missing out on 'older' or 'uglier' or 'uncomfortable' 'models' in favor of 'pretty' 'young' and 'seductive'.
Street portraits allow a quick view of a person without time to prepare both for photographer and subject.
It was taken with a Sigma Merrill DP1. This is an old camera with a Foveon sensor. It has really slow focus, I don't shoot above 100 ISO - the noise is terrible above 400 ISO. It takes 10 seconds to 'develop' a frame converting from it's initial 49MP down to 15MP and then it has to go through Sigma's PhotoPro software (although Photoshop has a plugin). The detail on the Sigma Merrill's is amazing it's a shame that there is not the ability to see it in a larger form - this is I feel another disadvantage with modern delivery of images is that we are just seeing things through the size of a phone screen, missing out on the 'bigger picture'.
By today's standard this camera is clunky, slow, inconvenient and needs a measured approach and patience to work with. Just like us as we get older.

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