Hi guys, not the glamorous portrait we're used to on here but me and my girlfriend went to Paris last week (We left the day after the attack). Did a lot of street photography and on our travels we came across this elderly lady with her very friendly cat. I put the change I had on me in her cup and took a shot.
As this is the real life stuff i like to shoot, i would live some feedback & CC.
Regards.
Chris.
Love it!
It is nice but I would have prefered her to be looking into your lens or at least in your general direction, which would imply some sort of permission was granted and got her to engage with you/, that is to say us, rather than almost suggesting the camera is an unwelcome intrussion from which she is trying to hide, which I hope it was not but one might easily read it that way. Or with her looking at her cat. Did you talk with her, get her permission to shoot her? Just because she is old and down on her luck does not mean she feels she wants to be a tourist attraction.
Perhaps you could have shot her from beside her, to the right or left, so the wall was not hard up behind her but rather the background would have been the pavement and street going out of focus behind her.
It might look really good in a well judged b&w conversion.
I too think it would have been better if her face had been turned just a bit toward the camera, but I see a bit of life in her face. Makes me want to hear her life story which is something I think you were trying to capture. I do like this photo!
Hi guys, thanks for the comments. I did ask her permission to take a shot (As well as i could not speaking french) and she gestured yes, but she turned her head away as i raised the camera to me eye, hence I only took the one shot from where i was stood, rather than spend time trying to get a better angle. I didn't want to feel intrusive.