<-Escalator Stairs->

Posted by Damon Schreiber (Toronto, Canada) on 20 February 2007 in People & Portrait and Portfolio.

Left, Right, Jack, Meg: It's indecision time.

I apologise for the processing. This one is quite old, shot in jpg, and the composition wasn't quite there - a bit of stretching and prodding was required. Still I thought it fit well enough with the current series (the usual suspects).

Hi-res here.

[Christie Subway Station, Toronto]

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Comments (12)

Massey from New Delhi, India

Forget about the composition man. It's one of those photographs which are known for "capturing the moment". Keep up!!!

20 Feb 2007 9:08am

@Massey: Thanks, Massey!

Makoto from Sapporo, Japan

Interesting shot! I like such theme. Nice! Damon-san.

20 Feb 2007 11:30am

@Makoto: Thanks, Makoto!

Francis from Hong Kong

Yes very cool capture. You can almost see their minds ticking over. This photo is really about choices.

20 Feb 2007 2:56pm

@Francis: Thanks, Francis! I think by the look of things (and the fact that they were just standing there, not boarding the train) that they were expecting a friend to appear from either direction.

Bronnie from Christchurch, New Zealand

I like the moment you've caught. I was momentarily 'speechless' at your comment about processing...(because I still shoot in jpg until I can get CS2 and import RAW files from my D50) but on reflection I do get it. I had wondered why some people's images were so much more crisp than mine. Little lightbulbs are flashing on and off!!

20 Feb 2007 6:15pm

@Bronnie: Thanks for the comment Bronnie! I certainly didn't intend to disparage the jpg either as a format or a shooting style.

To expand... my camera does shoot nice colourful sharp jpgs, and I like them and shot almost exclusively jpgs since I bought this camera. But since I've been posting here, I've found that when you really want to work with an image, bring out subtle tones, sharpen portions, or even stretch it, I have much more success working with images shot in RAW.

The reason for this, I'd say is that my camera (and most or all digicams (and many DSLRs) by default treat jpg images as 'final work' so they have had a high contrast curve as well as a high level of sharpening applied by the time you get them out of your camera. RAW files on the other hand allow you to apply tone curves and sharpening at the end after you've done what you want to do with the image. Compounded to this is that my camera is a 4 megapixels model resulting in not having an abundance of pixels to work with.

I think my jpg images could be made more suitable for post-processing by setting in-camera sharpening and contrast to 'low', but at this point, with the large, cheap flash cards available today, I'm quite happy to just shoot RAW.

CS2? Why bother at this point. Only a couple more months until CS3 is released. I've been using the beta for a month or so, and like all the Photoshop releases I've used since version 3 (CS3 is actually version 10), it has enough new features over the preceding version to make it worthwhile.

Ali-G from Ottawa, Canada

They do kinda look like the White Stripes - cool thought!

20 Feb 2007 8:51pm

@Ali-G: <grin> Yeah, that's what I was thinking. Thanks, Ali-G!

Nikos from Salonica, Greece

Great street instant.I guess you are fast at watching and shooting your themes out there..!

20 Feb 2007 11:18pm

@Nikos: Many thanks, Nikos! I'm glad you've dropped by because I visited your pages, and your photos are immensely good.

Duncan Galbraith from kyoto, Japan

cool. a 7 nation army couldnt hold you back at this lark eh Damon? Besides the 2 main subjects I love how the lady foreground right is looking into frame, shes got a wonderfully expressive face herself and makes a fine subject. subtitled to perfection incidentally as I have this very image sat on my wall.

21 Feb 2007 12:00am

@Duncan Galbraith: :) I agree with your comment about the lady to the right. She - and the advert smiling back at her - add something to the comp.