making of a street photography picture la boca reflectoins

Making of a shot #1 : La Boca reflections

From time to time, I will spend a bit more time on a picture I took and explain why I took it this way. I shot this photograph in La Boca, the famous Buenos Aires neighborhood. We were leaving when suddenly I spotted this woman sitting inside an art gallery.

I had the 60mm Konica Hexanon mounted on my M10 which was perfect for the scene as I wanted to compress the various planes (the longer the lens, the strongest the compression). Yes indeed, this picture is about action in the various planes. You can count up to 5 different planes when including the reflection of the people walking by the harbour shores. I also noticed the two buses and tried to construct a color symetry with the text on the gallery window and the woman jacket. I worked the scene about 3 minutes and took several pictures of the scene.

The challenge of this scene was to wait for the lady to move her head in a way I could see her, as well as including some action on the left side of the frame. The girl’s smile would finally be that action to complete the scene.

The white wall part of the picture is maybe a little too big, yet there was no way to include the red bus if I moved further right to reduce the size of the wall. Sometime there are trade-offs, in this case the color symetry was more important to me. I could also have close the aperture more as this picture was taken at F5.6 to get a larger depth of field, but I almost never do. I like the ouf of focus effect, leading the viewer to the most important part of the picture which was the lady.

All in all, this picture showcases a moment of time of a typical Saturday morning in the very colorful neighborhood of La Boca. It’s all about Happy tourists, colors and the vibrant art scene.

2 thoughts on “Making of a shot #1 : La Boca reflections

  1. Frederic Saez says:

    Toujours très intéressant de prendre connaissance du “making of” d’un cliché. J’aime ton approche de la lumière, du bokeh subtil et de la composition de tes images. Un commentaire supplémentaire pour le “work the scene” qui est absolument indispensable mais qui demande de la patience. En tout cas bravo pour tes images et j’espère aussi retourner à la Boca dans le futur car j’adore le quartier.

    • yanidel says:

      Merci Frédéric. Oui c’est nécessaire de “work the scen”e. D’ailleurs je suis sür que tu connais les vidéos de Nick Turpin sur Youtube qui en sont le parfait exemple. Pour être sincère, je ne suis pas très patient, plus de 5-10 minutes et je m’ennuie. Mais j’admire ces photographes qui peuvent passer des heures (voir jours) sur une scène jusqu’a ce que les étoiles s’alignent. Quant à la Boca, un rêve pour les fanatiques de couleurs, mais bon, cela vire vite au cliche, pas facile d’innover 😉

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *