Not so glamourous Santa Monica, CA

..........

Tom,

Are you uploading or linking the picture?

Where do get that limit?

If you link it, it should not be so limited!

If you have a problem, get some clarification from Nicolas Claris by PM.

Asher

I tried uploading and it states a limit of 39.1kb. There is also a linked second picture to my smugmug account and it shows up at first and it disappears when I come back to it.

Ok, I think I figured it out, with smugmug you can allow or block links to the pictures. So I turned it on and it seems to work.
Now back to the critiques and comments.

Tom Yi said:

Santa Monica to most tourists is known as a rich neighborhood with lots of shopping and the beach.

I find b/w or tritones to be better at getting to the essense here, so I tend to stay away from color photos. No staged shots or having the subjects pose, just shots as I see them when I'm walking by.
C/C appreciated.

Click to expand...

I checked out the gallery, I do like the images, number 4 (farmer's market) is one image I keep going back to.
You have a good style, IMHO the first image posted here was difficult for me to isolate the subject, so it isn't an image that I like.
But the second image, and more so the gallery images show some good work, for me anyway.

Have you ever had any "local" problems from your subjects when shooting this style?

Thanks

I like the picture with the cut on the head.

I'm not sure that I would like it better if it was not blown in the highlights.

This might look great printed huge.

Also I'd experiment with another image layer using the white spaces as "windows. This is what I would be inspired to do. However, I'm not adding "should" as I like the picture as is!

This picture, to my warped social perspective perhaps should be viewed 15 feet high.

We would all be humiliated!

Asher

Sid Jervis said:

I checked out the gallery, I do like the images, number 4 (farmer's market) is one image I keep going back to.
You have a good style, IMHO the first image posted here was difficult for me to isolate the subject, so it isn't an image that I like.
But the second image, and more so the gallery images show some good work, for me anyway.

Have you ever had any "local" problems from your subjects when shooting this style?

Thanks

Click to expand...

Hey Sid, thanks for looking over the stuff. I agree about the first one being tough to see, so I got rid of it. I'm not interested in filler shots on my site.
Asher, the second shot's white shirt is a bit blown. I was going for a super contrasty look, so I may have over done it a bit.

The second shot of the guy with the cut head was late morning, the guy was just sleeping on a bench. Looks like he fell on his forehead the night before from the looks of the scab. He was too asleep to care too much. I think I shot from a little bit away with a bigma. Most others, like I mentioned is as Im walking by, I'll usually have the N with a 17-35 and I'll shoot from the hip, maybe not the best technique, but I want the subjects as they are. I'm not interested in them hamming it up for me or posing for me, or getting that don't take my picture look. I'm just interested in shooting them as they are, and I find shooting from the hip, often as I'm walking the least intrusive way.

As I go there from time to time, I'll slowly build more of a collection.

Asher Kelman said:

This picture, to my warped social perspective perhaps should be viewed 15 feet high.

We would all be humiliated!

Asher

Click to expand...

As a start you could place one, that size, in every office lobby in LA.
Someone may notice !
$0.02

What's actually funny is that Santa Monica is a very liberal city and actually feeds the homeless and lets them camp right by the beach without harassment. So many homeless come to live there and there are so many that people actually end up ignoring them b/c they just seem to blend into the background of the hustle and bustle.

I don't know if this was sad or not, but last time I went there, a person had small kittens in a cage and asked for donations to help keep stray cats fed at their shelter and it was getting more donation than any of the homeless person.

Tom,
What sort of times do you work SM for these images?
I may look at the area and would like some general info if possible.

In London there are some areas that I would not attempt urban work like yours. There are "no go" areas with camera kit, certainly if it is too early or too late (well not without someone watching my back).
Is SM like this, or open all hours?


Regards.

Sid, take a look at the "third street prominade" at these links to Santa Monica City's website.
http://www.downtownsm.com/
http://www.seeing-stars.com/Shop/ThirdStreetPromenade.shtml
http://www.thirdstreetpromenade.com/bvisitors.html

This is the irony. Santa Monica is a very very expensive Ritzy neighborhood. I took all these shots on "Third Street Prominade" which is several blocks that are blocked off to cars and allows only pedestrian traffic. It is filled with upscale and trendy shops. It is filled with "Hollywood" entertainment industry types. Young thin women and old women with cosmetic surgeries trying to look young roam the streets. Tourists actually love this area for it's neat trendy people and the shopping. You are more likely to be hit by a silicone breast than by a flying fist.

The irony that I try to catch is that among all this wealth and glamour are these homeless folks in their mist standing in front of expensive and trendy stores begging for money. If you look at most of the tourist shots from this area, you'll not see one homeless, just expensive stores and trendy young people. Most from this area that look at my photos are shocked that I shot these at third street prominade b/c it usually looks nothing like this in most others shots. Among brand new ritzy building and beautiful fake people, I'm trying to find some intimate moment of a person who's really down and out. Just go to smugmug.com and do a "Santa Monica, CA" search and you'll see how nice this area is. That to me is the irony. I go there at all times of the day, mostly during weekend days. The place is full of locals and tourists as they carelessly pass many homeless folks as if they don't even exist. Such dichotomy.

Now for some real dangerous stuff, I goto downtown Los Angeles, near "Skid Row." Even I'm too scared to goto actual skid row in LA. It's something like the city from the movie "Blade Runner" except it's not as nice. I goto a street called "Broadway" in downtown, near skid row. This was the original theatre district at the turn of the 20th century, but now it's turned into an immigrant city with immigrants mostly from Mexico. The immigrants have shops or just sell stuff in middle of the sidewalk. When you walk through this place on a weekend, it feels more like Mexico City than Los Angeles. At night, the street vendors goes away and the homeless from skid row migrate over, all under the facade of decaying grand old movie houses from nearly a century ago.

Here are some shots from Broadway. Whole gallery is here. http://tomyi.smugmug.com/gallery/1196989


My friend, Gary used to be a staff photographer for the Los Angeles Times Newspaper and he also has a really gritty collection of shots from Broadway from the 70's.
Take a look here. http://garyayala.smugmug.com/gallery/665480/1

Went by the pier this time to escape the heat from a recent heat wave we've been having.
homeless lady in a sweater pushing her cart away from the pier.
https://yido.smugmug.com/photos/79112314-M.jpg
Is it winter or summer?
https://yido.smugmug.com/photos/79112315-M.jpg
riding a tricycle on the pier, enjoying the setting sun.
https://yido.smugmug.com/photos/79112318-M.jpg

Tom,

Could you check the links to your pictures as they are not coming up!

Asher

Asher Kelman said:

Tom,

Could you check the links to your pictures as they are not coming up!

Asher

Click to expand...

Tom

Asher is right
I've tried all your links from the beginning of that thread and except the ones for galleries, they bring to a white page.
There is something wrong with the url but I can't figure what...
i.e. the url for your "riding a tricycle on the pier, enjoying the setting sun." is:
https://yido.smugmug.com/photos/79112318-M.jpg
it seems correct but is obviously not!

Sorry to ask, but are you using to collect the right URL:
http://www.smugmug.com/help/picture-sharing ?

I think it's a smugmug issue and possibly a changed ID. These images all worked for me previously and some do now, but not all. But note that "yido" is getting redirected to "tomyi" but this does not appear to always be working.

- DL

sorry, changed my address on smugmug.
The whole gallery is here
http://tomyi.smugmug.com/gallery/632884

Tom Yi said:

sorry, changed my address on smugmug.
The whole gallery is here
http://tomyi.smugmug.com/gallery/632884

Click to expand...

This a a great link Tom. I really like the gallery and even the blown highlights on several images, giving the images an immediacy and sence of impulse and truth in the captures. The gallery as a whole displays a heart and eye for real human feelings and empathy for your subjects.

I wonder if you have started to print them?

Asher

Tom
since things are clarified, can you repost the dirct links to your image above, this would help us a lot, otherwise we surf on your smugmug pages from stuning photo to another and we lose the trhead of this forum :-O
If youy can't edit anymore your previous post PM me the links and I may do it for you if you wish.

BTW I visited SM a year ago, and I loved, may be because it was not as obvious as in your photos, the schizophrenic aspect of the place...

Nicolas Claris said:

Tom
since things are clarified, can you repost the dirct links to your image above, this would help us a lot, otherwise we surf on your smugmug pages from stuning photo to another and we lose the trhead of this forum :-O
If youy can't edit anymore your previous post PM me the links and I may do it for you if you wish.

BTW I visited SM a year ago, and I loved, may be because it was not as obvious as in your photos, the schizophrenic aspect of the place...

Click to expand...

Just done. I don't think they are the same shots though as I've touched up the gallery again.
Here is a shot of folks relaxing on the beach, just behind the hundreds of crosses that represent the dead soldiers from Iraq.

Asher Kelman said:

This a a great link Tom. I really like the gallery and even the blown highlights on several images, giving the images an immediacy and sence of impulse and truth in the captures. The gallery as a whole displays a heart and eye for real human feelings and empathy for your subjects.

I wonder if you have started to print them?

Asher

Click to expand...

No, I've not printed any of these. For some reason I think it would bother folks too much to see, especially where I hang my pictures, at my medical office.

I thought about printing them on a folding screen and displaying them at Santa Monica for passerby's and the subjects (that hang out there all the time) to see and enjoy.

Thanks for everybody Tom.

I can go to sleep now!

Known as the bubble man, he says he used to be a concert hall sound engineer till about 10 years ago. Now he just blows bubbles for tips at the base of the enterence to the pier.

bubble man caught in a bubble

Bubble man in a candid portrait

bubbles over Santa Monica