Exercise 21: Making figures anonymous

This exercise is to produce photographs of places that include people but in such a way as to make them unrecognisable and so less prominent. The photographs selected are from a variety of dates and locations, I have opted to try and include examples of all the approaches from the course notes.

Small and many

The Old Waverley Hotel on Princes Street with assorted shoppers:

From OCA People and Place Photos

Prince's Street Gardens as seen looking down from Edinburgh Castle:

From OCA People and Place Photos

Facing away

I find facing away a particular challenge, its easy to get such shots but much harder to convey some interest. Here 'Red Coat' and a 'red coat', you get it...

From OCA People and Place Photos

And one of the canons aiming out from the walls of Edinburgh Castle:

From OCA People and Place Photos

This couple take in the view as they listen on their headphones:

From OCA People and Place Photos

In silhouette

This horse and rider were seen near the Falkirk Wheel:

From OCA People and Place Photos

A simple into the sun (natural hair light) shot with arms raised for fun:

From OCA People and Place Photos

Partly obscured

This was taken on a rainy day at Stirling Castle, the angle of view and the rain hoods combine to obscure the faces of these tourists taking shelter:

From OCA People and Place Photos

Self portraits where the subject is behind the camera and a reflective surface is used (as opposed to using a timer etc) can fall into this category if something of the location is revealed. In this case this is me taking a photo in an elevator, the angle is deliberate, attempting to make a cross shape across the composition:

From OCA People and Place Photos

Here the main subject is the water rushing through the lock gates as it fills, meanwhile two gents lend some sense of scale as they enjoy a smoke, waiting for the lock to fill, also the pair of wives can just be made out on the boat behind:

From OCA People and Place Photos

Motion blur

Down to a 1/40s hand held for this shot of children running around a fountain at Linlithgow Palace (though one was standing still, they could be cloned out, cropped out etc):

From OCA People and Place Photos

And then again hand held, this time at 1/20s (using a short focal length lens helps, 17mm in this case), as the ticket inspector passes down through the train carriage:

From OCA People and Place Photos

In conclusion this seems to be a very effective approach but one that requires some care and thought to achieve.