Bicycle Repair man, our HERO!! Photo

Photographer’s Note

For Richard and Luko, to fit in that wonderful theme of Monty Python quotes: Bicycle Repair man, OUR HERO

Isabel and I were just strolling around, taking pictures here and there, and then I saw him working in his little shop and just had to take this picture. This is in the neighborhood of Sala Sao Paulo and Train station Luz. He wanted to go with me to the Netherlands, for bicycle repairmen that must be heaven. Every Dutch has at least one, and usually more bicycles, I have 3, but I do not have a car.
He has got some great posters on the wall, one of the Gaviões da Fiel, a huge fangroup from the popular Sao Paulo football team the Corinthians. (Thanks a lot, Isabel for the research!), plus a bird in a cage, plus a poster of a cyclist team.

Who knows that team is riding the Tour de France at the moment.
This is a small hommage to the people that ride the Tour every year, I bow in deep respect for what those guys achieve! BUT....certainly for all those 'mécaniciens' who take care of those expensive bikes, there work can make a difference!
Oh, got to go pack, 5 days to bike and camp, and the weather is going to be great. Life is so hard, I do not even get the chance to rest after my Brazil trip ;-)

PP. The picture was a mess, noisy, as his shop was vey dark and deep, unsharp, no DoF. I tried to lighten it a bit, adding contrast, a filter, well just about anything. I hope you like it.

Paolo, weswang, MiguelP, betogrein, SophieL, KevRyan, jhm, bertolucci, pamastro, Valentia, Suh has marked this note useful

Critiques | Translate

Paolo (40753) 2005-07-12 12:29

Excellent work Rinie!
it seems a picture of the beginning of the XX° Century took at Giro d'Italia or Tour de France!
i like all of that image!
thanks, ciao

weswang (18223) 2005-07-12 12:31

Hi Rinie, A nice capture of the shy guys. I wonder that how can you ride three bikes. You must have some special skills to be able to do so :D. A nice contribution and I guess the bike in the tour are too expensive to send to this shop for maintenance :D
A nice and fun shot. From this picture, I can almost feel the special smell out from this shop.

MiguelP (14336) 2005-07-12 12:45

As Paolo has already said it looks like a very old photo from the beguining of the XX siecle, such a timeless sensation makes me feel like we are all ghosts, trying to get our life and world kept in photos as it was before in paintings: Necesity of last. Take care dear, you did a great job repairing this photo, do you wanted to emulate them and their cycles?

RGatward (19749) 2005-07-12 14:19

He does seem to be a hero, working in that seeming chaos. Good choice of B&W for this timeless shot. And yes, good to see another contribution to the theme, it's time I thought of another too.

betogrein (2232) 2005-07-12 16:03

Mais uma bela foto, a composição ficou muito boa, e acertou colocala em p&b, parace uma foto antiga. O único detalhe que estragou a foto é aquele poster da Gaviões da Fiel do Corinthians. hehehe
Abraços...

SophieL (6030) 2005-07-12 16:33

With the slightly faded B&W and the funny grain that comes from your post-processing, it really looks like a picture from another time... Fine portrait of a man in his work place, but I also like the details, the friend just hanging out in the background, the posters on the wall (who know who put them there, and why, and I wonder if the repair man even look at them anymore). It tells a lot about everyday life in this shop.

I really like it!

KevRyan (22418) 2005-07-13 1:41

Hi Rinie, I really liked the atmosphere of this 'aged' shot - I think you did a lot of right things by the way you PP'd it - a really nice insight into this guy's working environment - I think you chose a great perspective to bring all of the different elements into the frame - the posters really add something very important to the image - it's those little details, like the calendar and the bird cage on the wall - not an obvious thing to expect at all - this image really rewards time spent with it.

best wishes Kev

snuggleaphagus (4140) 2005-07-13 1:49

Such a full photo. The guys are great specially the one in the back giving a slight smile. I really like the mess of the bicycles and the wall. The bird cage is almost hidden in this confusion.
The atmosphere of this photo is great and it is so timeless. Perfect title.

smiles are gone.

Furachan (0) 2005-07-13 4:01

This is just a very unusual shot, Rinie, the old time, newsopaperish feel of it (deliberate of course!), the way you pretty much bury the man in his bikes. Messy, sure. Unsharp, maybe, but you were right to stick with it - there is so much more to photos that "have it" than the cosmetic aspects. Cheers, Francis

jinju (14265) 2005-07-13 5:56

Interesting. You sure got a lot of stuff into this shot. So many things to look at and so little time. This has an old time charm to it with the tone you chose.

bertolucci (11994) 2005-07-15 9:02

Hi Rinie, aarrgh you beat me to this MP quote ;-)). It's a lovely one which looks very old, if pulled from some obscure archive -nice pp job! I like the bright smiles and all those bike parts. Hope you won't need our local equivalent during your cycle trip.
Have fun! Bert

pamastro (7213) 2005-07-17 12:29

I like the post processing you did here Rinie. It gives it a very old feel. If the people and bikes didn't look modern it would have the feel of the days of Fausto Coppi or earlier. It also brings out a nice gritty mechanic shop feel. Perhaps it would have been nice to capture him working. But it still is well taken to show the atmosphere of the shop. And as I said nicely salvaged.

Valentia (1522) 2005-08-13 18:19

I like this very much. Like a picture from an old newspaper. I can smell the grease and oil.

You did an excellent job with post processing to rescue the shot. Well done.

hojper (2830) 2005-08-18 11:08

I just love this photo. Maybe because I cycle a lot, maybe because it is so totally different, maybe because it is what TE is all about. The PP work looks interesting indeed and it worked. The grain is superb for this kind of journalistic old newsprint documentary library shelf dust kind of picture. Straight out of grandpa's photo album.