A flutist for the tourist Photo

Photographer’s Note

This will be one of my last posts from Russia. This is the cultured, hospitable, elegant and enterprising side of modern Russia. This man - clearly a trained professional flutist - was standing in the park at the Catherine Palace entertaining the tourists who walked by or sat on the benches facing the lake behind him. He of course also had a small table with a hat for collecting voluntary contributions to his art (outside the frame).
The downside (maybe) is that we were sitting next to a group of 15-20 young army cadets in uniform, who also seemed to enjoy the music. These he came over and chased away to make room for foreigners = a more financially interesting audience. A pity, but the cadets seemed to understand - they are all part of a modern day Russia struggling struggling to make ends meet and come out on top.
Autolevel and autocolor in PS and NeatImage for the sky.

jhm, Hanssie, Jeppe, Sasha, Jazator, poulinp has marked this note useful

Critiques | Translate

jhm (83352) 2004-08-30 12:32

Unique placid place here Per, the flutist on the forground, the lovely lake and it beautiful castle on the background, excellent photo. My compliments!

Hanssie (9133) 2004-08-30 13:23

The minstrel from the gallery, playing songs from the wood....
A very nice shot, Per, clear, sharp, nice colours... but there is just one point; maybe you could step a few centimeters to the left to have the whole building in your picture and in the same time, you could then avoid the bl.... tourists, but I like it very well !

Jeppe (18623) 2004-08-30 14:56

Great composition and a very fine background for that flutist - you got a fine atmosphere in this capture - and yes - I was wondering about the hat - glad you mention it in your note - thanks Per - a true TE-poster - I seldom leaves Fyn ;-)

mikhalych (1311) 2004-08-31 3:18

I agree with Hanssie that changing POV a little and thus moving the tree further off-center would improve your composition very much.
In other aspects - very fine capture with certain mood. Well done!

Sasha (123) 2004-08-31 8:41

Disbalance of the composition is not that bad... I would interpret this as the place being significant by itself, even without the flutist. Thank you Per!

RandomCameraGuy (3063) 2004-08-31 17:31

This is good, but I think that you have to decide on a subject: the man or the tree. I feel that you are trying to get both in this pic and that makes it less successful than it can be. Remember that each pic can only have one main subject, that you must do your best to present in the most aesthetic way, everything else is secondary. Cheers Per!

Jazator (900) 2004-09-02 10:10

Îòëè÷íî, áóäåòå ó íàñ åùå, ìèëîñòè ïðîñèì!!! Õîðîøèé ó âàñ âêóñ :)

paido (944) 2004-09-26 9:42

Well done ! It is a beautiful composition.

I get the feeling that being straight up, with his flute at the horizontal, the flustist is kind of mimicing the tree with its branches.