Challenge! Cameraderie Photo Challenge #43: Layers - Winner Announced

mumu

Top Veteran
Start Date
Jan 14, 2021
End Date
Jan 28, 2021
The Cameraderie 43th Challenge theme is: Layers

One of the things I'm working on right now is trying to incorporate layers into my street photography, so I thought that would be a good challenge theme as well.
Layering isn't just for street photography, it can be applied to virtually all photographic genres. Here are some resources to get your started:
** NOTE **
In your submission, please include a brief explanation of how you used layers in your photo. If 3 or more people complain to say that the explanation ruins the fun of the challenge, I'll remove that requirement (well, it's more of a request than a requirement).

As usual, this challenge will consider originality, technical merit, and artistic vision.

No change to the tried and trusted rules, which are as follows:

1. Either take pictures that match the nominated theme or select some from your portfolio. You must be the photographer that created the images in order to enter it.

2. Only one entry per challenge, please. If you want to withdraw an entry and replace it with another, that is OK, but you must make it clear in the post containing your replacement pictures that this is what you've done. You can add or change the title and add to the edit line to let everyone know.

3. The decision of the curator at the end of the challenge is final - don't give him/her a hard time about it: this is just a friendly photo-challenge, after all!

4. The winner will assume the responsibility of curator for the next Challenge, and as soon as possible post a message in a new thread in the Cameraderie Photo Challenges forum, with details of the new theme. Don't forget - that opening message must include a copy of these instructions, which also double as the rules.

5. The curator cannot enter in his or her own challenge.
 
Interesting subject.

I watched the video and went through some of my photos of people and realised how shallow most of those photos are, for the lack of a story and/or emotional depth perhaps. But then I found this one, I don't consider it good but it was around the time when I read a series of books explaining camera angles and movements used in films and the effects they have, and I kept that in mind when I had some unusual chances to shoot people.

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This one was taken in 2013 when I visited Sri Lanka for the 2nd time, it was at a fish market and it was absolutely new to me that you could buy fish like that, and they apparently eat a lot of fish, and I couldn't understand till today as I don't speak Sinhala and I didn't stay long enough to know the cooking.

As for "layering", I can remember that I was paying attention to the angle and composition, I wanted to show the full of variety of fish, the environment, the people and how they were like, even a little bit of the Sinhala language on the sign (it looks cute and sounds funny), it is one of the many images I always remember about the country.
 
It is not often that I use this type of composition, but I think this picture is build with layers: in the foreground part of a fishing boat with baskets and some tools, then the subject, this man alone on the beach, then the water with waves and reflection of the sun, and finaly, the background, the sky with the sun in light clouds.

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Hong Kong, fascinating to visit, but relatively hard to live there compared to what I'm used to, colleagues of mine tell of 6 day working weeks being standard and I'll always remember office workers leaving around 9.30pm as a normality before starting again at the crack of dawn. And then there's the traffic. I was quite pleased with this image as it captures the bloke at the back of the cab looking how I'd imagine I'd be feeling after a stressful day at work, as well as his surroundings which appear to be part of the cause of his expression (the driver and all around him are evidently working a hard day too). Hopefully this is what you mean by layers.

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What a great idea for a photo Challenge - thank you for thinking 'outside the box', mumu.
Eric Kim makes some great points in the video you posted, as well. Definitely worthy of thought.
My entry was taken more than a year ago, when I was in Mexico City. I was riding on the 'Metrobus', an urban transportation system which works more like an above-ground-Subway on wheels, rather than what one thinks of as a bus. The 35mm lens on my camera - a Sony R1xr that is no longer with me - was just wide enough to get most of the width of the Metrobus in frame. I wasn't thinking of composition when I took the photo - I was really hoping to capture some of the faces - and vibes - which surrounded me. And the fact that most of my fellow passengers seemed to either be lost in their own inner worlds, or possibly trying to remove themselves from the onus of daily reality. Or maybe something else entirely. But this picture just feels more like a lucky accident than anything else.

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I don’t often try to use this type of composition, at least not consciously. Or perhaps I do - with landscape shots I like to have foreground, middle and distance all containing something of interest. This is an example (taken on Acros 100 film in an Agfa Isolette folding medium-format camera for those who are interested in that kind of thing!)
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Love the theme! Looking through my catalog, I can see this is an area where I can improve a lot, especially in street / cityscape shooting. Layers come naturally to me in landscapes, although I have long ago stopped caring that much about having "any random object" in the foreground to lead the eye into the image; if I don't find any foreground objects genuinely interesting, I'd rather crop to a panoramic aspect ratio to leave only the things that really interest me.

I also liked the video and links you shared, the Lenslounge article in particular.

Image below taken at the Marrakesh medina, december 2019
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If I asked them to pose, I wouldn't get this shot, a glimpse of NY moment... We were doing a touristic NYC walk when my sister and her family came to visit us. Otherwise I would have waited for the free ice cream:)

Hopefully everything will go back to normal soon, so we can capture these crowded scenes again.... Most of my photos are now from my dog walks in the parks around where we live...

Interesting. The three young ladies in the background all remind me of mannequins, as if they were posing as such deliberately.
 
Alright, the challenge is now closed and here are my evaluations:

jyc860923: I like the guy on the left but he doesn't take up enough of the frame. I also think those light poles are a bit too distracting and breaking the natural inclination to draw your eye from one guy to the other. Weirdly, I think if it were darker and the lights were on, the poles would be less of a distraction and might make for some very interesting light on the vendor's face. Your photo inspires me to try layering in this scenario (I usually struggle to find interesting shots at markets).

emerson: Maybe my eye is wonky but the street performer is such an eye-catching element that my eye is almost forcefully drawn along that black wall and then FREEZES on the performer. The image has layers but my eye struggles to get past that performer. I like the photo though.

donlaw: I like this photo but in terms of it demonstrating layering, I'm not so sure. Like the previous photo, my eye is held quite strongly on one layer (the two women). Deeper depth of field might have helped but I'm not sure.

drd1135: A lovely photo (I love the out-of-foocus dew) but the depth-of-field is so shallow that it feels like there's only one layer.

pdurand: Very nice. Not much to critique here, I think that's a nice example of layering. Ideally I'd like some distance between the foreground log and the guy's feet because I'm not enamored with the illusion of the guy standing on the log. But realistically, if I were there I would've tried it with and without the illusion because sometimes it works.

rayvonn: I like this layering shot. Have you tried burning the driver's and passenger's faces a bit? I'd like them to be a bit more lighter so they draw more attention.

MiguelATF: The light from the left is great. I'd be strongly tempted to dodge the right side to make the chin-on-hand and purple shirt women more prominent. I like the layering here but I think some post processing could make this much stronger. I can feel the hate stares from SOOC proponents. ;-p

pictogramax: This is an interesting entrant. It clearly has at least two layers but, to my eye, the telephoto perspective lends it a compressed look, plus there's nothing in the foreground. Despite all that, it would certainly be nice to see this printed large.

serhan: So much to look at here but I'm conflicted over whether or not that's a bad thing. That selfi blonde is particularly distracting because of how bright she is against the black trailer. The "Free ice cream" also appears to be floating above the policeman's head.

kyteflyer: This challenge has been a challenge for me. This photo is a fine example: it clearly has a foreground and background layer but it doesn't seem like a layering shot. If anything, it brings to mind the technique of juxtaposition (not that they are mutually exclusive). Perhaps this is, again, an issue of telephoto compression and shallow depth of field? I'm glad there's no money involved in this challenge because I'd hate to have to explain my decisions when there's money on the line.

theoldsmithy: Being a street photographer, I've never really considered layering being applied to landscape photography but I think this is a great example of how to do it!

bartjeej: This is a tough one. I LIKE it but the guy on the motorcycle is just so washed out. Also, did you notice that the B&W photo on the right side appears to be layered as well? Also, I don't know if this should matter but the foreground just seems a bit far away.

====================

(Weird...I can't believe I've been looking at theoldsmitty's photo for so long but only now have I noticed that it's not purely black & white...there are very lightly saturated lilacs! That just shows the kind of quality judging you're getting from me.)

I'm surprised that it's come down to two photos and one of them is a landscape:
* theoldsmithy
* serhan

Both have at least 3 layers and both have close foreground elements that make me feel like I'm in the scene. serhan's image feels a bit weaker to me because there are three strong elements that are vying for my attention, vs theoldsmitty's photo where the center tree (and possibly an animal of some sort near it) is clearly the focal point. On the other hand, I found myself staring at serhan's photo more often because there's more to explore, which I think is one of the features that makes me want to improve my ability to create a layered composition.

In the end, I have to choose one, so it'll be serhan's because of the additional interest it has. Congratulations!

And thank you to everyone for participating!
 
What a great idea for a photo Challenge - thank you for thinking 'outside the box', mumu.
Eric Kim makes some great points in the video you posted, as well. Definitely worthy of thought.
My entry was taken more than a year ago, when I was in Mexico City. I was riding on the 'Metrobus', an urban transportation system which works more like an above-ground-Subway on wheels, rather than what one thinks of as a bus. The 35mm lens on my camera - a Sony R1xr that is no longer with me - was just wide enough to get most of the width of the Metrobus in frame. I wasn't thinking of composition when I took the photo - I was really hoping to capture some of the faces - and vibes - which surrounded me. And the fact that most of my fellow passengers seemed to either be lost in their own inner worlds, or possibly trying to remove themselves from the onus of daily reality. Or maybe something else entirely. But this picture just feels more like a lucky accident than anything else.

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Would it be ok if I did an edit on this photo and post it here? I'm wondering what it'd look like in B&W and with some dodging/burning.
 
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