Christopher Street Day Gay Parade, Dresden DE, 2012

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snake

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I was shopping in the city center today and thankfully, I had my K5 on hand.

DELUGE PHOTO: Christopher Street Gay Rights Parade, Dresden Germany, 2012

The scene was chaos and I dove right into the middle of the crowds. The settings were a bit flawed, as I didn't set them back from the last usage (ie: ISO 160 vs ISO 160 from highlight correction). I'm still learning how to use it, but still happy and was happy with the keeper rate. I even left a couple shots that focused on the wrong subject just due to the "feel" of the scene. Adding to the chaos is the fact that I now use two primes (FA35 F2 and F50 1.7), so I have to keep telling myself to just take the shot and not wait, even if flawed in framing.
 
Thanks. There may be some more on the way, but I got the important ones out first.

I have a black and white set that looks, IMO, better, but it's tough to document an event that's about "color" in black and white.
 
Well done, snake. Glad you've joined the k-5 crew, I was starting to feel lonely :) Those shots are well done, I can't believe the settings were just leftovers. They worked really well!

Thanks a bunch. The processing is something I've been developing for some time but I could never get it to work right on my EX1. It's basically a desaturated, high contrast effect in LR, which took me about 15 revisions or so to get. It's pretty temperamental, to be honest, but the results, to me, are worth it. Pixel peepers and people that look at histograms, rather than the content, will not be pleased with it.
 
snake, ya done good. You really captured the flavor of the event and ya made a lot of interesting photos. I really enjoyed these.
Don
 
wow, was the "ich blas dir einen" guy really there (with that sign) because of his bachelor party? brilliant!:D

great photos, really capture the chaos and colour of the event. Your processing reminds me of a bleach bypass, but the colours that were originally punchy have remained so more than with the BP filters I've seen... looks nice!
 
wow, was the "ich blas dir einen" guy really there (with that sign) because of his bachelor party? brilliant!:D

great photos, really capture the chaos and colour of the event. Your processing reminds me of a bleach bypass, but the colours that were originally punchy have remained so more than with the BP filters I've seen... looks nice!

Hah, that guy had very, very bad luck.

For the non-Euros, out here, it's common for young males and sometimes women to have their pre-wedding parties in the streets, with their friends, silly outfits, getting drunk, being fools. So the guy in the last picture happened to be there with his friends, wearing a sign about "doing something" for 2 euros. Unfortunately, wrong place, wrong time.

Very fun event, really. I just decided to get in the middle to get the shots. There are plenty more, but need some work.

The processing was inspired a bit by bleach bypass. If I had to do it over again, I would probably process with a few hairs less exposure, but I purposesly process to get an ever so slight clipping of highlights and blacks.

However, I just started using this style and like it the more and more I use it, but it isn't easy, to be honest. Despite that, I'm getting the idea that it gets a thumbs up in these situations?
 
The processing was inspired a bit by bleach bypass. If I had to do it over again, I would probably process with a few hairs less exposure, but I purposesly process to get an ever so slight clipping of highlights and blacks.

However, I just started using this style and like it the more and more I use it, but it isn't easy, to be honest. Despite that, I'm getting the idea that it gets a thumbs up in these situations?

Snake, I think the processing works particularly well with the Gothic styles favored by many/most of the participants. Good choice!
 
Snake, I think the processing works particularly well with the Gothic styles favored by many/most of the participants. Good choice!

Thanks. I posted another picture last week of two guys on a couch on the sidewalk. That's really where this effect became viable. I think it will work quite well in other urban settings, especially to bring out a "grittier" appearance. We have lots of abandoned/derelict buildings out here, so I think it would work quite well, including in the industry areas.
 
Thanks. I posted another picture last week of two guys on a couch on the sidewalk. That's really where this effect became viable. I think it will work quite well in other urban settings, especially to bring out a "grittier" appearance. We have lots of abandoned/derelict buildings out here, so I think it would work quite well, including in the industry areas.

The two guys on the sidewalk couch was an enjoyable image!
 
You documented the event well snake. I think color was the way to go given the theme. Not all documentation needs to be in black and white. It's about what brings out the image and gives it more impact.
 
Thanks. It was also a real experience using the primes, which, to be honest, seems a lot more fun than using a zoom. For a while, I've been looking to get that "imperfect" feel that sometimes adds to street shooting scenes, but with a zoom, especially one where I can go wide, I tend to line everything up, go straight with the grid lines, and so on. I liked what I came up with here, but need to go a bit further with it. And certainly, it was helped by the fact that the people, by and large, were happy to be photographed. Next time I'll have to focus on getting the settings down right. The K-5 is forgiving, which is very fortunate, but I'd still have wanted to see less blowing of the skies, which could have been partly remedied by dialing down EV (I accidentally had ISO 160 set, rather than highlight correction 160 and I believe there are shutter speed differences between the two). Program and appropriately handling aperture when needed helped. Focusing errors were fairly minimal, considering the scene.

All in all, fun experience, good energy, and glad I had the cam on me while out there.

I will eventually go back to a zoom, but it will be for longer ranges, such as as a 70-200 Tamron or an 80-200 Tokina. I wanted to do primes until about that range, which is why I went with Pentax.

Now I just can't figure out if I should go for a DA70 or a M85 for a bit more reach and speed (but no AF).
 
Snake and I have been PMing back and forth. He says he is going to publish my PMs and cite this forum thread as an example of homophobic practice. He is threatening try to paint me as a homophobe. The truth is that I am a strong advocate for LGBT rights including the right to same sex marriage in my country.

In order to protect myself from being misquoted, I am publishing our entire, unaltered PM exchange below:

Amin Sabet said:
"the parade highlighted the archaic attitudes and even laws in my state that restrict and dominate the lives of gays and lesbians"

That is politics and not allowed on this site. You can call it context, and that does not change the fact that it is a political statement. The way you attacked members and implied that they are "
conspicuously uncomfortable" with the content for pointing it out is even worse. This has nothing to do with discomfort. No one suggested you not post the photos. They pointed out that the political commentary is not allowed.

snake said:
Are you kidding me? It is context. I actually didn't post more about it because it would hurt those obviously prejudiced babies who can't handle some gays, so just like other forums, they spam whatever they can and alert mods to get the threads removed.

The context is that this wasn't a parade: it was a merging of a demo and a parade, supported by voters, and some of the largest corporations in the world and nearly all political parties because the government is not extending the recognition of partnerships, which is now damaging the medical system, something I deal with nearly daily in the hospitals.

So it is actual fact, including the wording presented by Deutsche Bank, the main sponsor.

Utterly ridiculous and no wonder this forum is more dead than the last time I was here.

Amin Sabet said:
The rules are the rules. If you don't like them, stay off the site. It isn't much to give up since you consider the site to be dead.

I would rather have a dead site than spend my day moderating political bickering.

snake said:
Then stop pandering to your homophobic site supporter babies. It's pretty obvious that this is what it is. I've seen this exact same thing on other forums to get such content deleted.

Do you really think they would have not had a problem even if there was not the wording? They still would have reported something and complained.

I've already saved screenshots, will be posting about it, already saved screenshots of our talks and will be posting it. Since I tweeted my site, I've apparently done well with gay groups spreading the word, so I'll get to give you guys some coverage on how a common tactic by homophobes is to spam threads like that and the apparent methodology by owners of such forum is the homophobic one.

And I know you can't IP ban anyhow anymore, since we're all on constantly renewing IPs, so I've decided I will stay.

Amin Sabet said:
I stand 100% behind gay/lesbian rights and am a staunch advocate for gay marriage in my country, including donating to politicians who support this cause. However, I will not have politics on this site, period.

If you want to post our PM exchange anywhere, do the honorable thing and include this one as well.

snake said:
You're only saying such a thing because of that posting. You know exactly that you have an out of control contingent who throw their weight around fairly viciously because they donate and you're desperate for money to operate this site. It doesn't help that they are using a typical tactic run by homophobes on forums to try and get content deleted by any way possible, including lying, like the first complaint. Then the self-fullfillment of it by calling more friends in to create some chaos.

And you supporting homophones that happen to pay you is masked by you saying you support gay rights? Please. Looks like money is worth more than principles and you're willing to bend perceptions and view a non-political, contextual statement of what was displayed there and yell about how it's political? Please. The problem here is that your donors are running rampant and control you and your opinions are now theirs as you try to save the site.

Amin Sabet said:
You are completely out of touch with reality. None of this has to do with money. 1) The "site supporters" don't donate very much money to me. 2) This site doesn't cost me very much, and I can comfortably pay for it "out of pocket". 3) I enjoy this site, but there are many things which mean more to me than this site. I have no fear of losing this site whatsoever. 4) The fact that some people don't want to deal with politics on a photography site doesn't make them homophobes. You are jumping to unwarranted conclusions. They were simply pointing out that your commentary was a TOS violation, which it is. If someone objected to your posting the pictures here, that would be different. Note that no one objected to the content of the photos or your posting them on this site.

You yourself said that your state's laws were archaic. That is a political statement. Whether you are talking about gay rights, welfare for the poor, women's rights, child labor, makes no difference: Passing judgment on laws being archaic is political. It is my right as a private site owner to bypass the hassle of dealing with political commentary by making it not allowed on the site.

snake said:
And again, it's not a political statement, as I relayed the premise of the parade, which wasn't a parade as much as a demonstration combined with a parade.

And you are being pushed around by homophobes. Like I said, they have nothing to say about the pictures, only about the content, and this is exactly the tactic I've seen used elsewhere on other forums the moment anyone, typically conservative, sees anything like this. They want a full-scale site evacuation and you were manipulated by them because they are sponsors. It was predictable that they would bring in friends to make you see it their way and pull the "see, told you so" nonsense.

The wording had nothing to do with it, homophobia had everything to do with it and you supported it and it's no surprise, considering they are site sponsors. In fact, the first guy has a political statement about war and photography I noted in another thread and to me, it's politically charged, especially since I have relatives in combat. Nothing was said there and I wonder why.

It's the content that was objected to, not the supposed political talk.

If the site is something you couldn't care less about, then why do you have it running, along with aggressive and intrusive ad referral systems? That's why we talk about this forum being desperate for money because you look completely desperate and pandering to site supporters this aggressively is yet another example.


I did not think this last comment was worth a direct reply to snake, but I'll say a couple words here. Snake's statement that "It's the content that was objected to, not the supposed political talk" is absolutely false. Not a single member complained about the content, either in the forum or in private comments to me. In fact, not a single member reported Snake's post at all using the moderation system. One of the mods recognized that it was a TOS violation and brought it up with the rest of the mod team for discussion.

As for this site being something "I couldn't care less about", obviously that is not the case. I've put a lot of work into this site, and it means a lot to me. However, there are many things which mean more to me than this site, and my principles are one of them. I resent the implication that I am selectively moderating political commentary to pander to donors. Those of you who have been around long enough know that I did not even allow political discussion of photographer's rights, a topic which is right at home on most photography forums, because I try to be 100% consistent about applying the site rules. I don't cherry pick. As for the ads being invasive, I disagree with that too. I have avoided popups, overlays, and contextual/in-text ads, all of which generate more money but are obnoxious.

This entire time-consuming exchange is a perfect example of the main reason politics are not allowed on this site. We moderators do not have the time to deal with it.

Everyone is free to continue to discuss snake's photos, but he won't be participating in the discussions until he agrees to follow the site TOS.
 
I enjoyed the photos and the discussion as to the OP went about getting them as well as the challenges in doing so. I am sorry it has digressed.
 
Last thing I want to add to this otherwise closed discussion: I regret having to post my own politics in this thread. I felt that I was being threatened by snake and that disclosing our entire conversation was necessary to protect myself from this threat. I was conflicted in doing so and remain conflicted about leaving my statements here to stand where they too are against the Site TOS. I've deleted the rest of the comments which could be considered political from the thread. I hope that we can now get back to the forum running according to the TOS.
 
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