A warm thank to all the reviewers for sharing their remarks. Specific answers to your comments/questions are following below. Le 11.1.2003 21:06, « rand flory » <ferret@wyoming.com> a écrit : > Christiane Roh - Market day, Place de la Palud > http://www.rit.edu/~andpph/gallery/roh.html > > I like this photograph. I like the brightness and therefore the implied > vitality of the marketeer and her wares contrasting with the gray building > behind. The action was stopped at a point in time that adds true interest > into the scene: the payment and the wrapping of goods. Roh has caught The > Exchange! This is perfect timing. Roh has delivered to us an image that > tells a story. This picture was taken with the Canon G2 which has a rather long shutter lag, so long that you can just release the shutter and pray that everything stay in place ;-) after that, comes a one second delay before you can take the next shot. So it's usually hit or miss. In this case, I'd have liked it better if the seller was looking at the lady in front of her, rather than down at the bag.. But well, she sank her face during the shutter lag. So it's half hit and half missed for me, but I was curious to see whether it would be bothering for others. > > But the part I like most is the glimpse into an unknown (to me) culture. I > suspect the concept of the street market is quite old in Lausanne, but it > has been kept up-to-date by the use of green plastic carrying cases for the > vegetables, as well as environmentally unsound (but inexpensive) plastic > carrying bags. The old customs meet the new realities, even in Switzerland. Not sure why you say "even" .. We are just like the other Europeans, neither worse, nor better. But yes, Lausanne has the most beautiful market of the five bigger cities in Switzerland. It takes place twice a week, on Wednesday and Saturday mornings and occupies the room of half a dozen of narrow pedestrian streets in the historical center of the city, plus a large square. It is mainly a fruit and vegetable market plus a grocer market. Each kind of food has its place.. Some sellers are very specialized : a few of them only selling mushrooms, for instance. > > The most intriguing thing for me, however, is: where do the street venders > get their fresh vegetables in March? There are two kinds of vendors at these markets : some are farmers and truck gardeners selling their own goods; other are just fruit and vegetables resellers : they buy from the import/export firms and thus don't sell different products than what you can also get at the supermarket. However, in general, the products are fresher (they buy what they need for the market day). You can buy directly from the producer, if you look for it, even from organic farms (producing their vegetables in a respectful way for the environment). The last newcomer to the market is an Indian immigrant selling products he gets directly from his village in India. He sells pineapple nicely cut and ready to eat, wrapped in a plastic bag, wet with a spicy juice, just like you would find along Indian streets and all kinds of exotic products. To answer more directly to your question, the pictured woman is a farmer selling her own products. If you look nearer, you'll see that she has only winter vegetables, which last for a long time : calves, celeries, leeks, carrots and potatoes; the salads (on the right) are grown in greenhouses. Le 12.1.2003 1:44, « Gregory david Stempel » <fyrframe@centurytel.net> a écrit : > Christiane Roh: Lausanne, Market Day, Place de la Palud, March 2002 > Good image, a day in the life of Lausanne. Nicely captured moment of a > simple activity, spontaneity and of "seeing." A classic street shot. Almost > everything works here, the exposure being well balanced. I am curious though > about the photographer's intent, the action is moving from right to left, > but the comp moves from left to right. I thought that may be the harmony of colors (only green and reds) may look artificial and too pretty for a classic street picture (which I do rather imagine in B&W). But the colors were really there, nothing was changed in Photoshop to make it more pretty. Concerning your last remark, it's the one which interested me the most in these reviews, but I'm not sure to understand what you mean by composed from left to right ? Is it because of the three patches of red : lower left corner and nearer (the shoes), middle at middle distance (the lady sweatshirt) and finally, in the background, the upper right corner (the written sign on the wall) ? Anyway, it was not easy to find the right angle of view, because of the passengers going by and the pole supporting the red tent and cutting the face of the woman in halves. It was framed under a lot of constraints. Le 16.1.2003 5:06, « Gregory Fraser » <Gregory.Fraser@pwgsc.gc.ca> a écrit : > Christiane Roh (Lausanne, Market day, Place de la Palud, March 2002) - I'm > really drawn to the working of the red shoes, sweater and canopy and the green > fruit, baskets and apron and the way the red and green are evenly distributed > throughout the image. Everything is very neat and orderly here. Even the brown > board at the left of the image follows the photo frame perfectly. The only > tension comes from the diagonal table supports but even those are balanced by > the vertical pole above the table with the length of the diagonals equaling > the length of the longer pole. The diagonals also reflect the shape of the > scale. Very well constructed image Christiane. Haaa.. The red shoes and the smart lady wearing them attracted me to that scene, as well as the red/green color harmony. I was rather bothered by the brown board.. But there was no way to get it out of the picture while retaining both the seller and the lady with the red shoes. My other dissatisfaction is that the shutter speed was a little low and the seller isn't completely sharp. Le 17.1.2003 20:26, « ADavidhazy » <ANDPPH@ritvax.isc.rit.edu> a écrit : > Christiane Roh - Market day, Place de la Palud > Almost a "decisive moment" but still full of "atmosphere". Photo slightly > tilted and might have been more dynamic had sloping sidewalk been retained. > Arm kind of covers action. I want to move to Europe but probably could not > afford it! Yes as you say, almost a decisive moment, if only the seller hadn't sank her face down during the shutterlag time. Yes, it's somewhat tilted, but nothing was parallel and straight in that picture.. I chose to have the horizontal lines of the green boxes level and the left frame straight .. Then the right is tilted.. May be I should try a new adjustment in photoshop.. I'm not sure what you are after with the "sloping sidewalk" : in that place the ground is more or less level.. I think that the tilt on the right is rather due to the fact that the camera was at an angle.. Le 18.1.2003 7:34, « Chris » <nimbo@ukonline.co.uk> a écrit : > > Christiane Roh - Market day, Place de la Palud > > Nice Street Photo showing Capitalism in action! Mmm this precise seller would rather account for proto-capitalism IMO. She is selling her own farm product, just like under the pre-capitalism years. A big thank to all for your interesting comments. -- Christiane
