Stencilled Graffiti

This is a fabulous piece of street photography. The stencilled graffiti of the giant girl reaching up towards the Mona Lisa painting is interesting, but the addition of the passerby in similar polka dot attire, looking up at the object of your photograph is what makes your composition. I wonder just how long you stalked this building waiting for the right person to come along, to complete your vision of someone looking up towards the subject of your shot - as people often do when seeing us photographers pointing our camera at something. The black and white conversion works well in mitigating any colour variations in the clothes, but the piece-de-resistance has to be the name of the shop

What better way to enter a photograph, to a graffiti photographic competition, than to take a photograph, of a photographer, taking a photograph of graffiti. This is exactly what I was asking for in my brief:- to be unique and creative in the way one approaches street art photography. You either waited for an opportune moment like this to present itself, or you purposely asked the photographer to pose for you. Whichever it was, it’s the reason your photo deservedly made my top ten.

Many graffiti artists intentionally position their artwork, in a way, as to invite photographers, to join in the fun, by completing their purposely set-up-scenarios. Including the lady walking away in your photo, suggests she might be a motorist who had just left her legally parked car. The traffic warden is watching her disappear, before prematurely slapping a parking fine on her vehicle before the parking meter had ran out of time.. Well done for taking up the artist’s challenge and letting the viewer’s imaginations complete your set-up story..

I love this simple stencil art of the lone girl walking along having love heart thoughts. But what I most love about your composition, is that you’ve taken a step back to include the distant city lights, following a similar curvature as the red hearts on the wall. You have expertly managed to add an element to the street art that even the graffiti artist could never have foreseen.

This piece of stencilled street art by Banksy in his home town of Bristol is full of political innuendos. The British bulldog being led away from the EU symbol is a subtle dig at the UK leaving the European Union. I love that you’ve intentionally left the surrounding graffiti alluding to Banksy’s work. But what really makes your photograph, is the addition of the traffic sign with it’s suggestion of an alternative Brexit. I don’t know if it was you, Banksy or someone else that placed the sign against the wall, but standing back, to take your photo beyond the confines of the stencilled graffiti, is a creative touch I was looking for in this challenge.

Although this is a straight shot of the street artist JPS's partially stencilled graffiti, you have photographed it in a unique way. By pushing the distraught girl to the extreme bottom-right-hand-corner of your composition, you’ve positively used the negative white space. Taking away any distractions and tweaking the levels to remove blemishes on the wall has expertly helped to concentrate the focus on the girl and her spilled pot of red paint.

Too many photos in this challenge were straight shots of graffiti artists artwork, unlike your photo which is enhanced by the addition of a bicycle, placed under the stencilled painting by Gato-M. Judging by unadorned photos I’ve seen of this street art, I’m guessing that it might have been you, not the artist, who had the clever idea, of adding the lady’s bike to. the graffiti. Either way, finding the toddler holding a four-leaf-clover really turned out to be a lucky day for you.

Normally I don't like the use of people posing in front of photo challenge subjects. But your photo of the guy interacting with the graffiti, mimicking the giant portrait adds a further dimension to the street artist’s work. Offsetting the colour figure against the black and white image really makes him standout. You’ve cleverly capitalised on the looking-through-finger-glasses-gesture, by making the unwitting viewer of the photograph the unseen subject of the photo.

The use of a woman with both outstretched hands physically holding back the graffiti artist from toppling over makes an extremely convincing photograph. You have added your own creative touch to the existing street art by dramatically humanising the artist’s work. The woman looking over her shoulder seems to be pleading for help as she’s unable to hold on for very much longer. I love the lighting on your superbly lit photo - keeping the struggling woman in shadow whilst spotlighting the man painting the graffiti heart.

There were some fabulous graffiti entries to this challenge but unfortunately they weren’t stencilled or were just straight shots of the artist’s artwork without any additional creative input by the photographers. This, on the other hand, is a prime example of how to enhance a piece of street art. Your photo of the disturb-looking stencilled graffiti, poses many questions in it’s own merit, but with the inclusion of the blue noose, you have further added to the intrigue. Who is the mysterious figure? Is it the hooded hangman, or is it someone about to be hanged? You have taken a small, insignificant piece of street art and skilfully strung a story around it by simply adding a length of knotted rope. Clever!