Street Pedestrians

This photo is so perfect it had to have been staged. - if not I take my hat off to you for being so quick on the draw. Either way it’s a magnificent photo of a pedestrian captured in the only slither of light entering the tunnel. The white lightning bolt looks as if it’s about to beam him up into an alien spaceship with motorbikes driving away in the distance completely unaware of the adventure unfolding behind them. Innocent jaywalker or stage-managed pedestrian, this is a creatively constructed composition.

Its rather apt that your photo shot in the capital of France was taken in the home of the Impressionism art movement. For me this painterly effect immediately stood out from the other blurred abstract entries. Your low ISO and high aperture settings have ensured that you capture the Parisian pedestrians to maximum effect. Your expertly taken ICM photo looks as if it was as taken as easily as a leisurely stroll down the Ely’s Avenue. Parfaitement belle.

The subtlety perceived conception of this composition is what makes your photo so remarkable. You saw the potential about to unfold in front of you and managed to click a few frames in order to maximise your visualisation. Paradoxically the shadow of the pedestrian signpost becomes the man’s x-ray vision focusing on the item he is holding in his outstretched hands. The success of the photo was due to your creative eye and your perspicacious thinking.

I’ve seen this New York street photo many times and it amuses me every time I see it. You’ve managed to catch the middle-aged man just at the right moment as he looks up to admire the three pairs of lady’s shapely legs. I like how by cropping just above the buttock line you leave the voyeuristic photo viewer wondering just how much more naked flesh was visible to the pedestrian.

This is a great take of a lady being closely admired by three smartly-dressed gentlemen. You’ve managed to click the photo at exactly the right moment when she’s lined up with the men’s directional view. The giant gentlemen appear to be part of a billboard poster and its to your credit that you’ve cropped out any text or logo to make them stand out from any advertising. A slight rotation would have made your photo fit more squarely in the frame but that doesn’t take away from your composition being made believable by all four proponents wearing sunglasses on a sunny day.

Because of the distance, I can’t imagine that the two round windows and the drain cover were intended to be seen together. Which makes it more remarkable that you’ve captured them at an angle to make a face out of the three disconnected street elements. You’ve successfully photographed the windows and drain cover as eyes and lips with the background bricks and cobblestones textured as the facial skin. The pièce de résistance is that you’ve waited for a pedestrian to appear in the exact spot to create a shape of the missing nose. Your visual skills have earned you a well-deserved first place to top the extremely high-standard of entries in this challenge.

There’s something very ‘other worldy’ about flipped reflections in a puddle. It’s as if your photo was taken with an unconventional lens to distort the images’ realism. The textures of the pavement behind the silhouetted pedestrians looks as if the Milky Way is surrounded by distant stars and planets adding to the surrealism of your composition. Unidentifiable street objects add to the overall sense of mystery of your ethereal black and white photograph.

Your presence of mind in accessing a position high above the multi-directional Tokyo zebra crossings has resulted in one of the most unexpected and original photos in this challenge. In converting the rainy day background to monochrome you’ve created an opportunity to selectively speckle the street with colourful umbrellas. Looking like multicoloured pinheads stuck into a congestion alleviator’s photo graph your crowded composition includes more pedestrians than any other competitor’s entry. That’s just one of many reasons why your exceptionally creative photo has made my top ten.

I never fail to look up whenever there’s a glass walkway overhead but have never been able to capture a photograph as good as yours. Your square crop of the rectangular glass panels makes a great linear contrast against the shapes of the pedestrian’s soles. The diagonal line of feet are neatly and evenly distributed to show one-directional movement through the photograph. The extended grey figures in the frosted glass is subtle confirmation that these are walking pedestrians and I like that they don’t deter but add to your very graphic composition.