jimmyhickey wrote:
Do you see them tagging houses or cars?
I have in the past. It doesn't just happen in L.A. either. It happens in Riverside, Santa Ana, San Bernardino, Long Beach, I could go on and on.
yaphoto wrote:
love this set, for all you haters jump off your high horse for a moment an see this objectively:
Then offer them your house and car to tag...............
It doesn't make sense to categorize all graffiti as vandalism. Spraying a house or car is vandalism. Putting up wheat pastings on neglected rusty boxes on the street is quite different, especially when it has abstract meaning (as opposed to 'dude was here').
It's obvious Jimmy is portraying the graffiti artists as opposed to vandals. There is no defacing of storefronts or homes. Much of what is streetside are pastings which are no more permanent than the ads stapled all over telephone poles. And this isn't Beverly Hills or the Palisades, it truly adds character and a message to what is already urban decay in these areas.
jimmyhickey wrote:
Jeremy these were shot on a 1d Iv with the 24L, all @ ISO 12800. The low IQ if anything de-glamorizes what they are doing and captures the gritty, dark and grungy feel that surrounds them at night. I could have made these images pop and have a real commercial feel to them, creating "desirable" image quality. But that wouldn't capture reality.
I've been surprised that shooting similar streets in LA at night, I can get away with f/1.4 1/30-1/50 at ISO 800 on my 5D. ISO 1600 in dark areas. For what it's worth, I find desaturating a bit and cooling off the white balance a ton (RAW) lets the textures (grit?) show through better.
I did however like the pop in your other set, even though you took the other route here.
Jucier, I played around with the colors a bit and found the way I did them to be more true to reality in terms of what the colors are really like on the streets at night. However I will play around with it a bit next time and see how I like it.
Thanks for the comments everyone, happy to see this project is generating some attention
Awesome, awesome, awesome...I would be in absolute heaven doing a shoot like this. The public art/vandalism line is always a thin one, but when the art is non-destructive and visually stirring and not on "pristine" buildings, then I am all for it (in moderation). Shepard Fairey's stuff is simply amazing...love how it was able to be worked into the photos.
jimmyhickey wrote:
The low IQ if anything de-glamorizes what they are doing and captures the gritty, dark and grungy feel that surrounds them at night. I could have made these images pop and have a real commercial feel to them, creating "desirable" image quality. But that wouldn't capture reality.
No offense, but I think that's a cop out. They look cellphone-ish on purpose?
http://pdnedu.blogs.com/pdn_pulse/2010/05/la-photographer-faces-criminal-charges-appeals-for-help.html
Whoa that is scary...I will investigate more into the legal side of this before I continue on with this project. Thanks for sharing this link with me! jeremy_clay wrote:
No offense, but I think that's a cop out. They look cellphone-ish on purpose?
Well I took ambient lit photos at night time, using extremely high ISO and a fast lens over using a on or off camera flash...I wanted them to be ambient shots and those are the way my results look.
