The saxophone player braved a pretty fierce winter storm to play for people outside of the Union Station. There wasn't a lot of foot traffic, and nobody was paying him any direct attention.
In Aperture, I bumped up the exposure value until things looked right, then sent the image to Photoshop. In PS, I adjusted curves, sharpened, resized, and grew the canvas to add the border.
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Congrats on a terrific shot, Rob! The placement of the player in the frame is terrific, and the background really gives it the context you wanted. Well done!
First of all let me congratulate you on a nice shot for the challenge and a decent score/placement. That said let's look deeper into this shot...
I like the feeling that you have here. The coldness and loneliness of the one person playing his sax in the snow. There is a story there that the viewer has to determine for themselves. The pose of the subject is excellent. He is playing his heart out for himself if for no one else. It looks like he doesn't care that no one is watching him. He plays for an audience of one.
What could make this even better? There are a couple of distractions in the shot that draw away from the emotion a little. This is basically a natural b/w shot. The blue sign on the right of the frame, the green sign towards the left of the frame, the yellow hat on the bike rider and the red tail lights of the cars all are little points of interest that draw the eye but do not add to the feeling of the shot. I think that this shot begs for the selective desat technique. What I mean by this is taking away all the color that is there except for the sax player. Removing, or even subdueing the unneeded color spots that draw the eye would help to keep the eye on the subject of the shot. This, I believe would help to emphasize the emotion of and the story behind the shot.
I think this would be an excellent shot to keep playing with in processing. Try different techniques of removing/subuing the unnecesary colors and see what you come up with. I hope you take this advice and post any results that you get for us to see.
And a good choice for an entry it was, too. He does look like he's enjoying it, despite the snow. I gotta imagine that the snow kinda makes for a bit different sound, too. Nice capture.
This was one of my favorites of the challenge. I love how he looks like he's playing his heart out despite the snow, which is captured beautifully. Really wonderful job!
OK, brrrrr! I guess a guy's gotta do what a guy's gotta do but damn, that looks cold!
This shot would be so much more effective if you would have braved a closer shot and an interesting angle. With the snowfalling all around (a bonus, IMHO) a tighter view of the street musician would be oh so much more intriquing.
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