Thanks everyone for your comments. Regarding the PP...I thought it was a good choice. Not everyone will agree but I think it works well for the subject.
Regarding Bill, I had reservations about taking his portrait. But, I needed to get out of my comfort zone and decided to ask Bill if it would be OK. Bill is someone I often pass while driving around town. Usually he has several people around him that he's conversing with. Sometimes he has a solar array on his cart so that he can use his iPod. Bill was delighted that I wanted to take his picture. He knows about photography. He asked me if I thought the background would be OK. He asked about the lighting and what would look the best. He really got into it. He asked if I wanted him to smile or what kind of look I wanted. I told him to just be himself. After talking with Bill for sometime I forgot about him being "down and out". He seems to enjoy the simplicity of his life and who am I to argue with that? When I left I paid him for his time and for his help. I left wondering if my life needs to be as complicated as it is.
Statistics
Place: 33 out of 94 Avg (all users): 6.0190 Avg (commenters): 5.2000 Avg (participants): 5.6744 Avg (non-participants): 6.1478 Views since voting: 878 Views during voting: 365 Votes: 158 Comments: 9 Favorites: 0
it's me but, i take some objection to photography of the homeless. by your title there is some hope here...the capture is outstanding...the story compelling.
Remarkable indeed. Bill clearly has a lot of stories to tell. There's so much to take in here and the image is bursting with texture and details. For that reason, the heavy handed processing was unnecessary. It's a busy enough image as it is, and I don't think the Topaz-like treatment was needed at all. (But I have a feeling I'm in the minority on that.)
This image looks tone mapped/topazed, which definitely helps balance the spots of bright sunlight with the shadows, but I think this brought out too much detail in his skin, making him look much older and dirtier. I'm not sure that is terribly nice to make someone look like that. The sign and any other elements in the image should be able to convey his situation without the added "dirt" of post-processing.
Death by overprocessing. The treatment completely killed this for me. It looks like a pretty good shot before you applied all the mumbo-jumbo. I'm not sure why people do this to the images....ahhh well.
Add photograph to your favorites
Add photographer to your favorites
Photographer found comment helpful.
