This gentleman drives a horse drawn carriage for hire in the Ft. Worth Stockyards, our local tourist trap. (A place where I can always find an interesting shot with local flavor.)
When I explained what I was doing, he was quite chatty and explained to me that he was originally from Ireland, coming to the US when he was 16. Not a trace of the Irish accent left in him, I would have guessed he was born and bred in Cowtown.
The folks that work in the stockyards as performers or offering services like this for tourists are usually very friendly and happy to tell you about everything. I also approached a few other folks, including some workers who had been doing repairs to the stockyards hotel. One guy wanted money for me to photograph him. I declined. His coworker (boss?) was across the street and just getting down from a cherry-picker. He was quite friendly and told me all about the restoration work they were doing. I also approached a guy in an apron that was sitting on a table in front of a burger place. I thought he was an employee on break, but it seems he runs a shoeshine stand across the street. He did ask for a tip for letting me take his photo, which I felt was reasonable in this case, as he makes his living from working for tips. The photo probably has more of a story to it than my actual entry, but I didn't totally get the impact to the image that I wanted. There's also a slight blur to his lower face.
I had two images of this carriage driver that I really like, but I finally decided the closeup color one was what I wanted to use. I've been admiring the portraiture of BNilesh, and have been trying to achieve something similar, but with my own local flavor to it. I may have achieved it with this. Here's the other shot of this guy:
Anticipated critiques:
-Too close, would like some context in the image.
-Objects to sides (horses) are distracting.
Post challenge notes:
Wow, coming in third after two VERY talented members! Thanks for all the great comments and votes. Even had this not ribboned, I definitely achieved what I was shooting for with this one.
On a bittersweet note, this pushed my beloved shoehorn fly out of my top 5.
Statistics
Place: 3 out of 94 Avg (all users): 6.8385 Avg (commenters): 7.3333 Avg (participants): 6.4130 Avg (non-participants): 7.0087 Views since voting: 6299 Views during voting: 409 Votes: 161 Comments: 70 Favorites: 6 (view)
I'm going to try not to pick all high scoring shots to comment on because that is too easy, but I just had to say I really enjoyed this one when it came up. The guy is such a iconic image and I appreciate that among the top finishers this gives us feelings of contentment, hope, and happiness with life. I think it's his eyes which appear to be opened slightly wider than normal.
One of the best in show IMO. Glad it scored well.And thanks for the story too! I love to read the history of images. When this came up on my screen it made me jump a bit!
Did you tell him you won a prize with his picture? I'd imagine it'd make him chuckle to know he was a good model.
Congrats on the ribbon. You forgot to say you were inspired by my first challenge entry! :)
What a wonderful image, congratulations! I liked the story behind it as well, I've spent many happy hours in cowtown and would love to go back and see it again.
Congrats on the Yellow. Thanks for the back story to the pic. For this challenge, I liked the images/portraits with context. I thought your portrait [cowboy hat and horses (I could tell the objects to the sides were horses)] had the context. Nice job.
The tight framing really works. I get the feeling of being eye to eye with him. Not crazy about the processing, but your subject is so irresistable, that I feel I can overlook it.
This is such a great expression, but including the horses next to him would have added some context, which would help tell a story about such an interesting character.
The Old Timer
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