Party-Goers In Black And White

Background Story

I love living near Greenville, South Carolina. It is very walkable, and it has several districts that are great for the types of images I like to create. Greenville's downtown area has the right mix of shops, restaurants, and parks to generate some hustle and bustle while maintaining that small-town USA feeling.

And there is always something going on.

I love to stroll Greenville's streets, looking for situations that could make interesting subjects for my Street Candids series. On this particular day, I noticed a group of party-goers standing in a street near the famous Westin Hotel on Main.

How It Was Made

I worked with the Canonet QL17 rangefinder camera, loaded with Ilford Delta 100, a fine-grained film excellently suited for that day's sunny conditions.

After taking some pictures of the old Greenville News building on Main, I roamed some time in the area around The Westin Poinsett, the old Chamber of Commerce building, and the clock and fountains at the crossing of Main and Court Street.

When I saw this group standing in the street between the Westin and the old courthouse building, I was immediately intrigued. I walked towards them and composed the image to include parts of the road and create leading lines.

In post-processing, I cropped the original image to the 1:1 aspect ratio to ensure the group of men was in the center of the image and to emphasize the leading lines in the composition.

Why It Works

I like this image for several reasons.

First of all, the subject matter. A group of men in black suits, standing in an alley-like street. What are they talking about? What are they: party-goers, members of a band, or maybe...?

Zooming in, a man is visible standing in front of and facing the group. Is he a photographer taking a group picture? Or is he confronting the group; are they confronting him?

Then the image's mood: to me, it looks intriguing and maybe even a bit intimidating. The contrast between the black and white areas in the image increases the dramatic feeling: the suits, the walls, the shadow in the street.

Lastly, the crop I used: changing the image to a square format enhanced the leading lines and increased the group's focus in the middle.

One Additional Thought

While this is one of my Street Candids I like best, looking at the image triggered some thoughts regarding the decisions I made regarding capturing and presenting the image.

One of the strengths of photography is also one of its most significant challenges: by choosing a specific composition, the photographer decides what their audiences will see and influence their audiences' conclusions and emotional response to the image.

Using a specific film or film-simulation while capturing a scene or making certain adjustments to the image during processing, the photographer can add a certain mood to the picture.

The photographer can even more impact how people will look at the image and experience it by adding a caption.

Concerning this image, the men might have been wedding guests or maybe even the groom and his best men. Or perhaps it was a bunch of guys attending some other formal event.

However, by capturing them this way, using a specific film, and adding a caption, I turned them into something very different.

How easy, or difficult, is it for you to view this image as I present it now to see them as something else than a group of 1930's gang members? To what extend is your initial reaction to and assessment of this picture influenced by the choices I made?

These observations and questions take us back to how "straight" straight photography is, or to what extent it can be; which is something for a separate article.