City - My final images

After much consideration I decided on focusing my city project more on the people who make up our community rather than the city itself. I wanted to capture the people who are hidden in our towns. I found that capturing the people of the city to be incredibly difficult as people act differently when knowing a photo will be taken of them.
I ended up going to Rochester and finding several places that looked interesting and waited there until the right looking person walked by. The bad part about this way of taking photos is that the camera is already in focus so the subject would have to walk the right distance away to be in focus. I have found many of the images i did take to be unfocused on the subject but crystal clear on the background.
Another problem which was quite frustrating is when a few people realised the camera was in sight they moved faster which ended in blurred photos, wether or not they were in focus the shutter speed was still quite slow.
A good point about taking photos this way is that the people are unexpected, the unpredictability of who walks by is what drew me to taking photos this way. The images I have chosen are below, and i think that the way in which they are composed and represented supports my idea.

The Florist and her Dog

Couple in the Archway

The Dustbin man

I am pleased with my three City images, i did struggle with the use of capturing the subject clear and focused, however the many films i did use i think these three images present my concept well.

My first image The Florist and her dog is one of my favourite of the three, as the way in which i was able to capture the interest of the older woman and the way in which the florist is laughing makes the image seem relaxed. The reason why was the people in the photograph didn't realise i was taking the image, (apart from the florist as i asked her permission first) a few seconds after i took the photo the old woman realised i was taking a photo and couldn't of apologised more, she ran off in a hurry which is why the older woman is slightly blurry. 

My second image of the couple walking under the archway was one that seemed to be harder than i orriginally realised. After i set up my camera i ended up having to wait an hour for the perfect person to walk by. Also because the archway is out of the way its not popular for people to walk down it which is why it took so long. What was also a challenge was printing this image, it was difficult to print with the contrasting shades. By this point the light of the day seemed to be going and the cloudy sky didnt help. I've managed to print it using dodging and buring throughout the process in the darkroom. I am pleased with the image, the couple are in focus and the way the archway shadows the couple also made it harder to print.

My third image of the dustbin man i feel really relates to my concept. He is slightly out of focus due to him moving too fast and my shutter speed being too slow when i took the photo. When printing this image i found it surprisingly easy, the light and contrast has seemed to work quite well with the image. 

I think my concept shows through in these images, I have represented the city with its people rather then just buildings alone. Without the people making up the city the city itself would not exist. To begin with i liked the idea of the isolation of people and buildings, but i feel like the approach i have made is much stronger than my initial idea. 

Below is an image of a photograph of a market stall, however I'm not going to use it for one of my final images. I'm not too keen on  the image, its very dark and was difficult too print. The man in the image is slightly blurry and it makes the image seem a bit messy, especially with the amount of variety of fruit and veg on his stall.

Market Stall - one i wont use