“Nice idea, but too obvious!” Yes, and Pau Buscató was right again. Nobody likes to hear critical words about their pictures, but it is sometimes very helpful to hear friendly but honest words from an expert. The world of social media leads far too often to even the worst crap being described as “great”. After all, it is usually only people who don’t know any better who comment – the rest just scroll past it. Exceptions prove the rule and those present are of course excluded 🙂
Anyway, I booked a weekend workshop at Pau Buscató in Barcelona and combined several absolutely fantastic things: great warm weather, friendly people, delicious food, colors and blue skies, funny workshop participants, a trip with my friend Bjørn and getting to know Pau Buscató and his honest words.
Pau Buscató is a former architect who has lost his heart to street photography for several years. He manages to capture amusing moments on his sensor. Just look in his portfolio and see that street photography can put a smile on your face without making fun of others.
I am more of a people and action photographer, so I thought it could be very helpful to get to know a different way of looking at the world. In principle, that worked, but my first attempts at this field were nothing more than a good idea. It wasn't just me who felt the same, but the other workshop participants too. Some more, some less. A lot can happen in a weekend, but you only get a lot of luck to create a masterpiece. So we often and rightly heard, "I like the idea and appreciate that you saw that. But the execution needs some help and the subject is too obvious," from the friendly but rightly ruthless Pau Buscató. "Nice idea, not well executed and the subject is too obvious." Yes, it is not easy to find that special moment in street photography.
At some point I just let it go because this type of street photography quickly looks like shit - there is little room for gray values. Things got a little better with each passing day, but the reject rate is enormous. And I wanted to show a few pictures here in the blog 🙂
It was an educational and interesting weekend. Thanks especially to Bjørn, who had me by his side almost non-stop for 4 days. Not many can do that. By the way, his pictures from the weekend and workshop are here, for example Instagram or Facebook to see ...
I really like the photo with the chicken grill and the old man!
Regards
Kidney
“Soon you too will end up in hell” – or what does the motif say. 😀
Which of the motives?
Nice write-up (although I used my google translate friend) … and I like the title. You got some nice shots as well. Glad you enjoyed it.
Wow.. thanks for the link. What a portfolio this man has. oO
Did you set out with the M10? If so, hats off to the constant hotness. And another question: Do you crop a lot into your pictures? sometimes seems like that. But it could also be due to the quality of your uploaded images.
M10 yes and zone focus makes it much easier with sharpness. Most of the images shown are not cropped. I rarely do that.
I think it worked well – taking photos AND with us ;o) an absolutely educational, albeit tiring weekend.
The thing with us is probably better than the thing with taking photos...
They turned out to be great pictures!
yes, I had to try Muscle Beach too. Thank you for your kind feedback!
I agree with you, getting well-founded feedback is very difficult. Unfortunately, it's also the case that professionals don't often get lost in the details, if at all. I really like your photos, including the ones from Barcelona. But I'm an aviation nerd and would go to the photographers' shootout with a soft ice cream 😉
Great opening image. Excellent
This is street photography. For me personally, the weekend was exactly as expected, as Street is far from optimal in a group. Firstly, it takes many hours for very little (maybe partly nothing), a lot of patience and it takes time alone to be successful and focused.
My goals with this course were very simple. Firstly, I wanted to find out if I was already doing it right. Apparently I am doing it (technique, way, etc.). And secondly, to understand what you have to do to become known in this competitive category. I completely agree with his feedback in this sense, i.e. "too simple, too obvious, etc."
Thanks for the nice post. I liked it.
The highlight were the participants 🙂 Without their experience in the field it would probably have been chaotic.
Interesting topic in every respect! “Good photo”, “bad photo”? Does the viewer even have a clue? “Is this art? Or can it go away?”
Plenty of things to talk about for a next meeting Stefan Groenveld and Bjørn Kaas ✌️