During a trip to Myanmar, Mandalay I walked around a local market. Many sellers were selling a wide variety of foods and other items. I took this photo of a mother and I assume daughter selling sweet potatoes. I entered this photo into a club “Street Photography” competition. The photo was criticised by the judge as I had not engaged the little girl. He said this can be done by just waiting and waiting for her to change. I was surprised to hear this as the judge also said like Human Interest a photog cannot influence the subjects in the intended photo. Do you just wear subjects down by just hanging around like a persistent beggar? As a group we have touched upon subject engagement before I have submitted this photo to raise some dicussion.
The photo was only taken in B&W as I was trying to vary the medium. Excuse the overexposed potatoes at the bottom, did not realise this at the time, it was a hasty snap.
Canon Powershot SX150, F4.5, shot at 19.7 mm, 2000/1, ISO 80. Processing Lightroom and Photoshop Auto.
4 comments posted
Leslie Larson
I really like the B&W treatment. You could crop out a lot of the over exposed potatoes. I like the woman's expression and don't think it's a problem that the child isn't looking at you. In fact, it might detract (IMO). I do sort of wonder what is on the woman's face, it looks odd.
You might shoot in color and then change to B&W to have more control. Posted: 09/01/2025 15:56:29
Ron Davis
Thanks Leslie. When travelling I often tried to break to colour sequence of photos for slide viewing to overcome repetition of colour. The original photo was taken as a duochrome black, white and red. A simple task with Canon Powershot cameras they have this feature. I was trying to highlight the red sweet potatoes originally. Posted: 09/01/2025 17:00:05
Richard Goldenberg
Hi Ron - Very interesting image! While I'm no judge of street photography, the gaze of the child doesn't bother me at all and neither do the "overexposed" (to use your word) potatoes. We rarely know how a photo would have turned out if we had a do-over and somehow used different settings. I like this one very much as it is. It looks like something I might have seen paging through old coffee-table books. Also, if you had told us that this photo was taken in the American southwest, I wouldn't have doubted it. Now you've got me wondering about Myanmar. In terms of human interest, the clothing, the ease of the posture of the seated woman, the obvious affection she has for her daughter, and the kid just being a kid like kids are all over the world all combine for a great story. Great use of black-and-white too. Finally, the material on the woman's face, whatever it is, just adds interest for me. Imagine a world in which you had said, "Please wash your face so I can take your photo." Whatever that might have produced would have been far less interesting. Posted: 09/02/2025 06:37:39
Tom Brott
Ron, I like this image and the lady's expression and an almost contrasting color of a substance on her face. The expression on the little girl's face doesn't bother me as she appears to me, not to be interested in anything happening with the sale of potatoes. I do find the potatoes from the center out to the left side a bit of a distraction be over exposed and I had to try really hard to figure out what the pile was. Maybe cropping some off the bottom might help. The choice of B&W is ok but I would have liked to see a color image of the flowery dresses and the woven baskets and foods. Having never been to places like this it is hard to visualize the actual colors in B&W. I do think a good story is being tols however. Posted: 09/10/2025 15:43:01
