Very nice.. i am not the biggest fan of cold colors, but i must admit this one's special. It makes me wonder.. were the people aware that you were taking their picture? And you don't seem to have used flash, yet it came out pretty well. Good stuff.

I am sooo envious!!!

I got to use a friend’s D100 with his 10.5mm Fisheye. Man that lens is addicting. I am really tempted to get the lens you have (your shots have greatly fueled my passion for this type of photography) RE: this specific photo, I really love the expressions on the faces here

I think the use of the fisheye is definitely justified to 'tell the story' here. I love the apparent division between the dark side and light side, with the passengers apparently dressed for their opposing roles and wonderfully oblivious to the characters they can't see. The image is really well balanced, two pairs of people with a certain amount of interaction, and that wonderful contrasting pair in the centre studiously ignoring each other. The viewer can have great fun creating their own stories for this. I also think it would look very much at home as a promo shot for a band. Great stuff.

mattp

850 is fine if you remove a bit of padding at the top of the image so we won't have scroll to see the bottom of landscape images on 1024x768 resolution.

agreed, the balance of this photo is superb to the point that it almost seems planned. This is definitely worthy of the fisheye as no other lens could achieve such a unique perspective in such an ordinary place.

As for the move to 850pix wide, i for one would be against it. I view Chromasia on a 12" PowerBook (1024 x 768 resolution), so at the current 800pix wide, i have just enough room for the border around the photo. At 850pix wide your images would bump up against the edges of my browser.

Check out the following link: http://www.millennialliving.com/Webusability/browserusability.htm

About halfway down the page you'll see satistics (under DISPLAY SIZE) that show that over half of web surfers actually still use resolution of 800x600. As for the acerage screen resolution of Chromasia viewers, that you may know better than I. :)

Fantastic work, ditto the comment about the light/dark contrast, it works really well. And it's not just light/dark, the image is split male/female as well. (Having said that it's a little hard to tell with the figure on the far left.)

I wouldn't up the image size if I were you, they only just fit in my browser window at 1024x768 as it is, and they're plenty big enough. Maybe post the occassional biggie if it's got loads of detail in. You must have bandwidth coming out of your ears to want to make your shots any larger :P

For me, it looks a little bit like the front cover of an english band's cd. The couple in the middle was the one that caprtured my attention. They seem to be thinking in their own story. I also like the palid colors in this one, according with the composition.

That's an interesting photo. Really captures that strange process of travelling on public transport and how we focus with seeming extreme interest on some detail on the wall/floor/etc, rather than look around us.

The tall man with long hair really reminds me of a character out of an episode of Star Trek Voyager - he looks very stern.

And finally - the view out of the window is interesting - the photo seems to be taken on a train, yet the view out of the window looks like you're floating above the clouds...

Great fisheye work. I had no idea you could get a cheap fisheye that will work on my digital Rebel (and hopefully a 20D soon). I too have been inspired by your fisheye work. I also like your lack of saturation in this photo; very nicely done.

I also view your site most times with a 12" powerbook. Your pictures are just right, and upping the size would be too much, I think. The photos on my photoblog are 600px wide, but in the upcomming redesign I plan to raise it to 700-800px, but 850px is too big for 1024x768 screens, which make up a good share of comptuer users.

1280 x 1024 pixels. Go wide for me Dave!

Nice pic by the way. Just got a 10.5mm fish for the Nikon so need to get out and start shooting with it. Hope to get some memorable images. Really like the stairwell, something I would have avoided with a fish previously - all those straight lines!

Cheers for now

Dave, I find shooting with my fish eye makes things a bit too easy :) I've resigned myself to taking it out only on special occassions.

i have a big (22) screen but i like some space around a photograph 800 is just fine

My screen resolution is 1200x1600 (or 1600x1200 if I rotate my monitor back to a landscape view). I'd love to view your photos in high res; they're quite inspiring. Would it be much extra work to have a low res and high res version of your pics?

With the gallery app I use (gallery.sf.net), I upload a high res image and it automatically makes lower res versions of the image (all sizes are configurable).

it should not make any difference for 800x600 users: 800px wide images are already too big for their resolution anyway. anything wider than 770 would make them needing to scroll horizontally.

The title says it all!

I like it with less width -- even though I'm set for a resolution that "should" afford 850, I have a panel of bookmarks & folders open on the left. I don't want to have to close that panel and re-open it when I leave chromasia.

I'm on the same boat with the other 12" PowerBook users. With the new 850px width the height of the image is just a bit too large and it requires me to scroll down to see the bottom of the image. With the original 800px the entire image was centred perfectly on the screen.

This photo is just too kick-ass for me to even comprehend. Dark vs. Light, Yin vs. Yang...this photo is just perfect the way it is. Is that lady in black on the far left having a heart attack?

Cheers.

WOW!I will second Thinh... kick-ass and then some. I find myself intrigued by all the elements of this image.

you either have remarkable luck and an amazing eye.. or you're asking people to move about for you, then pretend you're not there. how is it you got everyone in black to stand in the dark, and everyone in white to stand under the light?

I just upped the size of my images to just above 800 so this topic is very timely for me. I am going to take what everyone here is saying and adjust accordingly.

I love whatever is going on with the couple on the left. Interesting image of human behavior

Fantastic use of the fisheye -- and screw novelty, these are very good photos in their own right.

Regarding the width I'd certainly prefer 850px, but haven't seen it on a 1024x768 yet though. Probably better to stick with 800, or provide a larger alternative

What a fantastic photo! I think the fisheye was the perfect choice to capture the feeling of standing and waiting for your stop on the train. When I first saw the photo, I felt like hey, that was this morning getting off the train. Another great photo!

from the link neil posted
http://www.millennialliving.com/Webusability/browserusability.htm
Internet Explorer 71% (40 million)
Netscape Navigator 27% (15 million)
Web TV<1% (1 million)
Opera <1% (600,000)
America Online <1% (600,0000

this is to somewhat discredit numbers on this site:
AOL NEVER HAD/MADE A BROWSER.
from the first version of AOL to the last they have alwayed used IE as the browsing client.

anyways..
check out this website
http://www.tsonev.com/main/index.php

as i was in the middle of writing this post. I went out looking for a free open source php script that shows screen res + other things - to help you get a more infomation on who views your site and their color depth etc.
I'm going to test this out on my site now that I think about it. for the same reason you should.

I just ran some analysis of about 5000 user sessions from my photoblog, and the figures were roughly:

800x600: 12%
1024x768: 53%
1280xYYY: 22%

Above 1024, the widths start to split up a lot as various wide-screen formats kick in, stretching all the way up to a couple of 2560x1600 !

BTW, I meant to say: check out the bottom of the source of my page, for the simple way that I measure the screen resolution.

Also, I agree with everyone above, that this is a great storytelling use of the fisheye.

I really like how you can catch people unexpected. *nods* Pretty intresting shot with the fisheye. I do not mind the bigger picture.

Great stuff! As an Englishman I can completely relate to this image (not very English thing to say - that's what 2 years in the US does for you). I can feel the claustrophobia of that nook at the end of a train carriage, the 1000 yard stares and the defensive body language. Great use of a fisheye! As for the 850px question, I think generally the bigger the better (I am currently struggling with MT for my own site), but as someone else said, as long as you don't have to scroll down to see the image. I think the best thing about the design of your site is that at my screen resolution (1024) all is visible with no scrolling needed. That's also why I dislike portrait orientated images.

Regarding this page:

http://www.millennialliving.com/Webusability/browserusability.htm

I can't find a date on it, but it's outdated. It lists IE with only 70% market-share (it's now ~90%) and lists 800x600 as >50%, when it's now more like 25%-35% according to the (up-to-date) pages linked from the article itself.

The average resolution obviously depends on the composition of a site's audience. I have an admittedly geeky audience (= bigger monitors) but 800x600 is only 5% of my visitors. I'd guess that a heavily photo-centric audience would tend to use higher resolutions too.

But in any case, if there's even 1/4 who are still at 800x600, then that's probably important enough to consider.

My vote would be to keep them at 800px, but provide a small text-link to a high-res (hopefully full-res) original. That way you probably wouldn't see too much of an increase in bandwidth -- probably less than switching the default-view to 850px -- since most people aren't going to be clicking the high-res link most of the time.

Grate use of the fisheye.

And keep the images LARGE!
(can you go a little bigger ... I am running 1600x1200) :)

Kind of an ugly thought.... but as you post higher-res images, the chances of someone pilfering a shot for their personal gain might also go up (as it becomes easier to make unauthorized prints off it, etc).


But apart from that, the larger format does look fantastic on my screen! The stats on my own humble photoblog show about 5% of my visitors using 800x600. A little over half are using 1024x768, and then of course, it goes up from there.

For me, those people seem to wait some kind of confession, every person is closed in own world of thoughts, especially the woman in center. Or they are waiting for the toilet... lol

850 works for me, but 800 really is more then fine.

Love the pic. I would prefer "real" colors in the shot, but as people have stated above, the "coolness" of the colors works in the shot..especially against the off white walls.

Dave, btw, I just order myself the Peleng fisheye for my nikon d70. Its on backorder, so im gonna have to wait about a month..ugh..

George, i think its funny that you said taking pictures with the fisheye is too easy...what the heck!? Since when was taking pictures supposed to be hard? If the fisheye makes your shot easy and shows what you want it to show, then damn if that isnt PERFECT!

Dave, i love the fisheye shots....keep 'em coming!! Maybe i'll have some for you...soon!

What I like about this shot is that as mentioned before the people in black are contrasted with the people on the right and this is obviously a stroke of luck. The other thing about this is that the light from the window on the left pulls this image together. If you put your hand over the window you will see that without it the shot would not be effective.

I find this image depressing. It reminds me of a sign on a fence overlooking the M40, it simply says "Why do I do this everyday." This question is painted all over their faces.

Two things.

First: I'll stick with 800px images, at least for the time being as it seems that there are a reasonable number of people for whom 850px causes problems.

Second: this shot wasn't staged, but they didn't know I was taking the shot.

This is a great photo. The two central characters make the shot, but the peripheral characters are all interesting in their own way. The lighting is great, and the rather cold tone fits in perfectly with the body language of the main characters. One of your best.

Love this, made me feel like I was there in the carriage with them. It feels like the travellers are trying to wish their destinations nearer and the other passengers further away. The light and dark coats/parts of the carriage is uncanny. Brilliant.

Photo is fine. But you over use of Photoshop in your images is somewhat annoying. The colours seem to be overbearing and false. Keep it real! Happy shooting.

Dave -- I never grow tired of well-composed/exposed - interesting shots ... this is one of them .... really really nice grab... People - waiting - for life to happen... People with their belongings -- waiting.... I like this one a lot --- more please :-)

As everyone has said the use of the fisheye lens is perfect for this. Definitely can't get tired of it when it is like this.

What do you use to track stats on your site? I use StatCounter and it shows screen resolutions for all visitors.

I have a question:
How is it that you can take such wonderful candid shots with your 20D? I walk around with my DRebel, and no matter what, people notice me - especially if I'm taking a picture. It's almost as if the camera is larger than I am. For me to get a beautiful candid like this would be impossible. How do you remain so secretive when you shoot?

Thanks for the great site. :)

nice picture!

Tell me this (regarding this photo and any others containing people/strangers):

Don't you need to get a model release from each of these folks?

(I mean, especially if you're going to publish it on the world wide web?)

This is the very reason I usually shy away from shooting interesting shots of "people on the street". Surely I'll end up with a shot I REALLY like - want to put it up in a gallery to sell - but can't because I don't have that person's permission. (and they're long gone by this time)

Your thoughts and guidance on this are appreciated.

Dana Ross Martin

I'd rather not have the pictures larger than they are... they would no longer fit completely in the window sized the way I like it to, and I'd have to scroll back and fother to see the whole thing. That'd ruin the experience.

For Dana: taking shots in public places is no problem and you can publish them. This is how news photographers earn their living. But you have to be sensitive about it and really it only suits people who are willing to talk to people and be honest about what they are doing. It takes a lot of nerve to openly shoot in the street and it is not for everyone.

This shot though is perhaps not against the law but almost certainly against the rail operators policy. This is public transport operated by a private transport business and I can almost guarantee that they will have a no photography policy.

I get stopped on average three times a week now. Today I was in an indoor shopping centre, again open to the public but owned by a business. Basically when you are on private property you can become a tresspaser the instant someone in authority tells you to leave and whats more they do not have to have much reason. So I was walking around today with my DSLR and two security guys swooped on me from both directions. they had obviously been keeping me under view from a CCTV control centre. I was made to feel stupid and in fact hadn't taken a shot. This is becoming more and more frequent hence the reason why my own blog is becoming increasinglyfull of landscapes etc.

I know this has been covered before on Daves blog and the intenet is full of advice if you search. I can only say that it is getting more and more difficult to operate as a photographer and every shot you take in the street has to be evaluated . I even get stopped taking photos of boring old buildings and told to stop by the owners.

In the UK CCTV has got virtually every street in towns and city covered in some shape or form. You are being watched I'm afraid.

One great photo -- it's like a painting, each person or couple involved in their own mini-drama.

>>I’ve replaced the entry with the square cropped original and put the photoshopped reflection version on another page.

Can I see?

I love this. And it's down to an amazing eye and not luck, Alex - well 70/30! . As I travel by public transport daily this photo has a real resonance for me. I don't look like the main female character in the shot but I'm sure I've had that look on my face either wondering what to make for my dinner that evening or working through some horrible event that happened at work that day. There's something about the shot that makes me feel uncomfortable and I think it's simply because once again you have captured normal everyday life beautifully.

So this is in fact a railcar? I thought it was a plane at first! :)

Thanks everyone.

Big Dee: annoying? In what way?

laanba: I have Analog, Awstats and Webalizer, but none of them have monitor resolution stats.

martin: the camera was hanging around my neck. It's just a question of having a reasonable idea as to a particular lenses angle of view and tripping the shutter at a good moment.

Dana: no, a model release isn't needed for this sort of shot.

Vaughn: yes, it's a train.

It's allright

Whilst I love your photography I have a massive hate of fisheye. I just don't get it. Please, don't do it again.

Analog, Awstats, and Webalizer are all programs that analyze your existing server-logs, and your server software (Apache) doesn't log screen-resolutions. The only way that I know of to determine visitor's resolutions is to use a simple bit of Javascript, as Marty pointed out via the code at the bottom of his page. You use JS to determine the screen-size and then make a new request to the server which includes those numbers in the query-string. Then you set up a simple script on your server to receive that new request and log the numbers.

Wow!

It would be really cool to make this a downloadable wallpaper. I know I would use it!!

Stunning. Everything is at its right place in this shot.
YOU do know how to use such a difficult lens.
btw on my photoblog 800x600 users are ~5%

Dave, I think you might be missing the point about the 800x600 users. If your photos are 800px wide, then you're already exceeding the safe page size for those users. An 800x600 image viewed in a browser on a 800x600 monitor is going to have scrollbars and menubars around it, so there's no way it will all fit on the screen, even with the browser maximized.

Since majority of users are using 1024x768 displays, I would try to size my images to reasonably fit within that size. Those poor 800x600 users have got to be used to having to scroll around to view a lot web pages anyways. Forget about them. Some of the latest versions of IE and Firefox automatically shrink large images by default, BTW.

Here's a link to a nice page with a good illustration of maximum "safe" page sizes:
http://www.wpdfd.com/browsergrid.htm

It would be best not to exceed 955x600 for your images + padding around the images in your page layout. You have some fixed width padding around your images, that's probably why the 850px image caused problems for even some 1024x768 users.

I usually view your blog on a 1680x1050 display, but sometimes I use my laptop which has 1024x768 res.

Don't listen to Matt! I love the fisheye! Did you have to buy a lens adapter to use this lens with a Canon and would you recommend it for a Nikon user?

The left side could be easily mistaken for a CD cover for some band, the right throws that idea off. It would have been interesting to have this shot, but two others. One being the left side of the three people -'the dark side' and then a shot of just the people on the right. ...Different impact definately, if there were different versions.

Anyhows, just a thought. Not even sure if what I said is possible to do from where you took the shot.
Nice shot.