Passersby

But on the other hand, I wrote that perhaps I would run out of photos YOU find interesting, not that I would (1) run out of photos that (2) I find interesting, or that I would stop taking photos.

I try to make sure I take at least one interesting photo a day, no matter what it is I'm doing or where I am.

There rarely is a missed day.

When I'm trying and have the time, I often can take numerous good photos.

sometimes so many, I want to do like Gary Winogrand before he went bonkers, and just ice them for a long time -- too tired of Photoshopping and hoping someone else would do that for me (he often didn't look at his photos for months or years. Although it often is said he died with a hundred thousand or more rolls undeveloped and almost as many contact sheets unreviewed, the sad truth, I have read, is that he kept going back and back and trying to relive his early greatness, which he couldn't find when he was living and teaching in Los Angeles (word to the wise, but frankly I find Los Angeles fascinating from a photographic standpoint -- it's amazingly diverse, unless one goes to the San Fernando Valley, which is more like the San Jose/Cupertino/Saratoga area where I spent my years as an attorney and which I found photographically barren for my style of shooting.

But for someone else, even a Winogrand at his apex, that might have been wonderland -- or the photoghraphic promised land -- a heartland full of drollness.

I find it so, in looking back.

Kind of like living in the urban 'Great Plains' -- never-ending banality, but I just never saw how to capture the photographic spark in that (I note that others do, however, but it never appeals to me.)

John (Crosley)

The key is gain distance from the photos. To leave them there for months or years. Like excellent wine: the really good ones will be "discovered" from a distance.

I understand that you have many, many more photos than the about 1000 you have posted here. Go ahead, you are an excellent photographer in any case, but don't think of quantity. There is a quotation of Ansel Adams and the number of takes he judged excellent.

Luca

PS It is not so important what I think or feel

First: Your opinion means an increasingly great deal to me, because you have EARNED it, in the old 'Smith Barney' way, just as they stole the phrase from the old law school professor from the movie, then the TV series 'Paper Chase'.

'We make money the old fashioned way - we EARN it' (with special emphasis on the word 'earn' and the word drawn out and spoken practically vibrato).

Well, with your criteria of having to 'earn' exhibition caliber before you really will take note, you have set an extraordinarily high standard, yet you have been right on, and that is not my judgment alone, but comparing your judgment to the world expert who is curating my work. The same works, as this, that you stop at and say 'this has it', he does the same, so consider yourself validated at least in my eyes, and so I do take special note when you express an opinion or feeling.

Just as I do that man (world class photo printer Michel Karman, A&I Photo, former printer to Kelmut Newton, printer to Sally Mann, and numerous others).

I just take the g**amn photos, and it's for others to judge them. After a while, I learn by osmosis what others may feel about them.

When I first started taking photos, I took photos that had no one to critique that I felt had special merit (like German wines 'mit pradikat'), but no one to tell me anything about them. They now are posted in this folder, generally as part of the early part of this folder,and I am very proud of them.

Increasingly I am finding them copied and stolen on the Internet, and even there, they are getting large numbers of hits. (and although I don't like my images being stolen, at least they are giving my name credit and spelling it properly, some are serving the photos through Photo.net servers to I get 'click' credit when they are 'served', and almost all have shown extraordinary skill in choosing the best of the best of my photos.

Which are all copyrighted by me and registered with the US Copyright Office and with all rights reserved.

I was out tonight and took a few photos in waning light, and even at night, but got one or two wonderful photos; I was simply amazed since I went a couple of days without a serious attempt. And it began only as a half-hearted attempt, yet one was 'world class' -- a viewer (black) suggested that one of them should be on the 'cover of Time Magazine' (he intuited the that the lump of a person, covered from heat toe with blankets sitting sleeping on a bus stop next to a movie poster depicting the statue of liberty, was a black person, all without any more evidence).

I will post that as a color photo, since its colors are wonderful and dramatic, although it also shows as a great black and white photo. It's very dramatic.

Now down to 'aging' a photo.

This was posted March 10, 2006, so it's been up three months and a few days shy of two years.

Yet this is about the 28th comment (including one of mine for every one made)- which is an outsize number of comments for any photo of mine, and it shows no signs of letting up.

It only had three raters, and they ran the range from low to high (settling on mid-range, but that is meaningless with three raters).

This photo is extraordinary, I think, in part because it can spark so many comments, and my mentor saw the photo and said 'that is a fantastic photo' so well does he know his 'art' photography.

I just go out and see things I try to capture; and many times it's mediocre, but the percentage of good stuff is going up.

(Part of this evening's venture involved also going to an Ethiopian restaurant, and one man asked about my cameras, I said 'Let me show you' and took a photo of him -- he as very photogenic -- and two other men around him, and I am sure I will post that too. It was a very good photo, and he is not a big supporter. It turned out he is an actor, and had many photos of himself, but I caught his essence . . . and he and his friends said so.

I made a friend of that man tonight.

He will tell people stories of how good a photographer I am, which is what I like the best, and he has my name to look up on Google.com, which I am sure he will, in part because he wants to see his photo in print (which may take months).

Sometimes I have just got 'it' and it comes to me at times when I least expect it. Increasingly, however, I am aware of having 'it' and if I miss a photo, I'll try again -- even if it means circling the block two to five times, or doubling back several times if walking.

Sometimes my work is just pedestrian and nothing more, and for extended periods, too -- my 'vision' is then somewhat less clear.

But somehow it always comes back to me.

And I feel I can almost always go out and take a very good to great photo just about any day -- not necessarily technically excellent, but a photo with impact and composition.

Best to you, Luca.

You have 'earned' my attention.

John (Crosley)