The Lady Takes a Sailor

The Lady Takes a Sailor, from 1949, with JANE WYMAN as Jennifer Smith, abit of a flop movie, but with great music.

I think its a beautiful shot. I'm jealous of the logistics that had to go along with it, for sure. The sailor model seems to be pointing down - in command? So considering how interacial relations were seen at the time of the theme, the point is feminine independence (vs. society). Thats what I get out of it anyhow.

 

Which is a hell of a lot more than you get out of another macro shot, so its a great choice.

I echo Troy comment. It is an immaginative , open to many interpretation, tells a story, unusual setup of ellements, a sense of humour as well( where is the driver ;-)) ). Technically well done. Congraulation Dmitry.

You don't have to be a great storyteller to have novell done from this photo. The Lady steals my attension magically with her attraction!

very interesting shot, the kind which make people want to talk about. in that sense it is successful.....but i can help thinking ...what would the sailor do to her? imagine six months on the sea ...on the land you see a hottie.

Very nice discussion evoloving....I would like to pick up the issue of interaction between the Girl and the sailor...well this is the crux of this photo ..the interaction that there is and there is not.. the Girl skirts parachuting upwards expose her sexy legs...this posture alone subtly proposes a flirting gesture ..this gesture is out of sight of the sailor slightly at the side , but his restrained expression reveals that this girl will be the temptation, yet nothing is given away ,he keeps his composure ...the car anchors the photo in the middle part ,but although it is an empty car with no Driver we somehow expect that it will move in the direction of the Girl...my opinion is that we cannot interpret this photo only as documentary shot as has been said but an artistic one...for it creates the space for our imagination to roam in,it describes without defining...and is this not what art is all about ? Congrats Dimitry.

This is a great photo. I can feel the moment. The decision to use a black sailor and a white woman in that timescape hints at flirtation, passion and possible tragedy. That's what makes a work of art.

I agree the stage managment and props make this photo all style and no content, I have no idea what its trying to say, apologies but it didnt speak to me at all.

I like the idea behind the photograph. I also like the sense of motion in the girl...and it looks to me as if the purse is swinging a bit away from her body, further enhancing the motion. I like the range of tones as well.

 

That said, the image just seems a bit too static to me to really get the idea across. The lack of a driver in the car and the fact that it's obviously not far from the fence in the background tells me that the car isn't really coming from anywhere...it's just sitting there. The whatever-it-is on the sailor's left shoulder is just superfluous, since the viewer can't really tell what it is.

 

There's nothing inherently wrong with a staged shot, but this one just needs something else (I don't know what) to make it really tell the story.

I guess I'm just not a fan of staged photography like this. If I were, perhaps I'd find it more interesting. I certainly can't see mentioning it in the same breath as Eisenstadt's sailor, that was not set up and created, it was a real moment frozen in time.

 

I think this photographer has done a great job with lighting, exposure, wonderful color and everything technical. The content just isn't real though, it's staged. We can't create moments, we have to find them.

Very nice picture. I just do not like darkening on the sides and bottom. Are you sure women wore in 50's so short skirts? Could you tell us how did you make that nice toning? Thanks

The low POV to get a shot up the lady's skirt puts the car in a dominant position in the

near centre of the image, this distracts.

The 3 separate subjects are spaced out and disconnected.

 

It is staged so what reaction do we have to a staged image apart from why bother.

 

The look and technical competence are good but in the end the image content and

composition are what make for a better image and here they are neither believable/

interesting or strong (imho).

I think that some questions would be answered by a higher resolution image. Perhaps the car is on the dock so it can be shipped. The shadow on the sailor's back seems to be cast by a block of wood that he is carrying.

 

As to the somewhat "disconnected" composition, it's as if threee different stories had randomly crossed paths. Novelists seem to be able to make this work, and perhaps some of us can make the photo work by creating connections as we view the photo.

 

From a pragmatic point of view, the particular glance of the sailor and the billowing of the skirt/sail makes this an interesting photo, and hard to obtain. If the car in the scene confuses it, that may be unfortunate, but without staging such a shot, you take what opportunity arises. This photo has a documentary feel, to me, not a feeling of a staged shot. This said without reading the prior text, just my reaction to the photo itself.

"I certainly can't see mentioning it in the same breath as Eisenstadt's sailor, that was not set up and created, it was a real moment frozen in time."

 

Better check the story behind the Eisenstadt photo. The same pose was reportedly photographed several times until Eisenstadt was satisfied with the way all the elements came together to create the exact composition he wanted. The image was by no means spontaneous.

 

Michael J Hoffman

Yes, the story is that the Eisenstadt was shot multiple times.....but with different women as the sailor walked down the road kissing every woman he could get his hands on. Apples and oranges - the only thing similar here is the sailor outfit and the period automobile.

 

Street photography is a completely different animal than sets, taking very different skills and considerations. Getting wrapped up in comparing the two really isn't much different than macro shots and nudes, seeing as how the insects don't wear clothes =)

Moderator note: Please lets move on from the discussion of the Eisenstadt photo. Let's talk about the current POW. For some of you that have not read the guidelines for posting comments on the Photograph of the Week.....Please go to the Photograph of the Week Forum and click on the "About" link.

Hey folks the picture is all about what is sexy to a guy. In other words if the girl had on a swimsuit it would be just another picture, but with dress up high everyone guy is wondering.........what if. It's just a cool shot and totally staged.

 

Hugh

Yes, the style looks interesting and very nice to me too, but found it too busy after minutes of looking at it.

 

Crop the junk, standing sailor, and pole at the left and we may get a better photograph; yes let only the car and the smiling lady in the frame.

 

My two dimes. Hope you'll agree.

Mucho better after your crop, Julio. It helps it in more ways than one. Now it's a picture I enjoy looking at.

Crop out the sailor and there is no story, just a photo of a girl and a car, well exposed with good tonal qualities.

The girl has said goodbye to her boyfriend on the ship. As she walks to her car she looks back and gives a flirtatious swirl of her dress. The sailor in the photo is just a line handler waiting to cast off. But without that sailor, there is no site placement, no story. Some photos are taken for pure aesthetics, this one was done to create a story, one that the viewer provides. Crop nothing.

Many photographers goof up their photo title with a secondary thinking of metaphor. They will say something like "Monster Fingers in the Sky" rather than "Sunset after the Storm".

 

In this photo the lady does not look like a lady but is certainly not a Street Walker. And she doesn't take the sailor but teases or flashes the sailor. So a better title would be "Party Girl Teases a Sailor" or "Party Girl Flashes a Sailor"...

the picture is really nice, composition and styling, but it's a setup. As a setup, this is, for me, nothing special. For me, the woman's pose is a bit too sophisticated and not justified.

 

On the other hand, as a "glamour" picture it's still very nice.

While I agree that it is much more interesting to talk about what we're looking at than the techniques used to produce it, the overriding question of this image for us ends up being how you were directly involved in setting up this shot. You are responsible as the director / photographer for every detail in the frame, and if you assembled a sailor, a lady, and a car, arranged them at the scene, and took the picture, that was only the first step, assuming you had something specific you wanted to say . . . or did you really intend to let them decide how they would interact, hoping we would attach some significance to their improvisation. Her expression and her skirt appear to have been directed by you, but the sailor's finger and the position of the bag on his left shoulder don't appear to have been intentional. The location of the car appears to be intentional, but the fact that it isn't clearly parked, yet has no driver, is confusing.

 

Bottom line . . . . since we know it's a posed shot, we shouldn't be asked to attach significance to elements in the picture space that are accidental.

Well to give my own opinion it's a photo about subject of photography.

 

It's to start an avalanche of different opinions on how unclosely related "subjects" are close to one another in just one frame. The technique as mentioned above is not as much important although it is the best as it has a perfect execution technically. The photo here is executed nicely indeed. So the subject here is only the storyline it has to give and how future photographers could benefit from giving good storylines in a seemingly good executed photos with two or three elements of that time frame for example.

 

So if the caption is right then the lady will take the sailor over the car and the wind that would otherwise make her hair bad is turning her head on the other side of the direction of the wind having the opportunity to be internally happy...The car remains there as the sign of the time frame the story goes.

 

We MUST start thinking what we are seeing in this photo as progressive photography is a step up from no-brainers photography. (That is what I believe some other believe, not me with this photo).

 

So as a posed-staged photo we shoulnt in the first place think of what's going on there. We should just say AAAAAH nice!!! and maybe have a little talk about an expression of a person or how a bird is chirping happily. But that I believe is what the elves thought we shouldnt do. And I believe that the many elves had the same discussion also, they just transfered it here to see it in reality.

 

So as a conclusion its a test of how the subject of photography can be widely understood even in the worst case scenarios (Abstract subjects in a non abstract time and place).

 

thank you :-)

Sonny was shot on the causeway. He's dead.

 

That's why there is no driver.

 

--Lannie