The Progression of Age--© John Crosley, 2007, All Rights Reserved

Please note the following:

 

This image has been selected for discussion. It is not necessarily the "best" picture

the Elves have seen this week, nor is it a contest.

 

Discussion of photo.net policy, including the choice

of Photograph of the Week should not take place here, but in the Site Feedback forum.

 

The About

Photograph of the Week

page tells you more about this feature of photo.net.

 

Before writing a contribution to this thread, please consider our reason for having

this forum: to help people learn about photography. Visitors have browsed the gallery,

found a few striking images and want to know things like why is it a good picture, why

does it work? Or, indeed, why doesn't it work, or how could it be improved? Try to answer

such questions with your contribution.

 

John, I am speachless. And with me that in itself is a statement, ask anyone who knows me. This photo has says so much, and offer the mind to wonder. His eyes, the poster behind him, yet it all comes together smoothly. Wonderful photo, an inspiration for me to not just say, "that would be a great pic", just click and get it. Thank you for sharing. :):)

First John, let me say congratulations on POW. If anybody deserves it, it is you.

This picture makes me think somebody placed a "kick me" sign on his back and the girls are snickering about it. It made me laugh also. keep up the good work.

Mark

John, this is a great shot, and I hope that viewers will look beyond the immediate folder in which it appears to your great tour de force, your presentation about looking out for backgrounds:

 

http://photo.net/photodb/presentation?presentation_id=270302

 

I see that the photo does appear in that presentation as the very last entry (as of this date), and just when I did not think that that presentation could get any better. The presentation is like a veritable tutorial for photographers, and all photographers at all levels could learn much there.

 

As for the instant photo, this one, like so many others, does indeed take its force from two things: first, the primary subject, and second, the background against which the primary subject is captured. Thank you for this one, and congratulations on finally having your brilliant body of work recognized on Photo.net.

 

--Lannie

What another great story telling photo, it is a great example of society at its worst, or best depending on your point of view.

The detail captured in the subjects face is fantastic for a shot taken on the run, the composition done on the run is also something to aspire to, If only I could previsualise this quick.

 

Just read your bio John, I hope you never take the opinions of others to heart again and let them take your dream away, don't ever put your camera down again!

Patience paid off. The right moment at the right time. Good capture John

This makes me smile, but not for long; it may be offending for the subject.

Adan W. hit the nail on the head... this is definitely what street photography is all about, where the picture speaks for itself and tells the story... and in B&W, the statement is all the much more clear. I wouldn't change a thing, composition-wise or any other aspect. Well done! For what it's worth, I'm attaching what I think is my best "story" shot, also a crop from a larger scene (but not as "telling" as your shot :) ). Cheers, Allan

Shannon Disney,

 

Like many of my photos, this photo 'tells a story'.

 

Such stories are not always stories I believe in or necessarily endorse -- they just fit the subject with the background.

 

My goal is to make each photo 'interesting'.

 

If you look in the mile-long comments under my portfolio, you will find a statement that what I hope, almost above all others, is to make each photo 'interesting' -- anything else almost is a sin.

 

That's partly why each of my photo is different (with one or two exceptions), and there are between 900 and 1,000 photos, and every time I pick up a camera I just see new things . . . and never know what it is I'm going to see -- I work on 'inspiration' plus what my perambulations 'reveal' to me together with my experience.

 

Maybe I just 'see' things differently than some.

 

But at the same time, it's an 'art' that bears considerable practice.

 

Thanks for your congratulations . . . . I understand this photo has some substantial impact, but I also think I have taken many just as good and a few that are better.

 

Again, thanks.

 

From a guy who has braved France's 'general strike' and LA's fires.

 

John (Crosley)

Mark McCune,

 

I like your idea of the 'kick me' sign, but doesn't it seem as in some societies nearly universal that young people 'snicker' at the older ones (not necessarily in Ukraine, however, where young women expect to be with an 'older man' (though not this old definitely).

 

I guess that's the success of this photo: its universality -- youth in its enthusiasm snickers at the old, perhaps someone who has 'failed' at all his aspirations in life, or perhaps someone of great wisdom -- the girls don't even know.

 

An old guy passes and sometimes they start giggling. It happens, and when young girls or women start giggling, they can convulse.

 

I've seen it happen as I struggle to get on a jitney bus in Ukraine with all my cameras, being an older guy myself, and young girls recently (last week) just started convulsing, holding their hands to their mouths and guffawing, but trying to 'look somewhere else' because my circumstance had touched their collective 'funny bone'.

 

But then I didn't mind at all.

 

That's just what life's about.

 

Little could they know the things that I know, and for that they will have to grow up more to appreciate (if they ever will), those things.

 

Maybe it's having the experience I have in life that boost my ability to take so many photos -- when I was young I didn't 'see' nearly as well as I do now, though I did 'see' well -- my earlier photos are in this folder too, and my very best photo ever is my first post on Photo.net

 

Best to you Mark and thanks for your endorsement.

 

John (Crosley)

David Browne,

 

You mention several subjects, and one is 'previsualizing'. I have one 'Pogue Mahoney', the PN nom de plume of now absent member Andy Eulass, formerly of Chicago, for adding that term to my vocabulary, for it's precisely what I did in this shot.

 

I knew of the poster and that it would make a great chance at a juxtaposition photo, and this guy walked by with this great big head of hair/bears, and voila, I knew he'd be walking in front of this poster.

 

So I raced ahead, and when I got on position, turned sideways, placed the subject (by my positioning including crouching as you can see here) into juxtaposition with the poster, and hit 'C' drive (continuous servo which is the term that replaces 'motor drive') and fired. This is the third shot, and also the shot I would have fired if I had a single shot camera.

 

By the way, in my racing ahead (fast walking, not running), I also was presetting my focus point, so he'd end up on focus. Little is more upsetting than getting a 'great' shot 'on the run' than finding that when it's extremely low light, as here, and one cannot therefore 'stop down' to obtain great depth of field -- that the subject is 'out of focus' because (1) there was no time or opportunity to 'manual focus' or otherwise preset a focus and (2) the 'focus point' on one's camera was set wrongly.

 

As to having felt 'chased out of photography' well before the age of 25, that was because I saw Henri Cartier-Bresson's touring works on display (and filling) San Francisco's De Young museum. I basically put down my aspirations of being a world class photographer and took up other crafts, and left things basically that way for over 30 years.

 

Some of my earlier works had a similar vein to much of what Cartier-Bresson did, (they're posted in the Black and White from Then to Now folder in which this photo is posted) but Cartier-Bresson's work was so much better, and he already had parts of four decades of brilliant shots from around the world -- an exhition so big the large museum walls were just bursting with hundreds of his photos -- that I understood for 'street photography' this man had 'occupied the field' and there really was little left for me to explore and do fantastically well, except for understanding that with my style of photography (at least then), I could probably just be seen as derivative of Cartier-Bresson's. I gave up then my chance at a career in photography that was mine for the taking (with Associated Press) and went on to become a writer for them, (taking an occasional photo, against Wire Service Guild rules, since as my union, it sought to keep a separation between writers and photographers).

 

Nowadays, even august newspapers and periodicals are sending their writers out with digital cameras, thinking now (for really the first time) that for some stories, the writer also can be a photographer.

 

That's an idea I've tried, and it usually results in poorer writing and poorer photography (not always, but usually) as the two crafts involve different mind sets (listening and thinking about a subject, especially during an interview, and 'visualizing' with the photography (often at the same time one should be listening and taking notes the most intently).

 

If someone writes they're a 'photojournalist', I always wonder how they manage to juggle the two different tasks, unless they're, say, a travel writer, where 'visualizing' is often the story.

 

Best to you in part for having done your reseach and thanks for your nice comment.

 

John (Crosley)

Ken Thalheimer,

 

Since I'd been off and on in this particular city (with that particular poster) for up to three years and never had my chance to employ it in this particular way, the word 'patience' may be an understatement.

 

But I just wasn't waiting there. I had other things to do with my life -- I just knew the poster was there, and if the proper subject would come along, I might incorporate it.

 

On the plane from France where I just was as we flew near the fires that spectacularly lit up the LA night sky, a fellow passenger remarked on my photos he was reviewing and said 'it looks like you choose a likely background and then try to incorporate it', and I could just tell him he had well understood one way I try to take photographs (they're not all juxtapositions).

 

Juxtapositions are just one 'device' in a photographer's 'grab bag' of ideas, but they're sure handy, and I think it's a craft or art one actually can teach and practice at. (See my presentation on the subject, mentioned and linked in Lannie Kelley's remark above, which I recomment to all.)

 

Thanks for the endorsement Ken.

 

John (Crosley)

Robert Pastierovic,

 

I'm glad it made you smile.

 

You raise the subject of 'offending the subject'.

 

I've got one sequence on film where a group of offended young men had one guy giving me 'the finger' at first for being intruded on, and the last in the sequence was giving me the now universal sign for approval -- the thumb and little finger sticking up on an otherwise clenched fist.

 

The fact is I do what i do knowing that for some it intrudes, and for others they see it as a validation of their own worth to be seriously photographed and smile greatly.

 

Please know that Micki F., in a comment that began before the PN Phot of the Week discussion, suggested that she saw a faint smile on this guy's face.

 

Was he really offended, and would he be offended if he saw he had become incorporated in a work that tells what may be a great truth about youth and age?

 

We may never know,

 

But many of my subjects get a chance to review my shots of them -- I'll even approach some on the street to show them, and often I get patted on the back, my hand shaken, and in one recent case a grandmotherly type gave me a congratulatory (and a little intimate) pat on my tushie to thank me for having chosen her from the world of subjects to portray her well.

 

You just never know how the 'subject' will take things, and your pursuit of 'art' has to be your guiding light. If you're too sensitive about the 'subject's feelings' then you're not cut out to take this type of photograph, another reason I abandoned 'street' at an earlier age (a more minor reason, but a serious consideration for me then, also.)

 

Somehow, as I've learned to take (and taken) hundreds of thousands of photographs, I'm learning that my photos have their own worth, and of course, I'm not stealing anyone's soul. Their evanescent images are out there for all to see, and if I capture just one for an instant, I've captured something for all time -- like sealing that moment and view in a time capsule.

 

It's kind of like this. One can appreciat the smell and look of a fresh berry -- say a raspberry or some such, but soon it turns to a vinegary, withered up thing that is entirely different. The person who makes 'jam' or 'jelly' captures part of that wonderful flavor and color in a special way, and the presence of that berry persists for a very long time.

 

Just think of me as a photo historian with a unique view of life -- one I hope is worthy of respect for my viewpoint. (Yes, some people are offended, some greatly, but others are highly flattered.) I just go about my craft, no longer worrying so much.

 

Your comment contained the seed of a great discussion about the philosophy of 'candid' or 'street' photography.

 

Thanks.

 

John (Crosley)

An influence of Cartier-Bresson. Whatta expression of an old man! I like it a lot! But what does he say? What is the real story behind?

Watch your back(ground)? I don't know. To me it tells about the third world countries. And as opposite to it, there is a world of commercials and advertising. No matter where you are, who you are, they are always behind you. It is very interesting idea, indeed.

This photo was taken on a cloudy day at the end of the day in very minimal light -- fall comes early in Dnipropetrovsk, Ukraine, and it's about as far north as Seattle, with European nature clouds coming early and also cold weather, unlike California where I just arrived and it was 100 degrees or just shy of that in fireland, also known as Southern California and 84 at the beach here today.

 

That's what all those years of shooting and all those 'holey' shoes (shoes with holes in them) come to.

 

Just a burst of energy at hte right time, racing ahead, aiming the lens and zooming somewhat, and then hitting the 'C' drive as the men is intending to cross the frame (no panning him, I had the background clearly set up as a background for when he came by, just a step behind me).

 

If he'd been any faster, this shot wouldn't exist.

 

Hare Hare,

 

John (Crosley)

When I saw this photo sometimes back back, I thought .. now this is my choice for POW for this week. And here it was! I hardly ever take such street photographs but this photo is what recording moments in time is all about. I like the contrast in the ages and the facial expressions. I love the melancholy humour in this photo because it is so rare. I envy the serendipity of the situation but admire the way you grasped it with the click of your shutter button. Finally I learn't a lot (perhaps more than ever before) about some aspects of photography which I had not thought about before. I think its very important that you share in great detail a lot of your own thoughts and the long responses you have carefully writen for each comment. Hence this is the first time I have ever commented on a POW.

Congratulations!

What a friend said.

 

A friend of mine looked at this photo, and I value his opinion, since he is a longtime professional photographer who runs a photo finishing store and also freelances/does commercial and portrait photography.

 

He said to me 'great portrait', beside what was in the background.

 

And I think he's right.

 

I have long chosen two main subjects for much of my work.

 

One is is 'street' photos and another is the 'heads' or 'heads and faces of people I encounter -- most often on 'the street'.

 

I have a folder which is just 'faces' which one can look at, to see the amazing variety of faces one can encounter.

 

Just alone, this guy's great face would have qualified ANY photo of his face for a position in that folder.

 

Placing him against this background of course elevated what might have been an able shot to something a little better -- a 'street' photo that only comes along every once in a while.

 

Thanks, commenters. I appreciate so many of you commenting so far.

 

(My friend, the commercial photographer, is not a PN member, but I value his opinion very highly and thought it worthy of being presented here.)

 

John (Crosley)

Budhaditya Deb,

 

You mention, among other things about the photo, the great effort I have taken to explain not only my many 'street' photographs, but the process that has gone into making them.

 

Long ago as a very youthful 'street' photographer, I took similar photos (see my first posted shot, 'Balloon Man' in my Black and White, Then to Now' folder in which this is the latest posting).

 

Later I went to a photo club and exhibited some of my (I thought) 'outstanding photos', and the old guys (I'm one in age now) there just chewed on their pipes and quickly moved along to congratulate each other about their 'sandwiches' in which they had placed one transparency, say of a farm scene, and overlain it with a scene of a moon shot to create what was then a 'manipulation' but in an old fashioned way in those days before digital manipulation and programs like Photoshop.

 

And their photography was really very, very good, but no one understood why I even considered my photos worthy. They just didn't 'get' them.

 

I have long understood that 'street' is a peculiar subcategory of photography, and that's the reason for my often discursive writings.

 

Many don't know or appreciate 'street' and those serendipitous moments which happen and which are epitomized for me in this recent photo as well as many others.

 

It's a very commanding and compelling muse to get a great 'street' photo; sometimes one has to master all the elements of taking a great photograph and do so while walking or even running, meaning such a photo must be thought out in what sometimes amounts to fractions of a second -- as where one sees something in the viewfinder then instantaneously zooms properly to frame the shot artistically, and snaps the shutter -- seemingly in an instant.

 

Other times one might have a little longer and that can be a luxury for a 'street' photographer.

 

I often get asked "But, you can tell me truthfully, you actually 'set this up' didn't you?" by amazed viewers when in person.

 

And my answer, except for 'framed photos' is 'never' or 'almost never' and always so with my 'street' photos. (Not always so with portraits' or where it is clear the subject is aware of my existence from the context of the photo and thus may be 'hamming' for the camera).

 

And a few days ago, in Paris I stood for 45 minutes on a street corner waiting with some wall art and a street sign for just the right combination of passersby in the right places to pass by, not even knowing exactly what they might be doing as they passed, what they'd look like, but wanting them in a certain place in relation to my wall art and street sign (on the side of a building).

 

And I wanted to make an 'interesting' photo, and perhaps an outstanding one.

 

When someone likely passed, I hit my shutter, but too often caught passing cars; there was a transit strike in all of France and no mass transit, so people were walking on seldom used sidewalks such as that one (in my favor) and streets were jammed with motorists (against me) as their vehicles blocked my shots across the street, with cars and trucks lined up behind a traffic light that seemed permamently to be set on 'red' which obscured those pedestrians (and motorbike and motorcycle riders).

 

'Street' is a beguiling muse, but hard to appreciate for some.

 

Some don't see 'the point' and it's nearly impossible to explain (though I try).

 

For those who want to try to understand or even try to make such shots, I've given much encouragement,for there are many more issues than just pointing, framing, focusing and shooting.

 

One must constantly be aware of the public's reaction and one's own sensitivity to that. One must sometimes beware of one's personal safety, also, and that sometimes can be jeopardized (or at least one can feel isolated, visible and very vulnerable when pointing a camera at total strangers).

 

I've added a lot of commentary to photos and underneath my portfolio as 'tips' I've learned on how to avoid or handle the issues and problems that confront the 'street' shooter, with the hope that they will help some to understand why I think some photos are very worthy of posting, and to encourage others with a penchant for such things, to try their hand at this difficult subcategory of photography.

 

I like to think of it as the 'thinking man's photography', or even better yet, sometimes, 'the thinking man's speed photography' -- somewhat akin not just to playing 'chess', but to those guys who play chess with a clock timer, and race to hit the clock after every move, because their play time is limited (I guess since I don't know their rules).

 

It is easy to appreciate a great landscape, but for some, it requires some thought to appreciate even a great street photograph.

 

Which is why I have written so much.

 

I know if offends a few; but I have received much praise from newcomers, so I continue.

 

My best to you, and thanks for the comment.

 

John (Crosley)

Nice photo John! When I saw this photo I immediately knew what the story was. It is indeed sad that the young (more so now than ever) tend to chuck the old aside. I'm young(ish) and I've always enjoyed speaking with older people. Most of them are such great people and have so many useful things to tell us.

 

Jesse

Nice flow,stunning detail in the mans face,the background on the right edge is a little distracting. A great photo!

Alexandre Guerra

 

Juxtapositions are an easy chance to make interesting photos, but not all have a story or meaning - sometimes it's just picking a colorful background or something else like that. People should see my Presentation: 'Photographers Watch Your Background' linked from my portfolio page (or in a comment above) to see how I developed this knack . . . . though my first posted photo 'Balloon Man' also had such a juxtaposition.

 

Of course, I hope I do well with other types of photos too.

 

Thanks for the kind words.

 

John (Crosley)

Garnet H.

 

Yes, the poster on the right is distracting and one reason the photo was cropped, as more showed bon right and left, and I think it was a successful crop.

 

I'm seldom blind to the defects or drawbacks of my own photos. On the other hand, I didn't feel it detracted much, and if anything, sometimes I'll leave in 'street' details rather than crop them out just so that the photo will say 'street' and not 'studio'.

 

It's a Hobson's choice of a small caliber.

 

Best to you,

 

John (Crosley)

I do feel that most of todays youth doesn't understand the world's elder citizens, but some view them more as peculiar or interesting! When we are young we could not even imagine what it would be like to have age defining wrinkles. Something that in a lot of photography, gives a nice portrait shot. And alot of character! Very well done!!!

Thanks John.

About young women and old men. Well, I must say that I'm a fiancee of a 50 year old man. I don't have a misunderstandings with older people. Though the age gap doesn't matter because I like to learn from the elders about the life and experience.

 

In my opinion, this Ukraine old man is very old, maybe 60 years or older. It seems he has been a normal citizen, with normal life.

Kristina V.

 

You are a younger women, at least by American standards, at 31 (happy recent birthday).

 

And marrying a 50-year-old man for your Slavic culture probably is seen as something that's socially acceptable.

 

Americans 'cluck' when they hear of such relationships -- they suggest that there is no 'love' in such a relationship, but that the woman is a 'gold-digger' unless the woman happens to be young and rich herself and marries a man who has a long-term relationship with her, such as one famous Canadian singer (Celine Dion) who married her much older manager (and later divorced).

 

I was married at 55 to a 29-year-old.

 

That was the better half of a decade ago.

 

And my current girlfriend's age is quite a bit younger than you, but I won't state the age.

 

For she and I it doesn't matter.

 

For my past wife (whose brain cancer ended our happy marriage), it also didn't matter, and her parents backed me as a potential spouse almost from the start (she's Russian, a fellow 'Slav' if you will'

(when they first saw me pappa said 'he's an old man' and a week or 10 days later after living with the family, he said 'marry that man, he's the best thing ever happened to you' and that was that.

 

But when you say this man in the photo is 'real old' -- maybe early '60s or words to that effect -- that cuts close to the bone for me; just look at the numbers above to understand why/. But I don't look at all like this man and people won't believe my real age in Slavic countries at least, because in former Soviet Satellites and parts of the former Soviet Union, older men do NOT age well at all.

 

In the U.S., this man would not be considered a 'normal' man at all; his face is too wrinkled, probably a result of smoking and he has 'smoker's face' which is a medical syndrome; doctors can identify such individuals just by looking -- it breaks down the collagen of the skin, and shows up in the face and face assumes a different and identifiable look due to the effects of tar and nicotine.

 

In the U.S., men age much better, as well as France, Germany, Belgium, Holland, etc., -- just name any Western European country, and if a man takes good enough care of himself, he'll look pretty good in his late '50s and early '60s, though admittedly some look and act much older than others.

 

I'm not considered an 'old man' by my many young friends who wait for me in the Dnipropetrovsk city sqare on a summer's night to 'horse around' with me and pose for my cameras, because I don't think 'old', and I think, instead, they see me as a much younger person, more akin to themselves, but with an older body and perhaps a great deal more wisdom.

 

In other words, at such a late age, I have learned how to relate to people who are not my peers; and those same people have no trouble relating to me in ways they cannot relate to their parents.

 

It's a wonder to me and part of the reason I have chosen to live in Ukraine for now, at least much of the time.

 

But according to you, I'm probably a 'very old' man.

 

(Not according to my girlfriend, who judges I'm somewhere between 18 and 28 . . . or so she tells me . . . at least in spirit.)

 

And she's not looking for a grandfather or father figure, I guarantee you.

 

It's just different in Slav cultures, and I suppose your story is part of that cultural difference I wrote about above.

 

I also see this guy as very old, yet he may be younger than I -- but I feel no age kinship with him. I just experience him as old (and also somewhat of a drinker, I think, who has not kept such great care of himself . . . and probably does not have a great diet.)

 

In Ukraine, men of such age on average have departed this mortal coil -- men die in the0ir mid-late '50s on average, as the health care system has deteriorated, best drugs are not available (and expensive), and doctors there, (from what once was the world's vaunted health care system) have departed to drive taxis in New York City, leaving behind some doctors who have some pretty strange ideas about medicine (I can often do better than they in diagnosis and treatment, and I'm just a lay guy who happened to practice the law of medicine, and to whom doctors talk to as a 'colleague' rather than a patient many times. Not always, but many times).

 

I think your post has made my point, although you may not have recognized it.

 

From a Western perspective, this is how things look. To you, this guy appears in his '60s and to be a very old man, but I am maybe as old or older than he, and don't look or feel 'old' like this man looks.

 

I think at '40, I looked much older than now, and acted the same way, too.

 

I still think a Thai woman or a Ukrainian woman would look at this photo (or maybe with a 50-year-old) a little differently than a Western woman, say from America or Western Europe.

 

By the way, congratulations for making a choice that I am sure is based on love and mutual respect; American women are often too busy 'vetting' their potential spouses for 'similarities' as on 'Match.com' while not appreciating that differences can make for amazingly good relationships, when there is that 'mutual respect' which you seem to write of.

 

I am very glad you added your comment; it adds to the discussion of the point of the photo (and its implicit Western cultural bias).

 

My best to you (and your fiance).

 

Congratulations again, and I wish you much happiness.

 

John (Crosley)