The Bike Trick

This very lucky photo (and there is some substantial luck involved also), has an additional element of composition involved -- that of repetition.

 

It may not be apparent seeing it full-size, but in thumbnail it's more apparent. The arrow head from the traffic arrow is a triangle of light; that triangle of light is repeated from the triangle of light repeated over the end of the drive.

 

Of course, that was NOT planned -- it's just good synchronicity.

 

Those things happen sometimes and help elevate a good photo into something a trifle better, though it's hard to say how much something so hard to notice can 'elevate' anything, but it's there, and it does 'add' in my mind.

 

The purpose of these comments (or one purpose at least) sometimes is to pick apart these photos to find out what does and what does not make them work.

 

My many able critics and commenters are very, very good at that, and they urge me to take further steps in that regard -- they see things I would never see, and urge me to search out things I never would notice myself otherwise.

 

Oh, and that triangular figure is repeated in the insignia (roughly) on the back of the Mitsubishi.

 

John (Crosley)

I was in a photo store where there is a guy who sells very high quality printers -- who could be a world famous photographer -- he's just such a good landscaper and printer -- but he's tied to his job, while landscape photos also are incredibly hard to sell, and I get a feeling he just doesn't know the first thing about how to sell them.

 

So, I passed on some of the hints which have been generously given to me, as he is genuinely a high-level artist with landscapes and also with printing them out; I've been looking at his work as the epitome of representational landscape work (mostly in color) for the last four years, and it's exhibition quality, compared to work I've seen exhibited in fine galleries.

 

I turned on my photos in 'slideshow' to show him my work, and when he saw this photo all he could say was 'excellent tones throughout'. I felt 'he really nailed this one' just as you also did. This one does have wonderful tones, and this is an in-camera desaturation.

 

He's in his '50s, been printing since his teens, there isn't much about printing of any kind he isn't familiar with, but he wants to be a photographer, not a printer I think and has ended up a salesman, because that provides a steady paycheck, and the world needs guys with his expertise doing his kind of work.

 

(My father was a brilliant guy with tremendous entrepreneurship locked into a seniority job as a locomotive engineer -- if he left work for even a month, he permanently lost his job AND his increasingly high seniority, and his relatively high pay would have been cut to one-third of its former levels while job assignments never would have climbed back to what they were.

 

He was trapped in his job.

 

However, one day, a friend of his got into a side business, just for kicks, and it got serious, they made a lot of money. He got sick for a while in the winter, (seasonal flu or cold), and when he recovered, he was making so much money from his side business, he just left his work -- he was old enough to retire -- then he bought two airplanes and existed off that 'second income'.

 

Works for me . . . as an idea, anyway.

 

He kept saying, all my life as I grew up and as I was a young adult, 'Wait until I retire', and then one day, when no one was looking, there he was, suddenly and with no announcement 'retired' . . . doing something else and successfully.

 

His life totally changed.

 

For the better.

 

He no longer was a slave to a schedule or a phone call or anything. His life was his own for the first time since before he married.

 

I hope my new acquaintance, the photoprinter/salesman who makes exhibition quality prints daily on his giclee machines to demonstrate them, gets a leg up on a new life from hints I was able to pass to him today.

 

He won't ever be competition for me, that's for sure, and what's a little knowledge spread around to someone deserving?

 

John (Crosley)

What I personaly find amazing in this photo, appart from the exceptional capture, is the way you were able in such a quick time, obviously, to incorporate the car in order to help the composition, where in any other angle, I believe the car would have become a distracting element.

Part of the so-called 'magic' is that this isn't the only frame I took. I took frames from a number of perspectives, my head bobbing up and down as the guy's body gyrated on his bicycle.

 

If I were a Leica shooter without a Leicavit or a motor drive, this would have been a nearly impossible capture, what with the knob winder of an older model Leica or even a lever throw of a newer one. I doubt if I could have thrown frames forward fast enough to keep up with the frames I needed to capture to get this guy just as I wanted him.

 

Now, don't get me wrong. I didn't take a movie and just take one frame of a movie and post it. Each photo is a separate photo, it's just that there are a larger number, since I was shooting digitally and this camera has fast frames per second. But i didn't have it on full fps rate, or continuously. I waited for my chances to fire, bobbed up and down, and also in and out, zooming in and out as I went, trying for something good, as I always do, even with the most mundane capture.

 

Which is all I ever thought this would be: as noted when posted -- a trifle is all it ever was meant to be.

 

You have made now two very perceptive comments today. I'm impressed (go back and read my reply on your comment on 'Balloon Man' and you'll see.).

 

John (Crosley)

I finally understand the composition here - and it isn't just about the triangles already mentioned, which also are important here. It may be more fundamental.

 

It's about a very complicated parallelogram (diamond shape) or even a rectangle (I haven't measured the sides, and it is so incomplete that would be futile, as the measurements depend on making extensions of various features to determine the 'endspoints, which determine the lengths of various lines the comprise the sides).

 

Sound complicated?

 

Well, it isn't exactly, or so I think.

 

If one looks at the base of the brick wall, that is a diagonal which approximately bisects the rectangle/parallelogram/diamond shape which is a central feature of this photo.

 

That parellelogram parts are comprised of different elements in this photo, so one has to be a little inventive in recognizing what those elements are, but once one recognizes those elements, it should become more clear, so follow me.

 

If one draws a line from the pedal/front wheel intersection of the bicycle to a point in front of the observing guy, rear, (whose hands are down) (and that point is in front of him -- thus a 'fictitous' point), and then one draws a line from that point to the upraised right hand of the bike rider, those are two of the lines of the structure.

 

The remaining two lines are as follows:

 

(1) from the bike rider's upraised hand to his second hand, raised to his left (our right).

 

(2) from that second outstretched hand to the pedal/foot/leg intersection again.

 

The result is a rough parallelogram or a 'diamond' shape, and if one steps back, it becomes fairly apparent that shape becomes one major outline in this photo. Also, the pavement/brick wall line appears nearly to bisect that structure, giving it added importance, by dividing the structure into two triangles.

 

(Notice how his outstretched left (on our right) hand is 'in line with' the extension of the brick wall/roadway extension?)

 

So, part of the diamond/parallelogram structure is above the brickwall/roadway/roadway extension line and half is below it.

 

In all, this is a complex but slightly neat layout -- and I think I have finally explained why it is so naturally appealing to the eye from a compositional standpoint, over and above the obvious interest of the guy balancing/doing a trick on his bike and the amused reaction he gets.

 

Is this too far-fetched, and have I explained it clearly?

 

Or do I actually have to diagram it?

 

John (Crosley)

Yes, I agree that this is the rectangles / diamond shapes which are the hidden part of the composition, but really are making the shot.

 

The triangles, diagonales, are the obvious ones, directly pleasing to the eyes, but the complex parallelograms shapes really are "locking" the whole shot in perfection.

 

And appart from the ones you mentioned already, allow me to to share my feeling about a couple more rectangles used in your composition which I find also important in my opinion :

 

That is why I mentioned the great use of the car in the previous post : It clearly is a rectagle(s) element(s) ( the whole back, but also the double rectangles : windshield and bottom ( beeing in oposition transparent/light vs balck metal )), and the only way you could get away with the shot was to incorporate it the way you did : For me the most important counterpoints of the composition is the one made by the five circular shapes which are forming the repetition with a twist of the car rectangles :

 

Firs rectangle, as some kind of zoom out from the car (therefore reinforcing the main subject ) formed by the two wheels of the bike, the wheel in the back of the car, and the head of the biker.

 

And you have the perfect diamond shape when you join the two heads of the men, the wheel on the car and the fron wheel of the bike ( the back wheel of the bike beeing in the line from bike's front wheel to head of the man on the left )

 

All these are the reason why we cant stop looking at your photo !

There is another case, besides the excellent one you have made above, for re-analyzing my 'diamond/parallelogram theory, also.

 

That is to take the front wheel of the bike as a starting point, run it to the top of the car, then to the top of the outstretched hand, then to the point where the asphalt hits the brick wall in front of the onlooker, then back to the bike --- another parallelogram.

 

So what we have are triangles within triangles and parallelograms within parallelograms.

 

All in all, a heady combination.

 

This makes the 33nd comment on this rather 'innocuous' photo, taken as a 'lark'.

 

Who'd have thunk it?

 

Thanks for your carefully thought out contribution above.

 

John (Crosley)

oh yes ! well spotted !

 

Actually now it could be interesting, perhaps, just for fun to see just the diagram : It would make a really interesting abstract image in itself.

I have never drawn on my photos, or outlined them, and don't take 'screen shots' for such purposes, as it's a skill set I don't have.

 

I think I described it sufficiently that you could easily recreate what I have stated -- in fact I think your comment acknowledges that.

 

This truly has been a surprising photograph; one I loved from the start, but couldn't quite put my finger on why I liked it so much, and now with these various analyses, I think it is more clear that there are clear compositional devices that underpin it as well as a solid and interesting 'story' with the 'trickster' and the 'genuinely amused and very interesting bystander'

 

Sometimes you gotta work for your photos -- I certainly worked for this one; in some frames the biker's outflung hand was outside the photo frame, and in others the bystander was merely unamused looking.

 

This one, as the little pig said, was 'just right'.

 

I'll stack this up against all but my very best, and this was taken outside a very famous photo printing establishment, and these are their staff members on a break.

 

I was just delivering something to someone I know there, or picking something up, and these guys were briefly fooling around, either on break or during lunch.

 

Lucky for me I saw what the biker was doing; I asked him to show me his trick so I could photograph him.

 

(Thank you Mr. Biker; I can no longer do that in person, so thank you very much, as well as you also, Mr. Amused Bystander. . . . . John)

 

John (Crosley)

This in the alleyway outside of A&I Photographic, which recently was acquired, either before or after I had met with their master printer that day who was curating my work and with whom I lived temporarily (he even may have been present).

 

John (Crosley)

This photograph is definitely original and very interesting. The position and facial expression of the guy at the wall are just incredibly attractive in some way. The other one is very focused on the performance of the trick trying to find the right balance. This is a very nice contrast. It's just funny how the guy at the wall is reacting to the event. The way he is walking is to me very unexplicable and it triggers my interest. I am not convinced about the car, in my opinion too close and distracting but I don't think you could have avoided that.

Your comment and its focus on the man, background left, and his most interesting reaction, caught in a split second, is a testament to my motto 'keep on shooting' even after you've tried to shoot the subject once.

 

Even if you think you've got a wonderful capture (or if you have not got it yet), keep on shooting, sometimes that 'magic frame' is yet to come -- even if there was a wonderful frame just preceding it.

 

Sometimes all the elements of a frame come together and raise one frame way above all the rest - I noted when I posted this it was a 'trifle' and indeed, in the scheme of things, this is indeed a 'trifle', but it also has significance by showing that one can exit a building, as I did here, see something interesting, ask to photograph, and make a good composition in less than a minute or so, and walk away with a true winner.

 

I do think the Mitsubishi vehicle there with its overwhelming mass of blackness does add to the composition, and it isn't the vehicle per se or its three-pointed (triangular) logo that is so important, as its contrast to the rest of the frame and that it 'anchors' that corner of the frame as well as it closes off the the forced vanishing point of the alleyway.

 

Try to imagine this photo without that Mitsubishi vehicle there, and see what it looks like, see if it is a stronger or less strong photo without it's being there.

 

For my money, it's less strong if one removes it by cloning it out and extending the walls, alley and walkway. Reasonable people, of course, may differ.

 

Have you tried to look at it freshly that way?

 

Thanks for your 'fresh look' at this now amazing photo, which I thought had been analyzed to death; I was wrong, and I suppose there will be more enlightened analyses like yours to follow.

 

What a happy thing to see so many good contributions.

 

John (Crosley)

This photo, seen from left to right (or vice versa) is a photo that is divided by vertical elements along the horizontal axis into fourths.

 

No 'golden rule' photo, this photo actually has four distinct delineations along the horizontal axis.

 

From frame left:

 

1. The onlooker with his interesting appearance;

 

2. The left side of the bicycist;

 

3. The right side of the bicyclist/left side of the Mitsubishi.

 

Frame right

 

Three major vertical lines define four major nearly equal spacial elements along the horizontal axis . . . adding up to just one more 'geometric' analysis of this very geometrically pleasing (to me) photo.

 

John (Crosley)

Imogene Cunningham said a good photographer could make good photos in [his] own backyard. Consider the following in that light:

 

I was meeting with or dropping something off for master printer, Michel Karman, of A&I Photographic (& Digital Arts), a division of ISGO Lepejian, in the building at the right. This is the 'alley' which provides access to their building in Los Angeles.

 

These two men are employees or otherwise related to A&I Photographic, and they are on a 'break' from their work duties.

 

This was taken literally 'steps' (not more than ten) from the front door of this world reknowned photographic printing company, which prints museum and exhibition quality prints as well as 'face shots' for Hollywood types.

 

I had just met with my mentor, Michel Karman, or dropped something off for him, and these guys were fooling around in front.

 

Since I always have cameras, and I had seen the guy, right, astride the bike, doing his balancing act, I asked him if I could photograph him, and to show me his 'trick'.

 

He agreed.

 

His colleague went into the background, perhaps assuming he might be 'out of the frame', but in reality every photo in the group includes this interesting man as a sort of 'foil' -- the 'onlooker' which gives this 'performer' an audience, which we see reflected in the onlooker's great amusement.

 

Without that 'amusement' this would be a far lesser photo.

 

Credit master printer Michel Karman for leading me here, to his work.

 

I take photos wherever I am; my photos sometimes are a record of my odyssey; and this is just one of my stopping places on my recent journey through life with a camera.

 

John (Crosley)

Without reviewing the numerous comments above, and noting that I have a Presentation on 'Threes' in my photography, I suspect this will be added to that presentation.

 

Reason is not the three-part symbol on the back of the Mitsubishi.

 

It's because this photograph basically has three main subjects -- masses if you will.

 

The first is the bike trickster, the second the guy bent over in amusement, and the third is the . . . . yes, the Mitsubishi.

 

The Mitsubishi fulfills an important part of this photo by providing a backdrop to prevent the eye from following the lines of forced perspective to the distant vanishing point, which would, I think, have detracted from this photo -- it would have prevented the photo viewer's eyes from staying in the foreground and pulled them into the background.

 

So, even if it's just a 'backstop' as in baseball parlance, the Mitsubishi serves an important function and more so because of its dark color -- that darkness adds 'mass' and helps create 'balance' (if you'll excuse the expression) in this photo.

 

So, in a sense, the Mitsubishi is also about 'balance' but of a different kind.

 

John (Crosley)

 

 

Evan on left and Alex on right, A&I photo, Hollywood, 2008.

 

John (Crosley)