poor imitations of cartier-bresson Man just awakened from a siesta, Monte Carlo (the quiet M3 Leica meant he never heard the shutter click).

Tony, this is what I always look for when I am walking around, camera in hand. It is such an honest moment, such a great undiluted slice from someone's life.

 

 

Who says that snapshot isn't real photography? It is as real as life gets. Wonderful shot, Tony!

What have I done? What I am doing here? What can I tell my wife?

Prefect! Good pictures never become old.

this one just woke up from a nap in an atlantic city diner. awesome work mr dummett, a real pleasure strolling through this particular folder. brilliant !

It's truly amazing what #000000 and #FFFFFF can do when used by an artist. Photojournalism? N-a-a-h.I feel like those characters stepped out of Federico Felini early movies screens...

Thanks for the compliment, but even the Mighty Flextight doesn't do 144 bit scans. A simple, "It's truly amazing what #00 and #FF can do when used by an artist," would do Ig ;)

It's truly amazing what #00 and #FF can do when used by a sarcastic master. Imagine what it would look like if scanners could squeeze all 9 yards( what do you call'em? bids per channel? something like that). I hardly ever saw anything as profound as your shots, Ton.

I'm lost. What does that mean?

#00 and #FF are the HEXADECIMAL notation ("hexa"= "6", "decimal" = "ten, "hexadecimal" = 16) for ZERO and 255 respectively. Hexadecimal (BASE-16 counting) is a shorthand way of writing BINARY numbers. The binary number 00000000 is expressed in hexadecimal (slang: "hex") as 00. The binary number 11111111 (=255 decimal) is expressed in hex as FF.

 

We only use decimal numbering due to an accident of nature. Imagine we had 8 fingers on each hand instead of 5. Then we would need a system of counting that uses 16 values instead of 10. As we write the numbers from 0 to 9 as 0, 1, 2, 3,....7, 8, 9, we write the hexadecimal numbers 0, 1, 2, 3,...7, 8, 9, A, B, C, D, E, F: where A=10, B=11... and F=15. We're dealing in base 16 numbers remember so the hex number "FF" really means (15x16)+15=255. Another example: the decimal number "160" equals the binary number "10100000", equals the hex number "A0", or (10x16)+0.

 

You can see that the hex version of a binary number is much shorter to write (and recite) than its binary equivalent: that's why we use hex numbering, it's easier to work with.

 

The order of numbers from the LEAST significant at the RIGHT in ANY numbering system is, UNITS (Power of 0), SQUARES, CUBES, POWER OF FOUR etc. Hence in binary you have (from the right) 1s, 2s, 8s, 16s, 32s etc. Decimal, respectively, has 1s, 10s, 100s, 1000s, 10000s etc. from the right and hexadecimal has 1s [16^0], 16s [16^1], 256s [16^2], 4096s [16^3] and 65536s [16^4] etc. in the same order.

 

Hex and/or binary numbering is used in computing extensively. In digital photographic systems it is used to denote the 256 possible shades of gray from black to white in any channel (R, G, B or grayscale).

 

I doubt whether the chap in the picture knew anything about hexadecimal numbering, or indeed, anything much about anything in the state he was in.

Tony's the man! Excellent work. Glad to see someone else using the lowly Summarit and getting results with it. Not only that he can explain hex.

Wonderful, the expression on his face.

The grain adds the realness and grittyness to this.

Sublime. Perfection. The only photograph I have ever rated a 10.

Send money ;)

Great shot! Hope nobody ever snaps me when I've just woken up.

As I woke up today, I poored myself a coffee, and logged on to Photo.net, to see what had happened with all these changes. And later in the day, I decided to pay a little visit to another man who just woke up, and whom I never forgot...

Here he is... Woderfully himself. The switch on the right seems to be where you pressed to get him to wake up...:-)

A truly unforgettable portrait, Tony. Since I saw it the first time, I just wanted to let you know that I probably visited him a hundred times, and still, I love it as much, or rather even much more than I did the first day...

That's, I think, how one can measure the real magic of an image: by the number of times he can look at it and still tell himself "This is just such an amazing world..."

Thanks for all the great moments I've spent watching your wonderful way to see this world, Tony... Thanks A LOT.

You've placed this image in a folder called Poor Imitations of Cartier-Bresson. Hardly poor and hardly a mere exercise of copycatting! This is just such a marvellous moment that you've captured. That face so extraordinary and completely conveys that mix of confusion and half-dismay created by the first fleeting sense of consciousness after a nice nap. Truly the decisive moment at work. However what also blows me away is the perfect tonal range of this image. If it looks this rich on screen, I can't imagine how gorgeous this is as a print. The tonal range of this really makes you stand up and take notice of the image. This is the best thing I've seen in a long time. Sorry to sound so effusive and slobberingly obsequious but its all sincere praise. Marvellous work.

:)!

i know understand why this is brilliant.

 

vuk.

I fear that some viewers might get even more confused after reading your detailed explanation of the "hex" numbering system. So here's the short version: I think Iggy used #000000 and #FFFFFF" to mean a b&w photo. #000000 is the hex color code for black, and #FFFFFF" for white.