'The Greatest Show On Earth'

'The Greatest Show on Earth' was found during a 'street' journey, but

might also be categorized as 'fine art' or even 'architecture', however that

is somewhat beside the point. The real point is whether or not you find

this composition pleasing . . . . and original. If you rate harshly,

critically, or just wish to make a comment, please submit a helpful and

constructive comment. Please share your photographic knowledge to

help improve my photography. Thanks! Enjoy! John

This unusual tent was found at night, and was a complete surprise as I went to another, familiar place.

 

However, it dominated my attention for a while because of its symmetry, and I vowed to photograph it, tripod or no, even undeer he moonlit (and spotlight lit) sky.) all with a performance going on inside (no lions and tigers and elephants, I can guarantee, however, just humans . . . . as this is one of Cirque du Soleil's traveling companies, and that circus only uses human performers I am assured -- though I did not try to get inside.

 

Accordingly I used equipment at hand (good equipment for night photography, but hand held, telephoto zoom lens and good, late model, APS-C sensor camera with high ISO sensitivity and best low-noise software in the business -- or so I think - at present . . . . but always subject to change (or challenge).

 

In any case, to get a stable image, a very high ISO was used for this telehoto shot.

 

John (Crosley)

Very different and very erotic, John - or is it my dirty mind?!

You should be locked up, just for what you just thought before you made your comment.

 

;~))

 

 

Me too for understanding it.

 

I wonder if the tent designers had that in mind?

 

You never know the comments you'll get when you post on PN critique forum.

 

It's sometimes a wonderful place for getting a smile in spite of the 3/3 and 3/4 raters who rush in on every 'street' photo right at the first (others have complained to me of that too, but it worries me not) I know what | produce . .. erotic tents!!!!!!

 

Now all I need is a camel's nose.

 

John (Crosley)

I thought I might have been the only one. Great shot. S

The thought police have informed me that they have issued an arrest warrant, but that in the interest of not overly embarrassing you, you may self-surrender and they'll only 'perp walk' you half the distance they did for Bernard Madoff - -from the limo to the federal courthouse steps, where the the mind probes will be inserted, the guilty verdict (judgment) pronounced, then your mind swept by a Kennedy Mind Sweeper, in accordance with feral law.

 

But only as long as your record reveals this is a first offense (I don't have access to such records.)

 

In the recidivism department I am told repeat offending is rampant and so there is a 'three strikeouts' law which I am told is something to be feared . . . . because most men (and quite a few women) have experienced 'three strikeouts'-- some have even experienced their 'three strikeouts in one evening in a bar at an airport while waiting for an airplane and downing 'one or two' with 'fellow travelers' (if you know what I mean . . . .).

 

So bring a toothbrush and soap on a rope.

 

Just in case.

 

(I dare you to ask me why 'soap on a rope'.)

 

John (Crosley)

 

© 2009, John Crosley, all rights reserved

Liz it is certainly your dirty mind ! This is a circus tent but of course open for all desires.

John I find it gorgeous ! Beautiful light and a very strong almost abstract composition. It could deserve to be seen i a very big print on a wall. Fine art it is indeed.

Thanks for the fine compliment.

 

I looked in bemusement as early ratings came in at 4/4s and wondered if they were looking at the same photo I was looking at . . . but that's the nature of being me and posting and also writing . . . so much and not taking beach sunsets or time exposures over water and rocks (this was at the beach, however, a first for me).

 

I have a heck of a good time sometimes with my photography and also teasing LIZ and W. above, (about soap on a rope, for one thing - notice so far no queries about that one?)

 

(Are you aware of what soap-on-a-rope is? For non-USA residents/citizens/passers-through and/or shoppers, it's soap with a rope embedded in it, so if you are holding the rope and drop the soap, you don't have to 'bend over' to retrieve it - same if you want to use it to soap your back but fear dropping it then having to bend over to pick it up.)

 

Enough said?

 

As written in the first comment, this view caught me entirely by surprise, but it's possibly something annual, and next year it may be in the same place at a time that may be known beforehand and possibly look exactly the same.

 

If i had had a tripod with me -- and a driver's license . . . well that's a story.

 

It seems that my state accidentally lifted mine for 'no good reason' except they sent me a letter long before asking a question which required a reply to a former address while I was sick and since the address no longer was good they got no reply, and as a result for six months or so my license was suspended (without my knowledge) and then one day I found out . . . and thereafter had to take the bus everywhere for two months . . . which limited my existence to a city with a bus line (in this case Los Angeles which has the world's worst buses, which is better than the rest of California - except the Bay Area - because the rest of California has NO buses at all (except possibly Sacramento and Redding).

 

I certainly got a taste of what getting really, really old would be like.

 

Worse, to get it back, the DMV said just as I was leaving for Ukraine last time, I would have to come back for a HEARING AND A DRIVER's TEST to get my license back though my license and driving history was 100% perfect -- no tickets, no accidents, not even a traffic stop and no allegation of ANYTHING WRONG and the question they had asked (about my bum arm with its partial paralysis my doctor had answered saying 'no problem for ten years now and never a problem expected' and no one to refute that. 'Really, the guy I first phoned at DMV said 'you know we suspended your license if you say on a questionnaire there's a health 'issue' so sometimes it's better NOT TO TELL THE TRUTH'

 

'OH', I said, as I wrote that one down, to repeat maybe to a judge later on, if it came to that.

 

Adamantly the DMV said 'well, the law requires you to come to (city redacted but 450 miles away) for a hearing and also to bring a car for a driver's test before we can give you your license back.

 

What? No one has alleged I am incompetent. You have not even alleged it.

 

'You just did not get a returned letter (from my doctor) so you put a stop to my driving privilege, and when I found out, I got the letter to you lickety split and now I want my driving privilege restored (two months after they got the doctor's letter).

 

'No, you don't understand, you have to have a hearing and a driver's test.' said the bureaucrat.

 

So there I am getting to this place (of the photo) by late night bus because of no driver's license and obviously not carrying a tripod so I could use a slow/long exposure and get better (exhibition) quality.photo and not even knowing there was a circus there - just wanting to 'get out and take some photos'.

 

I wheedled and wheedled with the bureaucrats over the phone, good naturedly (who wants to threaten a bureaucrat when they've got your 100% perfect license suspended because they didn't get a reply to a letter now that they've got the reply letter and still won't give back the driving privilege. Better not to get into a fight. and be good natured.

 

A good place for reason.

 

'Sounds like make work to me, and I will regret if I have to get an attorney, fly back from Ukraine for a 3 minute hearing which I am GUARANTEED to win since YOU HAVE NO EVIDENCE, and by law I MUST WIN, and the requirement that I provide a car is absurd,' I said.

 

They wanted me to bring an insured auto to the test, though I had no friends within 500 miles of the Bay Area office where the hearing was to be . . . and, I asked, how was i to get the car there? 'That's your problem', maybe you can rent one?

 

'How, without a license, can I legally even drive a car there and who would rent to a person with no license? An idiot? Not even an idiot would do that, I said.' good naturedly. (again who wants to offend a bureaucrat with your license).

 

'We might issue you a temporary permit just to go to the hearing, and you might rent one with that (I laughed out loud at them, I fear, at the absurdity, and asked them to listen to themselves and examine their reasoning and enjoy how that would sound on radio and television if broadcast.

 

Ultimately, I told them truthfully the next day I was to board a plane to Ukraine (in October), and that if I had to fly back for a hearing and a driver's test, I would do so and pay $4,000 to $8,000 for a last minute ticket, THEN GO ON THE RADIO AND TELEVISION TO PUBLICIZE THE COMPLETE IDIOCY OF THAT, and there is one set of LA shock jocks who make a point of ridiculing bureaucrats from the state, and this would be raw meat for them.

 

They have a provable audience of nearly a million EVERY DAY who would eat this up, I told them.

 

I said, maybe you could kindly fix this so I can have a life and not take the bus everywhere and have to spend thousands to fly back in several weeks from Ukraine for a three-minute hearing I AM GUARANTEED TO WIN BY LAW?

 

'It's inconvenient, even in LA and everywhere else in California it's impossible without driving..

 

I can't have a life without a driver's license, and unlike others without licenses I actually parked the car and did NOT drive.

 

(my archived photos were stored on hard drives in the trunk - with no insurance - (not eligible because of suspended license (now fixed), my car and my lifetime of photos would have been impounded to Joe's Wrecking and Storage yard at $100 a day. Who wanted to risk that if I got stopped and my license processed?

 

To bring a record long story to an end.

 

I didn't have a tripod; it was in the trunk of my car parked at the hotel where i stayed, and I was taking the bus, or this photo would have that gallery level quality I hoped it would have and which it deserves.

 

This situation repeats itself next year, I think, and if I can arrange it, I may be out there with a D3X (rented for the occasion) or just a D3 or a D4x(?) next year, to retake this shot.

 

I think it deserves it.

 

Look on Photocritiq.com for its analog in color (you know where Anders)

 

Hope this long story didn't bore you.

 

This is my travelogue of my trip to Kafka land.

 

I did go to Ukraine and the Monday following my Friday departure got a VERY CHATTY e-mail from the friendly folks at DMV driver safety wishing me a WONDERFUL trip, wonderful photoghrphs and somehow to 'keep in touch' or some such (I have saved it - it's priceless for it's chumminess).

 

Oh, and it said 'your driving privilege has just been reinstated'.

 

No hearing.

 

No celebrity status for me on radio and television for the world's most absurd bureaucracy story.

 

Good for me.

 

Better, I think for them.

 

Nobody reads these things here anyway, so I'm not giving anybody a hard time - you and I Anders have known each other for years and this is a 'message board' between you and me.

 

How did I find out?

 

I went to DMV to get a printout of my 100% perfect driving record to go buy new insurance after an illness and inactivity, and local DMV said 'your license has been suspended for months'.

 

(I had been subject to arrest and car and contents subject to confiscation all that time, unknowingly).

 

All for a letter the DMV sent that I didn't get (and thus didn't reply to or have my doctor write a simple form saying 'he's plenty fine to drive' - no problems. I've known him for 35 years -- no 'issues' whatever.

 

Yours unflappably and having escaped with my entire photo collection on hard drives, safe from Joe's Auto Wrecking and Storage at $100 a day (and the thieves that prey on cars being stored . . . and of course, Joe's or the cops would have had to 'inventory' the contents, and can you imagine inventorying 25 1 to 1.5 to 2 terabyte hard drives and their 'contents' (mostly dupes)? It would have taken months if they looked at each photo.

 

Aren't you sorry you wrote anything, Anders?

 

John (Crosley)

 

Fresh from a brush with Kafkaland.

 

;~))

 

© 2009, all rights reserved, John Crosley

Yea, you say, what's with the ©?

 

You makin' airs or sumthin'?

 

Fact is, 'YES, I am'.

 

People almost from the start have urged me to publish.

 

I am a writer and from time to time I write something that takes a lot of effort.

 

There are even comments under my portfolio (and under photos) saying 'write and I'll buy' or words to that effect.

 

Well, my writing is contained in these comments and under my portfolio.

 

If anybody's going to publish these things they must be protected, particularly the ones that are the most interesting.

 

I don't want someone else to write an 'anthology' of John's writings and pay me nothing - fair's fair.

 

A © just might be worth something some day if I do decide to publish.

 

Who knew?

 

Actually long ago I had an idea much of this was publishable, but lacked the energy or resources (or the notoriety) to make a go of it.

 

That all may be coming to an end.

 

But I'm not going anywhere, I'm sorry to say.

 

Same old boring comments . . .if you don't like my writing . . . just look at the photos . . . and don't bother writing me me saying 'don't write' . . . .'I'll just ask why you read the writing if it's so awful or so boring?' - Can't you restrain yourself, I'll ask, or is it really a 'guilty pleasure?'

 

Yours for 'guilty pleasures', such as photography and occasionally an interesting story in a land of things that are otherwise banal.

 

John (Crosley)

No John I'm not sorry to have written. I always take pleasure in not only admiring your photos but also in reading you texts. You have the rare gift of expressing yourself both in writing and by photos. Too many photographers are fairly illiterate when it comes to writing about themselves and their photos which is a pity for others.

Thank you,

 

It's always speculative writing for an unknown audience, that provides little feedback other than the occasional mostly positive comment.

 

There is no 'rating' on comments, or 'clicking' on whether one is attacterd by a particularly member's writing.

 

I've lived a life rich in experience and it seems a shame not to share it since I'm particularly well equipped to do so.

 

Thanks for the vote of confidence.

 

If I don't set the record straight about my life, who will? Especially if my photographs become noteworthhy in the world market.

 

But I'd hate also to become a boring old man telling the same old stories time after time.

 

Just shoot me if that happens.

 

John (Crosley)