'The Break -- No, Two Breaks'

For me gray is the most beautiful of all colors. I judge my photos on gray scale and generally "could care less" about subject matter (aside that I almost exclusivly shoot people). The attachment is not my image. It is intended to demonstrate gray scale on a monitor. This is a most beautiful image. This is how my brain sees aesthetics. Taking another look at your photo above and comparing to my attachment, it does have a good range of tones. It must be the skin tones that I don't like. Skin is often hard to get "right" (right meaning "natural") in BW digital with the wrong light. On your photo above I might have given that "lasso" method a try. Maybe better; maybe not.

And for providing the example of 'grayscale'

Your statement you 'could care less' about 'subject matter' strikes a little hollow with me if it means you don't care much about images in general (as opposed to the genre).

If you mean 'genre', I understand that, but if you mean literally you 'could't care less' about the subject of a capture and how it's presented other than grayscale representation, that doesn't comport with my experience with you as a member or rater, or with viewing your personal photography.

I agree that the skin tones, especially the hand, in my photo need to be worked up, and I have a photoshopper who can polish my work. I am interested in taking the photos and doing initial workup then handing off my work. Henri C-B did the same thing; in fact when he was in the Far East shooting for Magnum he just shipped off his film with captions and didn't even see his work until long later. He could have 'cared less'.

Later in life visitors to his Paris flat wee surprised to find no personal photos there at all; only Munkasci's stimulating photo of thre black youths running into an African lake -- his original inspiration.

I also have NOTHING on my walls at all.

It would mean choosing my 'favorite chld' which I don't do.

Maybe the new modern electronic frames which change photos periodically in slideshow will change my opinon as it changes my options.

Best to you, Meir, and best health.

Thanks for the lesson.

john

John (Crosley)

Thank you so much.

Sometimes a photo is (as the Russian say) sympatichne -- meaning 'agreeable' - or as Americans say of a woman who is not beautiful 'cute' or 'attractive'.

I think this one, while far from perfect, is 'agreeable', for reasons that are possible to define in terms of geometry and composition, which I recognized and 'manipulated to advantage' on the spot, but it's the combination of such things that also carries with it that indefinable something that becomes more than the sum of its parts.

Because for so many of my better photos I perform the same analysis prior to clicking the shutter, but few of my photos are so well received, or frankly so well composed despite greatest care. They may 'fit together' but seldom 'so well'.

But then, for few situations am I presented with such good 'raw' material as a man with extended arm, (or about to be extended arm) with a billboard photo of a woman in background, her arm also extended in an opposite direction.

Sometimes life's like that; you take a thousand photos and a few end up being 'agreeable' more than you ever could expect; the ones one expects to be 'wonderful' turn out to be 'ho hum' - real sleepers (in the sense that they cause the viewer to 'fall asleep' rather than be 'hidden wonders).

(Hope you don't mind the exposition, when what I really just want to emphasize is 'thank you so much'.)

john

John (Crosley)