'Tribute to Seurat, Pointillism and Impressionism'

I guess that's part of the point of posting this photo.

The 'real or main point' of course was simply to share what I felt was 'something wonderful' I came across in old files that under older software was not quite presentable and previously passed over without really much of a thought.  

I guess I have more guts now and more assuredness.

Now one more point is:

Never throw anything halfway presentable and slightly interesting away.  

Who knows?

Such a photo (or a group of such photos) might make or prove a point or make an exhibition some day.

Thanks so much for your comment, pio.

john

John (Crosley)

I again and again have read each and every point you have made.

My reference to Seurat and pointillism was more off-the-cuff than intended to be encyclopedic.  With any research at all, I could have done better, and your choice for comparison is far better.

Most wonderful of all, in your critique is that you were 'engaged' with this photo, as I was.

Truth be told, I'm very much a conformist and a coward. 

Further truth, is that despite my tendency toward conformity and cowardice, when the true test of courage comes, such as posting a photo like this, I seem to be compelled to post rather than sit on any 'laurels' I might have here, or on any suppositions that others feel I might have about who they think I am or what 'style' or 'genre' they think I 'belong' in.  I am NOT afraid to think 'out of the box' to use a now hoary cliché.

I have little fear that others may have to change entirely their viewpoint of me or my work -- when I posted color work only, people regarded me as a 'color photographer' and when I switched my emphasis to black and white, many now regard me as purely a black and white photographer, but the real truth is I'm game to take just about any image that interests me.

And I have broad interests, as any look through my portfolio will reveal.

I do have a tendency not to want to repeat the successes of others, which is the main reason I stay away from landscapes, still lifes, and such -- not because I can't do them and do them well or am not interested in them (and seascapes too, with clichéd long time exposure to make the surface waters look amorphous, then some underexposure and photoshopping to make a cloudy sky look glowering).

I understand clichés and try like heck to avoid the typical PN cliché, though if I were not posting on this or another service I might well be taking those shots . . . . .until I learned they were Internet photo club clichés at which point I'd desist.

I have a penchant for birds and people, both of which move fast and form patterns quickly that go away often just as fast.

Plus humans have facial features which are (to me) tremendously interesting and the wonder (as Elliott Erwitt wrote) is you don't have to pay models, or do any travel, just walk down the street and take photos, and you're a photographer!

Lex, you have commented rarely but always valuably on my portfolio, and this latest comment is the most valuable of all, in part for its validation, and in part just for its erudition and communication of special knowledge you had I did not.

Thank you so much for taking the time and trouble to share with me.  It is greatly appreciated, especially coming from you, for when it comes to matters photographic and 'art' on this site, your ideas are the closest thing to 'authoritative' there is and thus deserving of extra special notice.

I indeed was traveling and unable to respond fully when you did post, as I had wished; please accept my apologies.

john

John (Crosley)

This post comes by PN e-mail from MY Jalili who says he had trouble posting it here, so I am posting it verbatin as it appears in his e-mail to me.  It evidently had been run through a translation program or been translated word for word with a dictionary, judging from the syntax, grammar, etc., but I have no doubt about its authenticity.

********

Allow me to send you this e-mails.

I did not I attach a comment on the picture that has been listed by the link at the top. And going back to you.

The reason is perhaps be a bug in the site it seems.

Excuse me.



In fact, I find it a good image in the movement of a wonderful and a real image of what exists in the community.

I also did not know and I can not be quoted What is the patient who happened to this child. But I loved strong expression on the woman's face I see her face carries a lot of expression and questions and perhaps the sorrow which is intertwined with conviction and surrender.

Location seems to be waiting for the Metro or bus station waiting for a year or something like that.

I liked the paper scattered on the ground as well as empty bottles on the bench, which sits upon the Stone Lady.

As a child, lying in his mother's lap, apparently. Conveyed to me a true and expressive of the reality of this snapshot and the child appears intoxicated or sick, but I most likely to be drunk.

But it is lying down with confidence and spontaneously in the bosom of this woman who had found safety and then for this reason is wild with confidence.

High noise in the image on the picture is not affected much, I think, I love the result of high ISO noise.

The color is quite natural for such a place CSS and artificial lighting available and colors are beautiful There is no harm in it.

There are only a reflection of the light from the background and pure white spot on the configuration affect negatively. They also may consider stealing.

Make such performance to enjoy this beautiful and wonderful shot a little less as a result of this reversal of photosynthesis.

Note.

Please forgive me, Sir, my English is not good.

Thank you MY Jalili for a most descriptive and understanding comment.

You may post any other comments you had by e-mail through the PN e-mail system if you have further problems and I'll endeavour to post them under the appropriate photos.  They need not be unenthusiastically positive either; I am not immune from criticism, and do listen to good-spirited criticism very carefully.

john

John (Crosley)

My e-mail inadvertently opened to an unopened e-mail from November from MY Jailili containing the above comment.

It seems he did succeed in posting a comment, but within the ten-minute edit window, it appears they are somewhat different, so I am not deleting the above post.

I am not sure why my e-mail opened to 'last November', but it did, and I didn't catch it in time.

john

John (Crosley)

I sent a thumbnail copy of this photo in an e-mail to a famous photo/art critic who has won probably the world's top award in the field of photo reproduction.

'Like it or no?

'Exhibit it or no?,' I asked him in my e-mail simply.

The reply from a man who likes my work, but never expressed interest in collecting it:

'It belongs on my wall.'

Then a second e-mail, asking if the 'file size' of what I sent him could make an acceptable print.

My reply was 'no' it would not at 72 dpi (thumbnail size), but within 30 minutes I promised him a full-size jpeg or .tif file for printing as he pleased, and I kept that promise promptly.

I'll sign the print when I see him next.

He's never had but the finest work from the world's most wonderful photographers/artists who use photo reproduction, on his walls or in his private collection . . . . and even being asked to send a file, even for printing by this man for personal use, is a most heartening compliment.

Some photographers would give their eye teeth for such a compliment . . . . and for me he praises my work and talent to the sky . . . . unrequested.

Some of my critic's 'friends' (and passed away friend) of his:  Sally Mann, Nann Goldin, Helmut Newton, Herb Ritts, Graciela Iturbede, and so forth, especially Mann, Goldin and Newton (Newton was a very close friend killed in a car crash not so very long ago while in advancing age and apparently VERY close).

At the same time, in his flat at one time I remember asking about a photo on a wall of children chasing a barnyard animal.

'Who took it?' I inquired. 

'Who knows?' was the answer. 'Nobody who anybody can recall' he said of the photo found I think in a search while curating a world famous archive as part of one of his jobs. 

'It's just a great photo'.

He's an egalitarian critic:  true to THE PHOTO and its underlying values rather than the snobbery of the names behind it.  

That incident impressed me more than all the names of famous 'friends' he could invoke to call attention to his critical skills. 

'No one in particular, it's just a great photo'. 

I'll always remember that.

Now one of my photos will be up there.

;~))

[he has long encouraged me to go far beyong Photo.net, to exhibit in galleries and museums, and quickly, as I''m 'not getting any younger', he has reminded me.

And, he says, do so 'laterally' -- 'Don't try to work your way up, your work already is of the highest caliber -- it's brilliant'.  I blush when he says that.   He spent three years trying to make a believer of me since he began his mantra, and now I'm starting to believe.  jc]

john

John (Crosley)

"... becasue it helps express a 'feeling' better than today's modern high sensitivity high ISO camera can"

Dear John, I totaly agree! this is wonderful! one of my favourite images here on PN- and so many of yours are! There is something I look for in photography and in PN and only seldom find it, but i find a lot of your work has "it", it's hard to define but reading your thoughts and insite on photography I must say you fraized it correctly and thank you for that.

I find this much more touching than a high saturated perfectly sharp focused and extermly edited image . So many photos here have those things but luck real emotion. Not to say a modern and high technique camera or intense pp work can not deliever emotion- of course they can- but many times i feel the emotions are forgotten. and also the value of others work go by "the rules in the book" with out judging the image as art that has no "rules". When i want to value a image or judge it as "good" by my taste and opinion all I do is ask myselfr if it makes me feel.

This image certinally makes me feel! I wish there were more photographers like you here, I'm always looikng for them.

All the best, Avital

I recently applied for an Aaron Sisking $15,000 grant and they wanted 10 images, no more and no less, submitted by Internet submitted through an organization which gathers entries.

This was one of my ten.

Siskind was a photographic father of abstract expressionism and I figured I would give them the sort of photos that best fit into the category of those that can have varying interpretations, and this one came to mind as one that hits the gut rather than the mind -- technique be damned.

I believe in my work when I endorse it (I don't believe in every photo -- some I post I'd rather take down but I stand by what I post -- my portfolio is not the 'best of the best' but what I post from day to day, not cherry picked and it's a place to go panning for 'gold' rather than have it prepanned and thus have some potential gems excluded by me that might be very much appreciated by others with differing tastes.

Your vote of confidence about this photo is icing on the cake, coming so soon (one week) after I had submitted that grant application.  It's probably the least well focused photo in my entire portfolio, yet I treasure it, I think you and I agree for good reason.

Thanks for the good word.

john

John (Crosley)

Aaron Siskind' not Sisking.

My error.

I was shut out by the editing window or I would have simply corrected my text. 

My apologies to readers.

I have known of Mr. Siskind and his wonderful, seminal work most of my adult life.

john

John (Crosley)

Good luck !

Thank you for good wishes.

It turns out there were two shots.

This one and another in which the young man's left arm appears to be almost two arms, due to factors I cannot fathom.

Perhaps in that shot, taken at long exposure he moved, which I am doubtful of since he was passed out, or perhaps mom moved him as she shifted when she became aware of me, or just my own movement caused some distortion, but I don't think it was a Photoshop/image editing post processing artifact at all, since I've viewed the original or one of that other photo just one step removed from the original and the ambiguous left arm appears in that photo also.

It's hard to write about here, since it's not on display and not linked; perhaps if I find it on the web I can link it in the future, but trying to find it now out of a half million photos to a million photos taken and thousands processed and stored on hard drives and even thousands and/or tens of thousands stored on the 'cloud' on a service is far too slow -- the processed photos are not well indexed due to my and the cloud service's indexing issues which are not as well resolved as my extremely well indexed downloads which are extremely well organized -- just not well suited for finding one particular photo.

Not yet at least.

I keep going over photos taken up to nine years ago with newfound taste and knowledge about what is 'good' in photography and keep coming up with 'winners'.

It's a pleasing process -- many of my recent postings have been 'rescued' from photos I started to process and left alone a year or years ago, then had second or third thoughts about.  Some get in the high hundreds or low thousands of 'hits' indicating I could initially have done a better job of review, but then time's distance is part of what is required to separate the emotion of shooting from the coolness required for editing.

Best to you, Avital.

And again, thanks for the wishes for luck.

I may indeed have a chance.

If you wish, here is a link to the site for submissions where you can look over where to find places to submit all kinds of art work in one central place (including some photography), and the site acts as a clearing house for submissions.

https://www.callforentry.org/

It is rare to find a 'grant' of $15,000 for a entry fee of $10, as many prizes are partly or wholly financed (it appears to me) by entry fees, but for those who have the money and want the visibility, it's one way to play the game.  Not also that the site solicits for others projects that pay from $500,000 (Denver Railway Station if I have it right) to group showings, and even for places in a virtually unknown MFA (Master of Fine Arts) degree program from a higher education institute I never heard of (but of course that means nothing -- as I would have been willing to shoot anyone ten years ago who bet me that I would consider myself an 'artist'  . . . . and now I do . . . . times change.

(I put the link up there for others also who read these comments.)

Another link that may be helpful and hard to find it this one:

Art-Support.com

Here you can find a list of resources for photographers (and artists) including links to art galleries nationwide and worldwide that feature fine art photography.

It's an invaluable site and one that's extremely hard to find links to.

Mazeltov for readers who find these links helpful.

john

John (Crosley)