Resident Evil (Click for larger view ....if you dare)

Already did, Michael. Any particular passage you think would change my assessment in my previous post?

Post a quote from Alf's input. There's a lot to digest here and I may have missed something.

I do have to admit this is one of the most interesting discussions on communicating with imaging I've had in a long time. Never really considered the importance of the back story of an image as told by the photographer. It shouldn't matter.

I even re-examined my take on this image from an angle by imagining first seeing this image hung in a local restaurant with only the title and asking price and how I would've interpreted what its communicating. I would've looked at it as craftily constructed and post processed homage to old Frankenstein flicks from the '30's where the subject (the photographer's friend as a stand-in model?) is seen as an igor type character modernized with the inclusion of a crutch as a nice touch.

But by calling it street photography by placing it in the "street" folder of the photographer's PN gallery really threw me as to what the real intent or vision the photographer wanted to convey.

I've gotten called out a couple of times in years past for posting close-up face to face images of wild animals I feed by hand in my local park claiming it as wildlife photography which I will never make that mistake again. I will still shoot animals this way because I'm more into making "image jewelery" from reality (I believe Alf's original intent). Also I don't have the expensive high powered lenses that allow me to wait out in remote areas to capture wildlife that technically qualifies as "Wildlife Photography" according to NatGeo.

However, my perspective is derived from a graphics/illustration/advertising background, (dabbled in photography and worked with photographers) but I didn't realize there were these types of photographic distinctions that determine how an image communicates. Now I understand why that is more so from reading this thread.

Just by way of explanation to Tim, the only reason I posted the image under the category of "Street" is because it was taken on the street. I didn't ponder over how to categorise the image, or read anything deeper into how it would be interpreted by viewers at the time. Categorization of images (in my opinion) should matter even less than the photographers background story. Being forced to "pigeon hole" any image can be most confusing for the photographer, and as in this case with Tim prove to be misleading to the viewer. This can be exacerbated even more so because of the multiples of ways people interpret the image. For instance I have posted images of churches amongst a landscape under the category of Landscapes and been told that I should have posted the image under Architecture. For these reasons I don't lose any sleep over where it's posted, but by the same token nor do I deliberately post images under a category that would be totally irrelevant. So to conclude, the origin of the image was "street" and therefore I felt that "street" would be the most honest category under which to post it.

My above post was in paragraphs, however, PN has seen fit to clump it all together.... Thanks PN :)

Strengths: POTW has mood and style. It draws one in to a feeling of menace. The face with its flattened nose and cropped jailhouse scalp is to me like a 1930's Universal Pictures film like the one where Boris Karloff plays the Body Snatcher. I would not want to deal with the person on or off the balcony. Evil comes off.

Weakness. As noted, the crutch, which is reflected by the lights, draws some sympathy which kind of undercuts the rest of the mood for me. As a subject of discussion it is a good choice for a POTW. I am agnostic about titles. And a title in poetry, I was taught, can be the key to unlock the verse. Which in itself does help and hinder, depending on your sensitivity and training about the matter. I note in some cases that the ones posted in critique are more about pushing than hinting. That is not the case here for me. It is a good photograph. Well done, Alf.

Gerry, please consider that it doesn't have to and possibly shouldn't. This may be where our responsibility as viewers will come in. I don't think viewing the crutch with sympathy is malevolent but it is worth looking at and perhaps reconsidering.

Here are a couple of articles that help lay out the issue of having the response of sympathy to people with disabilities.

WE DON'T NEED ANY PITY

FROM SYMPATHY TO EMPATHY

Hi Fred. You got a point of course, Sympathy or empathy on appearance....When I see someone I do not know with a cane or crutch I will hold a door open. When a person walks slowly with help of a cane,the cars in the shopping center slow down. I gave my personal reaction and a point of discussion. So I think it a point defensible. Let's take the shiny crutch out of the image, and see how it looks. (Now if it were a sword cane with a spring loaded sword then it can be different as the crutches in film Day of the Jackal w Edward Fox as the assassin original 1973 movie.....)

Since we are discussing an image as a kind of filmic theater if I read you right -or close, we are free to get into stage craft and costumes.

I will have a closer look at your links later on. I gave them a passim look and of course agree that we should take a progressive approach to infirmity. Mainly because we all get there sooner or later. And that sympathy does not deny Alfs image presentation one bit... (See posts about aging eyeballs and cataracts by shooters young and oldish.)

If I did street work, this would be a shot I would make and then perhaps crop in on the Magwitch type ( reference is Great Expectations black and white classic.) Wow, I recall how that scene from director Lean's classic late 40's film in the moor when the escaped convict lurches up out the dark and silence.. Scared me as a kid and moves me now. . So in theater as in film, we later find out that the exterior is totally "wrong." It gives me license to fool around with subject matter too, thank your Dickens.

( Footnote. Abel Magwitch was played by Finlay Currie who was an appealing British performer who later on did convincing apostles and benign saintly types as you may recollect. What you see was pure makeup and style and treatment. " I will eat your liver. etc.". A ghoulish menace there vs peace loving, passive and kindly searchinb Wise Man in 1960 version of Ben Hur.)

I wasn't offended by your photo, Alf. I think it looks good. So I don't understand your broad brushing it with that assumption.

Ever heard the term "it's one thing to have character, it's another to be a character"? You're assertion of your right to express yourself by making the real person in that image out to be a character that he isn't by adorning it with a copyright protected title of a video game turned into movie makes it unclear as to what you are expressing...

The love of video games turned into movies? Or the love of the person you photographed because you saw them as interesting looking or you wanted to express empathy toward the person's situation in life?

So which one is it? I'm not sure.

Much photography is about ambiguity. I don't go around interpreting my photos for others and I'd be kind of surprised if many photographers would. Alf has stated how this shot came about several times and I think pushing any photographer for more, more, more kind of undermines the way photos work. I had no trouble understanding his explanations. Once a photo is out there, the photographer will often let it go and allow the viewer to interpret and/or assess it. It's one thing to defend one's honor and ethics. It's quite another to specify an interpretation or try to nail down a precise motivation. When I come away from a photo or movie or painting quite sure of what the photographer, director, or painter wanted me to think or was thinking himself, it's usually a bit boring and shallow. So many things go into the making of a photo, especially one that's theatrical in nature, that to try and pin down exactly what moved you or what you were expressing would defy the creative process. It simply doesn't work like that. That's why it's not advertising or graphic arts, which usually does have a targeted message and seeks a particular result. The kind of photo we're looking at here shouldn't be confused with that.

Because you said he isn't a character in a movie but a real person you shot in the street. And I did mention your image did look good and it does. I just said it's a contrived idea, but now that you mentioned you initially created it for a PN "Halloween" entry which I also didn't know, I still believe or feel that doesn't dignify or respect that person as who he is. He's not a Halloween character for public display. It comes across to me as if you made him out to be a carnival side show freak without his permission. It feels wrong.

However, it did get me to think due to this new digital editing technology available to anyone who can cut/paste someone's head on another torso and other such identity changing photo manipulation whether it's now important to get the background on how a photo was created. There's most likely more like this online and no one is the wiser.

Just think if your image went viral and became famous, iconic and it rose in value and curated by museums, what do you think would happen if they found out that person was not a model or actor, not a willing participant whose identity has been distorted into something he didn't give permission, I can tell you there will be far more push back than what you're getting in this forum. We're probably talking lawyers and maybe that person in the image filing a lawsuit for defamation of character.

I mean look in the news on how touchy and hyper aware people are getting on how they're portrayed in a photo or when and how they're being photographed. But yours would be all OK if only you changed the title to something more dignifying for that person in the photo just to cover your *ss. You could call it "Tonal Study No. 1" or "Long Day's Climb Into Night", etc.

Because that was before I knew the person in the image was an unwilling participant and not a model or actor. I did mention I had to read through the entire thread until I found your input on the background of the image.

I didn't understand why several folks posting were hung up on the title. I saw the film noir treatment and immediately was reminded of "Young Frankenstein" and that "Walk This Way" could be an alternative title to keep it in the vein of a photo that was made to entertain or pay homage to the movie industry until I found out that person was relying on that crutch for real as an unsuspecting person being captured on the street whose persona/identity would be changed in order to be used for public display without his permission.

I'll give you an example using my own art I made back in '77 when I was 17. What if I titled it..."Too Old For Anal Probes".

Do you think that old man's relatives would take offense? Of course not because that old man doesn't exist. I made him up out of thin air. I got a first place UIL award for that piece back then.

That and a dime will no longer get you on a subway.

And I suppose it's the artist's job to buy into other people's hyper-awareness.

And here we go again, stereotyping the guy with the crutch. I've asked you about half a dozen times to state why the crutch is what you focus on when saying someone shouldn't be photographed in a manner such as this. Once again, why would it be OK to photograph a non-disabled person like this but not a disabled person? And if it would not be OK to photography ANYONE like this, why do you keep focusing on the man's crutch? You're obsessed with that crutch and the man would probably prefer it be seen more like one of his limbs than like something that someone else would keep defining him by. In your aim to "protect" this man with a disability, you are doing him much more harm than ever the photo could.

Gerry, you make a good point and as I now understand you it might be because the crutch draws attention and distracts the eye that you prefer it not be there. I would probably have made more of the iron gate the man is leaning on. It has a graphic quality and might also catch some highlights that I might have tried to work with, not having the original in front of me, of course, to see whether this could have been workable or not. Then, I think, the crutch would not be the distraction you're finding it, though it might mean a whole different approach to the photo, which I can understanding Alf not wanting to have taken. A crutch, like a cane, a woman's purse, sunglasses worn on top of one's head, jewelry, a hand-held sign, Winston Churchill's pipe, can all add texture to a photo if they are well incorporated rather than simply distracting the eye. These accoutrements all help add character and can help see to it that folks in photos are seen as individuals rather than as generic human beings, which is sometimes desirable.

By the way, I would also hold the door open, out of a sense of accommodation rather than sympathy.

Well the thought did cross my mind that man might use it to beat Alf over the head with it if the subject and/or his family saw that he was being depicted as a "Resident Evil" instead of as a possible Iraq war hero veteran with PTSD. There's that kind of assuming that hasn't been considered.

Frankly I've been wondering how that man would really react to Alf showing him a print of the image and its title.

Keep the glib, unoriginal and obvious comments coming, Fred. I await reading something I didn't already know from you and others.

All I can say in response, Tim, is that I grew up with a father who used canes, crutches, and wheelchairs of all sorts for most of his life. He had a sense of humor so he wasn't the type to go beating people over the head with his canes and crutches. (Interesting that you allow yourself to paint that picture of a guy with a cane but wouldn't want Alf to paint his.) My father also took kindly to folks who treated him as an equal and didn't patronize or try to protect him even as he appreciated being given certain kinds of accommodations to allow him to a live as full a life as everyone around him. He didn't think of himself as different except in the manner that each one of us is unique. And he preferred others not think of him as different or special or a man with a disability. He was just a guy.

Again, you didn't answer my question about what difference the fact that you perceive this guy as disabled makes in terms of not showing him as evil, which tells me you likely have no answer for it or might be uncomfortable with the question. You don't, in fact, want to hear or listen to any new information. I'm asking you those questions to try and get to a new place in this discussion. You keep not going there. It's a fairly crucial question to answer regarding this whole discussion, if one were to want it to be substantive.

Yes, Fred, I meant only that to my mind, and trying to avoid tagging too much of Alf's photo with the discussion on disability . It does appear on inspection as a shiny highlight in the luminosity scale. And I would only have cropped it closer not cloned it out.. But so what. Like Alf perhaps might have wished it were not conspicuous or just not there, but why mess with something or tamper that much. ( and we don't get that choice) in an inner city. Thinking of the neighborhood of Boston where I grew up...another story. Downtown Oakland that I recall a while back and maybe the East Bay Metro even....

Ok, if this to be pursued, I will go for the last word, - I jest of course. Namely this: 'Y'all can come to my Birthday Party." Thinking out loud here- when does discussion become sport? I engage in discussion as recreation so I look in the mirror and ask that guy)

Will stick by my minor critique of POTW, which I find a successful image..

Unless of course I get appropriate compensation to alter or adjust. ( Or go for job here as blue state candidate next election.:-)) gs

"It comes across to me as if you made him out to be a carnival side show freak without his permission. It feels wrong."
Your words Tim, certainly not mine. As previously stated (I now sound like a stuck record) The image was selectively darkened and cropped. How does this make out the character as a "Carnival side show freak" to suggest this is far more defamatory than the simple title I applied. Would the application of the title make him so? I don't think so as it doesn't apply to him on a personal level.
"But yours would be all OK if only you changed the title"
But I won't, because I like it and don't see any reason to. I don't attach any disrespect, intend insult, nor cast any aspersions to the mans character. The title is from a work of fiction, the image is portrayed as a work of fiction, what part of this don't you understand?
"Because that was before I knew the person in the image was an unwilling participant and not a model or actor"
Seems like there was a lot you didn't know before you chose to comment. By simply reading my description and first response to a comment, you would know that I was sympathetic to the guy and that the image was posted as an addition to the spooky season of Halloween, you really didn't need to read the whole thread to discover these facts.
I see you are making assumptions again, he was neither willing nor unwilling, If I asked his permission and he refused, then that could then be accurately described as "unwilling" as the facts are he was simply unknowing, oblivious and rather obviously his attention were elsewhere.

If by any slim chance the image "Went Viral and became famous, iconic and it rose in value and curated by museums!"

Well I guess I'd be rich and famous and be able to afford to pay the legal fees. There is every chance that the guy would want to share in the wealth, maybe he would also get a movie deal, advertising rights and lots of other perks that fame brings. But in any case I'm truly overcome with indifference at the very thought. If all photographers went about their business terrified of some future vague legal implications there would be no creative photography and journalistic photography would be severely muted too. I certainly don't make any considerations as to how "hyper aware" people are about being photographed. Based on experience I have found that unanimously every person I have photographed that has been aware it, have either found it amusing or simply OK. I have never had anyone object.
Incidentally I don't think you pencil drawing actually fits into the "photography" category. Although of course it could be a digital effect. And as a side note anything that relates to age these days can be interpreted as "Ageist" and be more subject to legal repercussions than anything else. Another aspect of your image worthy of note is that because your sketch, / drawing / photograph doesn't identify a real person it doesn't mean it can't be interpreted as derogatory, in this case possibly to a whole age group.! There are countless instances of law suits against cartoonists depicting racism for instance, and of course the characters were not real.

"that person was relying on that crutch for real as an unsuspecting person being captured on the street whose persona/identity would be changed in order to be used for public display without his permission"

I didn't change his identity nor his persona , nor would I want to. It is that very persona and identity that adds authenticity and character to the image. Incidentally every street photograph that shows people that are used for public display (and there are millions) are used without permission. Are you suggesting that people with crutches should be treated differently? Oh yes that crutch again, been there done that, enough said.
"Frankly I've been wondering how that man would really react to Alf showing him a print of the image and its title"
Keep wondering Tim, because the chances are we will never know, but in the meantime try to exercise a little balance, because so far you have convinced yourself at least, that the reaction would be hostile. The reality could be and I stress the word "could" is that the guy reacts in a very humble way and quite likes the notoriety the image might bring. There are in fact a whole host of possible reactions, yet you have only chosen to explore the possible consequences of one and a negative one at that.

"Well the thought did cross my mind that man might use it to beat Alf over the head with it if the subject and/or his family saw that he was being depicted as a "Resident Evil" instead of as a possible Iraq war hero veteran with PTSD. There's that kind of assuming that hasn't been considered."

There is exactly the same possibility that he is a Gangster, a drug dealer or a bare knuckle fighter as an Iraq War Hero, in fact the possibilities are endless, but lets just say as per your suggested consideration that I labelled this guy as a "Iraq War Hero" and he turns out to be a Muslim Freedom Fighter from I S then he really may have cause for "beating me over the head with his cane" as I have totally misrepresented him. I wouldn't consider the title "Iraq war Hero" anyway simply because it would imply that I knew he was just that. Whereas the title of a work of fiction projected as a work of fiction doesn't imply any such thing.
I'm not sure that you posing the same questions over and over again albeit that they are re-phrased to read differently will get you the answers you are looking for. What do you hope to achieve by harping on about the same aspects over and over again in a relentless fashion that borders on persecution?
Can we at least move on and discuss a different aspect of the image?
I don't expect you to agree with me or my decisions, but hey get over it Tim. I mean really, if you haven't grasped the concept of the image and it's title by now I fear you never will.
As it is you seem to be obsessing over just two aspects of this image, the title and the crutch, have you got anything new to add?

Just when I thought Timmy couldn't get any more derogatory, he now refers to the man in Alfs image as a carnival sideshow freak lol ..... I find it hard to believe that after every comment, every explanation, you still don't get it Timmy! You profess to be an intelligent man with talent, again, I find that hard to believe.... Timmy.... grab a dictionary and look up the word FICTION then perhaps you can finally grasp the concept of Alfs excellent POTW image :) You made the very grave mistake of jumping in with both feet and taking the moral high ground over the wrong doing of this man..... which, in actual fact you know nothing of this mans character whatsoever.....like us all!! Hopefully now you have finally grasped it and can appreciate the image for what it is and move on :)

Gerry
Many thanks for your further thoughts and contributions, Initially I chose the square format to crop out features I didn't want, then decided it looked okay, so I can't take any credit for having the foresight to present it this way. But I know what you mean about square formats, they very often do look good and enhance images, I find particularly portraits and street scenes. But I have to admit, it doesn't always jump out at me to crop an image square, probably because I see everything in landscape or lesser so in portrait mode due to my passion for landscape photography.

Great mood, composure and scene, excellent image.