Nakazakicho Before Dawn

excellent night work full of atmosphere and technical authority, lighted just right, as a movie set, the way movie sets were once lighted.

"...the way movie sets were once lighted." I like that.

Very film-noir Jack. I like those kind of movies and this kind of shot.

BR,

Holger

Lovely shot. I was debating a possible crop but decided I liked it the way it is.

Hello Jack, I really love the atmosphere in this quiet night shot.

Delicious light and shadows here, Jack.  I love this kind of shot.

 

--Lannie

This urban night scene holds little interest for me. There is a sense of quietness that is indicative of many still, night shots. With the looming foreground pole and distant pin point lights down the road, one does get a sense of depth in the picture. A competent time exposure was made.

But that is not enough for me. The center of interest, the bikes(?) are rather small in the picture. Placed centered in the frame, they give the composition a static feel. Maybe strong local color would have added some interest. A tighter crop might help.

If this location, or the bikes, was special to the photographer, this image might serve as a nice personal memento of the place and time. But, as an outside observer, it serves up nothing special for me.

Jack is a photographer whose body of work, in my opinion, needs to be taken as a whole or at least in groupings. In that respect, I think choosing this photo as a Photo of the Week does Jack's work a disservice, because I think so many of his photos benefit from their overall context and the story that begins to form as I look at a more complete selection of his work. For me, this actually makes his photos stronger and it's worth the time to get to know Jack's work in order to see what he's doing.

Jack tends to find moments of daily life that, when framed, become abstractions of that same daily life. So we often find a staircase, a pipe, and a weed framed together into a kind of living geometry. Things, when divorced from their context and zeroed in upon by Jack's eye, make for visual worlds of their own. Yet they are not complete abstractions, because we can often tell what the individual elements are. So, for me, the most important part of Jack's vision is not composition (though that is certainly a key) but rather framing. It's what the frame provided by a camera can accomplish in transforming an everyday scene.

Here, we have a little more room for narrative and even some symbolism than Jack often offers. It is more of a complete "scene" than his more usual "snippet." I see the wall in the foreground, behind which Jack stands, as Jack not wanting to disturb this scene, as his humbly inviting us into something he's not a part of, the innocent (or so he thinks!) bystander. Whether the two motorcycles are the subject of this photo is ambiguous but, if they are, they are like two lovers almost shielded by the nighttime light with Jack (and us) as the voyeur who can't and won't turn away. No, they are not big in the frame and, no, they are not central. But we find them nonetheless. The single light above is like a halo over the entire scene and the large amount of uncluttered emptiness in the central part of the frame sort of allows for the spirit of the night to overtake the photo. [All of this is, of course, my story, not Jack's. Jack's not a story-teller, IMO. He's a provocateur of the imagination. He finds scenes that are more like seeds for the eye and mind than fully-grown flowers.]

What's interesting here is that what could have really lent itself to a film noir kind of approach, towards a menacing dark street, empty and cold, has a different kind of vitality to me. Jack seems generally to eschew stylistics of all kind, which often means his photos don't "grab" me but the rewards come when I grab them. This scene, in Jack's hands, becomes for me inviting, as if I should start down the road Jack is leading me toward. Its darkness doesn't scare me. It welcomes me. Its shadows are more graceful than haunting. As I come to know Jack's work more and more, I find it has a tenderness and humility and a quiet energy and power. His photos taken together allow them to bounce off each other, reflect each other, deepen each other's reach. It's like learning a language. It isn't done with a single word or a single sentence or even a single story or book. The turn of a visual phrase, which I think can describe Jack's individual photos, makes more sense once a more complete picture is available.

I like the image, but I think it suffers from the overly large frame around it. I find the frame pulls attention away from the picture.

Frames make sense on a wall, but not so much in this sort of context, IMHO.

Fred described my thoughts and impressions perfectly. Jack tells stories, writes songs and poems in photo essay form. Taking a single photo like this out of context is like playing "Name That Tune". Since Jack and I share similar tastes in visual poetry, and I happened to be viewing this photo while listening to Dramarama's "Last Cigarette", I can name this tune in one photo: it's called "Bukowski hasn't slept yet".

It's nice to se the Elves selecting a POTW that is not just another pretty picture, a formulaic image, or one that's been overprocessed to death. More importantly, as Fred and Lex have so eloquently expressed, Jack has earned this recognition.

I have been following Jack's work on PN for a while, and I have noticed that bicycles loom rather large. In all likelihood, they have symbolic value for him, changing with each new scene he photographs. If he has just one more hallmark, it's how he transform mundane human reality into visual stories that cause us to stretch our boundaries. The POTW is no different. It is not just another urban night scene, as Louis seems to imply. It involves a command of Jack's craft when it comes to composition, lighting, tonality, and POV. To me it tells a tale of alienation. The bicycles' being so close to the building appears to represent confusion regarding their purpose - a form of alienation.

Interesting comments, Fred. When I view an image like this I tend to try and think beyond the obvious, what is the photographer trying to get me to understand. What deeper meaning may lie within. I see this a lot in Jacks work and many images are thought provoking and successful on that front.

But as a singular frame, I need help. I sense this scene is important in some way to the photographer but that importance is not reaching me at a level I can connect with. Maybe this would read better as a series, maybe not. In any case I don't have that luxury to triangulate supposed meaning from other work since this is not photographer portfolio of the week or artist oeuvre of the week. The concepts of dominance and subordination, composition and other graphic design parameters are only tools the visual artist uses to communicate. They can be used, often subtly, to clarify the emotional or intellectual intent.

I just don't see that here. I don't see a story unfolding. I see no transformation of the mundane, as Michael expresses. I just see mundane. The photographer could have helped me, the viewer, but chose not to. I conclude with my original point. This scene clearly has some personal meaning to the photographer, perhaps deep, symbolic, insightful meaning. But that meaning remains with him, for it indeed represents, to my eye, confusion of purpose.

True enough, Louis, though that doesn't stop me from looking at a photographer's body of work, particularly if I'm baffled enough by a singular photo that I may want or need some further context or clarification that might come from looking through a portfolio. I do understand that some people prefer not to do that and let each photo that comes through this forum speak for itself. Speaking for myself, I'm ready and willing to look at more.

I wouldn't be surprised to hear otherwise from Jack, though I'd be happy to hear from him directly. I don't suppose his photos are imbued with deep personal meaning or symbolism. I sense he's happy to come across a scene he thinks will make a good visual testament and allow the viewer to do with it what he or she will. This photo, as I said, was a bit unusual for me in that it suggested a little more narrative than I typically get into with Jack's work. And, to be honest, much of that came from your own mention of the bicycles being against the wall and small. And I think Jack would even appreciate that. That our experience of the photo has to do with where our discussion leads us and not just with an isolated personal view of the photo itself. Photography, for me, as much as the stilling of a moment, is something that's alive and I think it can live in and through these kinds of discussions.

 

One of the reasons Jack's work appeals to me as much as it does is because it is so different in many ways from mine. I'm a philosopher by nature and my photos are influenced by a lot of thought and meaning. I think Jack's are less idea-oriented, less instilled with meaning, and more about what's in the frame than what's in his head.

___________________________________________

[Addition: Louis, I'm by no means trying to convince you that you should like this photo. I'm really just interested in sharing thoughts with you as your own thoughts stimulate me. I do not, and I assume Jack would agree, for a minute think his work or my work or your work will be universally liked or appreciated. That's probably a good thing. Otherwise photography would be boringly universally appealing. But I think teasing out the ideas about and reactions to Jack's photo/s or any photo submitted here, regardless of whether we think it's good or not or whether we find personal value in it, can only help deepen our appreciation of photography over all, not to mention each other.]

Agreed, a good image for healthy discussion.

I'm going to say a few words and be done with it. I was rather surprised to find that this picture was selected as POW. It didn't get much response when I first posted it and perhaps doesn't really deserve any special recognition. I liked it well enough but it held no great meaning for me. I certainly would never have put it forth as representative of my work. It was simply a view that caught my fancy as I was playing around with my new tripod very early one morning (around 5 am I think. I'm an early riser). I thought it was interesting enough to upload but then I upload a lot of pictures. It's nice that this was chosen but this one picture tells you almost nothing about the way I photograph; it's like taking one note out of a song. The note certainly has some interest or meaning in itself but it's really in its relationship to the whole that you can perhaps begin to understand how I see the world. I don't have any particular photographic niche but I do have a definite point of view. Long time friends, Fred, Michael and Lex all alluded to this in their comments. Anyway, thanks for the interesting discussion. Best regards, Jack

I agree entirely with Louis' initial impression, and I am relieved that Jack does not feel that it has some transcendental purpose or meaning. I don't much care for the central placement nor the prominent empty foreground. As with many images, prolonged looking can help us to see something in them, and perhaps in this case its very ordinariness makes it something worth photographing. I looked at Jack's portfolio and I agree with him the elves could have picked something more interesting as a stand alone shot for consideration. I look at the photo in isolation, since this is how it is presented to us in this forum. Perhaps there should be a way of considering a whole portfolio, presumably in another forum?

IMO, all that's needed is the will and desire to do so. A newly-named forum doesn't seem necessary to me. When I look at a single photo, I don't need a prompt to seek out the rest of the photographer's work in order to help put the photo into perspective and help make it whole. As a matter of fact, I'd say very few photos would be as meaningful on their own without the body of work of the photographer supporting them. I can't imagine anyone would give Vivian Maier a second look based on only one of her photos. If Cartier Bresson hadn't managed to repeat his uncanny ability to capture a moment throughout a bunch of photos, I doubt we'd know his name today based on only a single moment? I doubt we'd even have paid much attention to the idea of the "decisive moment" if we hadn't had from him as many examples as we did. Sure, one can admire a single photo of Bresson, but without an array of them, there's truly no concept of the decisive moment and so much is lost. Diane Arbus? One photo? I suppose we can interpret Photo of the Week strictly literally and be very limited and restrictive in our approach to each individual photo. But that's going to mean a lot of missed opportunity. I much prefer taking a broader view and getting the most out of the experience.

Thanks for your candid input, Jack. It's understood on this forum that images presented may or may not be the best work of an individual photographer. It's also understood that the photographer has no hand in the selection process. It is part of the reason why I choose to simply take an image at face value instead of drawing inferences, valid or not, from other work.

Someday perhaps we'll expand to a "Series of the WeeK" or "Picture Story of the Week" which I think would be fun. Until then I will continue to respond the the POW as directly, honestly and as thoughtfully as I can to the single image presented. I do not object to others taking a different path. The variety of opinions, experience and collegial atmosphere here make this one of the better forums for the discussion of images on the web.

 

Louis and I clearly take the forum to mean what it says "Photo" of the week, not "photo series of the week, or "portfolio" etc. It seems to me that a good Maier, HCB, or Arbus pic would be perfect for a single shot critique as I am 100% confident they many or most could stand on their own merits. Of course, each can approach critiquing however they like etc. etc.

Louis: "I don't see a story unfolding."

I see that as the whole point? The suspension of time... nothing happening...
Of course Jack wrote there was no great point,... but he did take the photo, and posted it.

Interesting discussion.I was very busy lately, and it was a nice surprise to enter the POW after quite a long time ,and find Jack's work .

 

One of my favorite photographer at the net,that I followfor a long time.

I find that Jack has a special eye to find corners of everyday life, that even photographers with sharp eyes will not pay attention to ...!Let alone his way of titling them, which I find it a poesy- Jack's style.

 

This one I like for two reasons :The corner of the lighted part, vs, the darker long DOF.which has some mystery. Aside from the bikes,the corner has as well more small elements that are interesting to explore.

 

Reading the discussion, I thInk that Jack has many photos that are telling more complicated stories, but this is still a nice one.

 

Congratulation Jack!

hi Jack i just noticed this as PoW ,, its just one of those unique moments in photography i guess. the calm before the storm.. the stillness of the night. being in the right place at the right time. its not just a sense of seeing that we get here from this photo its a sense of feeling. you have put us right there in the moment with you. we can feel the calmness the solitude the slumber of the city. i do like the post in the forground as well it gives us a real feel to the city and seems to bring us in to the void of what is surrounding the bicycles. nice shot Jack. always been a fan of your stuff.

Congrats Jack. I missed this one. I also follow jack's work and as Fred said, his framing is a key element in his images.

Jack, in this picture You are Very close to japonese photography and that is unusual in You. But very good nevertheless.

Regards,

Mário

Very nice, Jack. I don't know what I was doing such that I missed this great shot.

--Lannie