'Balloon Man' -- My First Post Here (Photo, 1969)

This is a great photo. The man himself in contrast to what he represents. Besides the meaning, the composition is very professional.

 

While I have rated 7 on the aesthetics, obviously the upload lacks contrast - it is very flat. It is a great photo and you have to upload this corrected - no dilemma here.

great shot, the balloons made me thought about life of the man, they(balloons) are like his memorabilia(or his past years)

which he should keep them,but totally he is not

(it looks like) very satisfied to do this. REGARDS

I started uploading Feb. 6, was in a hurry to post something of significance, and decided to throw up some old photos from long ago, scanned long ago just to save them, at a time when I knew nothing about scanning and with a poor scanner. I have only the photo original but no available negative, so PhotoShop is going to get a workout plus my new Epson Expression 1640 Graphic Arts XL Scanner. This and the other B&W photos will be rescanned and reposted, cleaned up and hopefully much improved technically. (The neg's been destroyed, regrettably).

Please continue to post your old things ...

New photos are also very interesting ...

Well you're on my list of interesting people :-)

Thank you for sharing

Merci

Respectueusement

This is a new scan. If you have previously viewed this photo the old scan may be stored in your browser cache and to view the new scan you may have to refresh your browser. More work will be done on this image in the future. Enjoy! John.

Your forum post brought me to your portfolio and I'm very glad to have discovered it. You have excellent, unique photos in it. Congrats and waiting for more...

The expression you've captured here in particular, is extraordinary indeed. IMO too, this is one of your best shots so far. The positioning of the man, the scenery, in fact the composition as a whole is felicitous. Very well done. Submit it for critique. It's going to be an instant winner! Cheers

I, too, saw this in your forum post, and was led to your folder. What a great moment you captured; his expression is the very antithesis of the wares he holds. Can you imagine children being inspired to approach him for a balloon?: )

 

Great composition; I'm greeted by these symbols of happiness as the balloons fill the picture, but there in the corner--! What a face!

As you know John, I am avid follower of the classic photographers and their work. I probably have at least on one book on each of them...Henri Cartier-Bresson, Paul Strand, Elliott Erwitt, Robert Doisneau, and so on. So, I can say with some authority that this photograph ranks right up there with the best of the best. Great stuff. I hope someday I can buy a book on your work. Regards, Doug.

I am so overwhelmed by the comparisons you have made -- they are the single most meaningful comparisons made to date on Photo.net or anywhere else about my photography by anybody whose opinion means anything to me, that I cannot express my thankfulness enough for your expression, and the profoundness and place of knowledge from which I know they come. Know anybody at the Louvre, like a photo curator, or does H-C Bresson's estate have a lock on that? With great humility J.

beautiful.. my favorite of yours so far.

Balaji, thanks for the fine compliment. But perhaps you should look no further. For me, I think, this is about as good as it gets or probably ever will get. (See comment of Doug Hawks above). This for me is a once in a lifetime image. There will be others and have been other once-in-a-lifetime images, but I can't imagine ever taking such a wonderful and wondrous image again. I haven't posted it for critique, but if I had to choose an image that represents the best of my best, this is it -- same to the many who have browsed my portfolio (and the portfolios of its few high raters including the controversial but dedicated *[*Z who have stopped to view this image and/or remark). Thank you all so much, again.

 

J

no further, huh? :D no in all honesty and seriousness, you do have some very nice stuff in here... this one, the passerby in SFO, the no checks shots are some of my favs..

What I meant . . . and I think you understand . . . is that this photo has never been submitted for rating to date because I never needed to be told whether it was good or bad.

I knew it from the instant before I pressed the shutter.

(Actually I took the same photo, a variant, in color on a Mamiyaflex 220, and it was not good at all -- the balloons were multi-colored and that detracted, and the square frame also detracted from the composition (that transparency now is unavailable).

So, what I was suggesting is that I am not really hopeful of ever achieving such an image (the "decisive moment") again in such a magical way as I feel this photo exemplifies to me personally (and this is very personal to me, as it sat unshown and undisplayed for a veeerrrry long time, never was shown to anyone at all, and Photo.net is its first publishing.) You have taken hundreds of B&W images memorializing Your Fair City with enormous success and wondrous results, and I have literally sat for decades on my various cameras and lenses, not even taking a snapshot for over a decade at a time, to my best memory, occasionally hauling them out, just to prove a point to myself (or friends) that I still had some talent, and replete with knowledge that "at one time" I did.

But I did see Henri Cartier-Bresson's huge traveling exhibition when it stopped in San Francisco after I took this image, and frankly it was soooo wondrous and his books so wondrous that I despaired of ever being "great" at photography and was greatly discouraged.

When AP which "hired" me as a photographer gave me a chance "first" to write, I took it, and the photographer's slot which was mine to take for the asking, just slipped out of my life.

I am HUGELY flattered that you have stopped by and commented again on my other images.

People may not recognize it, but my color images -- many of them -- are just B&W with color. Henri Cartier-Bresson actually also took color, but in his prime, it was rudimentary, and he was not its master, or very comfortable with it, given his established style. Still his color images were memorable, however ill-preserved they were with early dies, etc.

 

J

John, many others with much better credentials have said this already, but I just wanted to chime in! Fantastic, fantastic shot..

Lee Park and others. Flattery and comments about This Photo are especially welcome. They will get you particularly noticed. You don't have to be an expert to appreciate this photo. J.

Contrasts save the man from being flat compared to the smily balloons. Interesting balance between B&W.

Thank you Jacques for your observation . . . but then isn't contrasts just completely what this photo is all about?

 

John.

This photo has never been submitted for critique; perhaps because it had my validation from before I pressed the shutter (unlike some of my well-viewed and well-received images, including my most-viewed image which had been regarded as 'trite' in its time and unpublishable), and I only prayed the film would not be spoiled during processing. Who needs a critique forum when you're lucky enough to catch an image like this?

Happy New Year, John! :-) Blago

That is simply wonderful!

 

What a great idea.

 

You have such a fertile mind. Thank you.

 

Yours,

 

;-))

 

John

Thank you to all the high raters -- those who gave this -- my happiest and most fortuitous photo -- the wonderful, high ratings, and thereby a place in your 'highest ratings' gallery.

 

By rating it and placing it with a 6/6, 6/7 (or reverse) or a 7/7, it went to your highest rated folder gallery and from there, people have been able to 'view' it, and even click through to this black and white gallery.

 

As the 'clicks' and 'views' approach 20,000 on this photo without its ever having been posted for critique and as it's presently my photo with highest ratings (deservedly so), I want to thank all those who have taken the trouble to rate it and also those who have taken the trouble to 'click through' from others' highest rated galleries for a peek at the full-size version of this photo and maybe in the process take a peek at my other photos in this 'Early Black and White' folder and also other photos in my various folders.

 

Thank you again.

 

John (Crosley)

This is a wonderful photograph, John, and you know it. I think I'm right in saying you consider this photograph to be your best, I think I do too though it is difficult to choose from such a formiddable body of work.

Firstly, and most importantly, it is a great composition. Secondly, I love the contrast between the smiles on the balloons and the opposite on his face. Thirdly, it has that elusive timeless quality. It reminds me a little of the classic Lee Miller photo of David E. Scherman. Fine, world class work! 7/7

Of course, I knew it when I took it that it was and would remain 'world class' and timeless, at least in black and white -- but color of the same man and scene was a total failure or at least not worth viewing or keeping -- it's the composition, the B&W and the contrasts.

 

I'd be interested in a link to Lee Miller's David Scherman photo as I am not familiar with his work. I'd be more than thrilled to see others' work with whom mine is compared. My critic Doug Hawks thinks that my photo of the Tijuana girl with the auto tire and no shoes on the banks of the Tijuana River is the most important photo on Photo.net, and for 'social comment' it certainly is one of my most important photos (the time is long past when that scene will happen in Tijuana, thankfully, as she may have been drowned by that river, as my photo was never published and the Mexicans required hundreds of deaths to ban slums from the riverbeds.

 

I've never met anybody, however, who expressed a ho-hum attitude about this photo after really looking at it and seeing the Mickey Mouth smiles on the balloons. (The man's look probably expresses his displeasure at being photographed, but who knows if he even saw me, as I used a telephoto lens -- either a 135 or a 200 mm lens, I'm trying to remember and will recall, I'm sure.)

 

It doesn't take a Nikon F5 or F6 with auto everything to take such a photo, either, because that particular day, I think I recall, although I had better cameras available, I was working with a rather rudimentary but serviceable 35 mm outfit.

 

Thanks for the nice comment. Your comments so far are spot on. and I'm very grateful.

 

John

Lee Miller was a lady (very beautiful too) and partner of Man Ray and they were both very important in the development of photography as a surrealist art. They pioneered the solarising tecnique. Look here.

I didn't recognize the name -- Lee Miller -- but certainly remember the face -- both as photo assistant, famous photographer's lover, famous photographer herself, and world class model without regard to whom she did or didn't sleep with -- simply one of the most beautiful women ever to grace a lens and of course the solarization process is owed to her and, I believe, a mistake she made (did she do ANYTHING wrong?)

 

I need an assistant like her.

 

Can you spare anyone? -- I have an idea in particular;-))

 

John