Sweat Shop Girl

This photo just grabbed me. I love the story behind it. The best photos out there tell a story or make you want to KNOW the story behind it. THis one does both for me. Thank you for sharing your work, I'm enthralled.

Signed a local Santa Cruz wanna be photographer :)

The success of this photo was a surprise to me, but probably shouldn't have been.

There is some popularity on Photo.net for images in which there is more than one 'plane' of interest -- e.g. a foreground image and a supplementary background image.

You might look at the images of Miles Morgan, a fellow devotee of pioneer 'surreal photographer' Henri Cartier-Bresson, for a good modern-day sense of how to compose such photos. I met Miles in Bangkok where I went regarding the tsunami, and introduced him to Photo.net, and felt he would be successful here (as he has been, tremendously) because his images almost always tell a story, and catch lively, telling moments, plus they almost all are multi-plane imagees.

Some of my images also are in a similar vein, but as you may have noticed I take a huge variety of styles, all held together mainly by design elements.

(Of course, go to the Magnum photo agency web site and sift through the book images of Henri Cartier-Bresson, then go to Borders downtown and pick up a copy of 'Snaps' by Elliott Erwitt, a C-B compatriot, but who had a huge sense of humor, to boot.

To sum up my 'technique' as I've finally distilled it, I just point my camera and lens combination at whatever appears interesting to me or that I think I can capture in an interesting and/or aesthetically pleasing manner.

Then I try to cram all the interesting stuff into the viewfinder, somehow move (or let it move) until it's all arranged in a pleasing manner, then press the shutter release (or just press a number of times and choose the capture that matches the above criteria.)

That's why I have so many, many different 'styles' and am so hard to 'typecast' I think.

It's because in part I'm just tremendously intereted in things and different viewpoints, honed by years of looking at good photography, even if I didn't take photographs seriously for nearly 30 years.

But this photo was taken by me, a then-neophyte photographer and I took some of my best stuff when I had only recently picked up a camera. I reognized that it was valuable (to me) but had nowhere to show it; Associated Press which hired me as a photographer, but turned me into a writer promptly, had little use for such images, and they weren't 'stock photo' stuff, and I had two stock agencies that repped some of my work then.

(I attribute my 'talent' then to a youth spent looking at 'Life', 'Look', 'National Geographic', etc., and other photo magazines of the day, which featured the world's best photography - I think I picked up much by osmosis and didn't realize that until about five months ago, thinking before that my 'abilities' were completely 'naiive' and 'native' up to that point.

There is a lesson in that: Keep looking at photos, in magazines, books, exhibits, web sites, etc., and you'll start to absorb the makings of good photography, I think.

My work, especially earlier work, represents a dearth of lenses (50 mm, 28 mm and 135 mm -- with a 2x tele-extender, was what I had originally). But the original photos were 50 mm and a very cheap 135 mm in which I had manually to 'stop it down' to compose, and couldn't see the image with full brightness (the iris did not 'automatically' stop down at time of shutter release).

Even today I have a huge range of zoom AND prime (fixed length) lenses, but tend to use just a few, just as I have a huge selection of cameras (and lenses), but most are never used and are 'mint' including the Leicas that are available to me. (But I hate rangefinder viewing, and in fact most rangefinder 'shooters' tend not to focus but to 'prefocus' and use a large 'depth of field' to compensate for decrease ability to focus 'on the fly', essentially not 'focusing' at all, but by pointing and knowing that in sunlight at least, all would be in focus.

There you have it; more than you ever wanted to know (at least at present), but maybe this will have some meaning later on, so you might want to remember or mark this comment.

Best wishes -- look for me downtown some days -- I ALWAYS have a camera, I'm older and pretty large. And if something is happening that might make a photograph, you'll see this lame, older guy move pretty damn fast, getting out there to get that photo.

John (Crosley)

Thank you for taking the time to type up such a lengthy, well thout out and informative response, I appreciate that. It's stuff like that which makes being a participant on this site worthwhile, rather than the annoying, anonymous ratings system! I prefer words to numbers. Thank You. I'd behonored if you could ever find the tim eto check out my portfolio and give me feedback on any pictures you found decent and/or any you find terrible. Constructive criticism is always welcome. Thanks! Pascale

p.s. I'm frequently downtown as well, however, i'm lugging around my two babies and have no extra hands for my camera. I do alot of shoots at the beaches and henry cowell though :) we live in a SUPER place!

I love it when you pass by Frederic. I'm East of you at the present and more than a week before I pass north of you, but I am always aware of your presence, whenever there's a wide angle shot to be made on the street -- you are a master.

Thanks for rating (I haven't looked yet; never do before writing -- keeps me honest).

John (Crosley)

(Can you believe this reply is the 29th comment on this photo?)

Addendum: I just peeked, thanks for the high accolade: I hope my photo is worthy.

John