Drive Thru! (The Dilemma!)@-j-c-n

The weather was at freezing and light was before dawn as this old,

handicapped woman wrestled with her walker and the dilemma of what

to do with the early-morning Drive-Thru at McDonald's, Yreka,

California. Your ratings and critiques are very welcome. (If you

rate harshly or very negatively, please submit a helpful and

constructive criticism/please share your superior knowledge to help

improve my photography) (Can you also rate or comment on dark

humor?) Thanks. Enjoy! John (Crosley)

This looks awfully photoshopped, even tough it is written "no" on the "Manipulated or not" question.

Hmmmmm, great social commentary (or if it was unintended, then great unintended social commentary) but I think that I would have preferred it with the foreground in focus and the background managing as best it could with a shallowish DOF.

 

The logical argument goes something like this for me: the 'topic' that I see in this photograph is the relationship of the woman (who is clearly not able to drive anywhere) to the drive-thru culture of what I can only assume is somewhere in America.

 

So it's really a question of our relationship to this car-culture that is being called in to question by your photograph. So the 'focus' (if you'll pardon the pun) is the human component and that's what needed to be in focus (I say this even though the *meaning* of the shot is still communicated very well).

 

I think that you could have gotten away with the short DOF and focus on the woman because the "drive thru" would probably still be legible even if it were blurred from bokeh. This would also handily deal with the fact that the background behind the sign isn't all that interesting.

 

Of course, a tripod would have allowed you to capture it all... but by the time you'd gotten it all set up you'd probably have missed this shot so I feel that you've done the best you could with the time available.

 

So to summarise -- I think that this is a great 'catch' and a rare example of social commentary on photo.net, but that a slightly different setup could have delivered a truly great picture instead of just a very good one.

I followed this woman with a zoom telephoto and it was either the sign or the woman in focus. If the woman was in focus, the sign was UNREADABLE, and the shot would have lost its meaning. I had seconds (or less) to make the shot, and this is what I could do. I made wider angle shots, for a more desolate feel, but they won't display well on Photo.net, though would do well in a magazine setting -- as there is much asphalt between woman and sign - and in those both are 'in focus'.

 

And, of course, with me, the social commentary was absolutely intended. Otherwise, why would I display such a photo? I'm afraid some raters, however, didn't get it.

 

Keep in mind the restrictions -- this photo was taken in the cold, misty predawn in the area of Mt. Shasta next to Interstate 5. With the telephoto lens (which allowed to bring the subject and the sign in juxtaposition), the only choice was one or the other being blurry. Of course a tripod or monopod was out of the question. (she moved pretty quickly for a woman with a walker). And she moved away from the sign, and in a second, the shot was impossible, even if I changed position, and tried for a different juxtaposition view as she was off into another parking lot entirely.

 

Thanks for the critiques and the thoughts. John

This image is NOT Photoshopped. The appearance may be there, but I don't usually Photoshop all but the most important images which need saving for technical reasons (failures of sharpness, etc). I DO use contrast adjustment for the whole image for digital shots and sometimes color adjustments, for same, just as a large photo processing machine would automatically adjust the same for a color print it made from your color negative you sent for printing. The sign 'pops' because it is internally lighted and it's bright, considering the predawn mist. John

Part of the blur of this subject is 'motion blur' which part you can discern by viewing the sharpness of the asphalt beneath her feet. It was a very slow exposure speed. She was 'moving'! John

Another classy juxtaposition, John. This time it's sad - due to our interpretation which will be mainly from the cars-as-necessties mind frame. This sadness is deepened by the atmosphere of desolation (weather and absence of others, vehicles and so on.)

Strange but I have a feeling that the shallow dof might not be as much of an issue in mono.

In any event, evoked empathy and loneliness in this viewer.

That M sign looks like bunny ears to me right now!

A little cruel, John. Of course, I'm not going to blame you for putting the lady together with that screaming for attention McDonald's sign. On the contrary, I like "as is" photos. The bitter irony is that, maybe, the lady (how could I know she's an old one?) is recovering from an injury received in some drive-thru accident. The light is perfect. You've almost taken a B/W+ color image! The visual impact is killing. Regards. Blago

i like the coldness shown here both metaphorically and via split use of colour and b/w achieved nicely without manipulation. i also like the concept of clash of big commerce vs the little guy. however, this shot is like a prelude to a series of social commentary but am left hanging with just one shot. fwiw think a bit of distance from teh scene giving more emptyness might work well here too - is it a crop?

 

feel like spending some more time around the drive thro' for an interesting presentation john?

 

ps just noticed, you mention you do have wider angle ... but feel it wouldnt work well here ... care to show and tell?

Where in the heck is she going? Is that her truck over in the distance? Is she with you and you made her walk that far just for an egg mcmuffin?

 

I like her placement in frame with the cracking asphalt causing a line which leads the eye up to curb to the tree to the sign which has the arrow left and back to her pony tail. It all works.

 

Dont know much about the social commentary but the oxymoron in good.

 

 

It's Thanksgiving here in America.

I am very attuned to life's cruelties.

Just drove 18 hours nonstop to see my stepdaughter (depicted hereabouts) to take her to Thanksgiving dinner, and her mother tells me now I can't see her.

And I full well knew she would do that at the last minute when I started out, 18 hours ago, but I left and continued driving, because the young girl had to know somebody cared enough about her to drive those 18 hours based on keeping a promise. . . .

Life is full of cruelties and ironies . . . and I see the juxtapositions as a matter of course . . . it's second nature to me . . . as I've lived a life full of them and will continue to . . . I'm finely tuned to life's little (and big) ironies, but I'm also capable of ignoring them . . . and continue to look on life's bright side.

He-Man Swanson Turkey Dinner Anyone?

After posting on Photo.net for a while, you get an idea of what will work posting in thumbnail and what will not, and I knew that posting a desolate larger image with oodles of gray asphalt would not post and present well.

 

Yes, I have such an image or two, and may post them in this commentary column at a later time. I've got my hands full right now, trying to choose a motel and figuring what to do with Thanksgiving in a strange city alone . . . and may soon have very much time on my hands with my five hard drives to go searching for that image. If I can find it and things don't change, it may get posted sooner than later. Probably it'll get posted here anyway, as I think it also is worthy.

 

Moreover, there's a completely different photo, involving this same lady leaving McDonald's with a large image in the exit/entrance door -- a cutout from "The Incredibles" -- a giant hulking figure -- which looks like he's expelling her (instead of advertising a movie -- another juxtaposition, but this time a false juxtaposition. I felt like altering the little speech balloon which said "expect the incredible" or some such to say ". . . AND STAY OUT" for my first manipulated photo posting.

 

I may just do that.

 

. . . if I feel puckish.

 

(I'm not particularly anti-McDonald's, until I see all those hugely obese young Hispanic kids in nearby Watsonville who celebrate American prosperity by eating supersize fries and burgers with shakes and apple pies, and remember that McDonald's fought to replace nutritious school lunches with their hamburgers and fries, and other chains -- fat-laden pizzas for our schoochildren. Is it any wonder everybody's so fat and the latest medical procedure of choice is the stomach stapling?

 

(I don't eat the fries, and just eat the meat and half my bread, no sauces, etc., cooked to order. In some parts of Eastern Europe, sometimes McDonald's is the best food in town, VERY fresh and freshly cooked.

 

Thanks for 'seeing' so much in my photo. Of course it was there, but I didn't 'explain' it to myself -- and you helped open my eyes.

 

John

if McDonalds fought to have hamburgers in the school lunch menu then they won. However, its not their burgers being fed to the children. I think mcdonalds burgers are actually healthier than what is being fed to the children. At least at mcdonalds the meat looks like meat and has some similarities towards meat. I wont even start on the sugar content. The kids cant have butter or gravy for their instant mashed potatoes because fat isnt good...but sugar thats another thing. Yreka, thats on the coast, yes? Drive a little further to Brookings.

I've been blamed for lots of things (usually wrongly), and learned it's my cross in life, and like Charlie Brown, I keep kicking that old football that Lucy holds. But I don't send old ladies in walkers hot-footing across broken asphalt at 6:00 a.m. in the freezing cold just for a juxtaposition photo Besides, I don't 'pose' my 'street' photos -- no need, true life is much more interesting than my imagination.

 

This woman disappeared across a parking lot of an adjacent shopping center, probably headed to a nearby mobile home park if I get my signals correct.

 

And no, this woman was not 'with me' -- I don't hang around Yreka, California -- it just figures in my photos because it's a place where buses stop (and interesting passengers alight) when I'm traveling to or through your fair (actually very rainy) state. I call the buses the prisoners and welfare express, based on the passenger load, but Greyhound has cut the schedule drastically and stopped late-night rest stops, so my photo oppportunities from late-night Greyhound bus rest stops are now eliminated.

 

But I seem to find good (or interesting at least)photos wherever I go! (My cardinal rule: always carry a camera, loaded and prefocused--no exceptions).

 

About the crack -- interesting observation and right on, and continues into the tree including branches . . . !

but regrettably Yreka is on Interstate - 5, not US 101 and nowhere near the coast. You're thinking about "Eureka" which looks and sounds similar and is the subject of much confusion. And I know Brookings and nearby communities -- I was there on a recent trip, at night (hence no photos). I went through Yreka again this a.m. and early and am in Seattle trying to resolve a thorny visitation problem -- the momma has brain cancer and doesn't reason too well.

Your speculation about the lady (yes, she's old -- she's got a walker for gosh sakes) and how she may have become lame and halt, made me smile. I needed that. Thanks. John

Hallo John.

This is extraordinary for me. It should be taken as an abstract extract of modern society. High speed nourishment for high speed people in a high speed supercolored society contraposed by one left aside. The woman walking another direction, not the way pointed out by the arrow, but along the cracked line as another commentator already noticed. That one is far beyond humour or irony, that one is touching real live.

 

Alexander

The extruded golden arches suggest speed, but no speed records are going to be broken by our main subject here.

This has got to be an action shot. I swear that she looks to be almost levitating...

Pete, she really does seem to be taking off now you mention it -- perhaps those 4 legs are really jets and she's about to fly through/ thru.

What really was amazing was that this woman truly moved quickly despite her 'walker'. From the moment she worked her way clumsily through the exit door of McDonad's, Yreka, to the time she exited the parking lot, distant right and traversed the far parking lot, it was not a long time, as this woman truly was 'hot-footing it' along, and there even is 'motion blur' I think from her moving her walker in this slow exposure. I marveled at her speed, despite the indications of infirmity and struggled to 'frame' her, because she didn't allow me time to compose. John

John, this is yet another example of your sensitivity to the theater of the absurd that gets played out before us on a daily basis. I take mild issue with the earlier comment that characterizes this as a "capture". Being a street photographer (and hopefully not an erstwhile one), the term rings false because any street photographer worth his or her salt will tell you that each image (well at least 98% of them) are acts of intention and visualization. The only variable is how close the actual shot comes to achieving that visualization. My guess is that, in the larger context of your work, this one comes pretty close to the visualization. The juxtaposition is brilliant in an Erwitt vein. Well done.

I didn't acknowledge another of your wonderful comments. You surely are one of the most able photo critics on Photo.net. Are you in training for (or perhaps teaching) art and/or photo criticism. I never did learn what you do for a living, but you have tremendous abilities not only with a camera but also with words. Photo.net is a true meritocracy (unless you're a mate-rater, which no one is with me), and in my analysis, 'the cream rises to the top'.

 

Somehow the top commentators seem drawn to my images, (even though not so many viewers seem to be), and with analyses such as yours, I truly am rewarded. Your explication of the 'meaning' of this photo draws on my ideas (and I truly did in my subconscious 'think it out' but only subliminally), as critic 'Pogue Mahone' notes above, -- which is to say I subliminally 'visualized' it, then 'made it happen, through the use of a zoom telephoto lens,and changing my positioning to draw the woman and the sign into juxtaposition. (both close juxtaposition, and more remote juxtaposition for another, unpublished photo).

 

And as I remember, I even took into account the crack and the tree branches, but it all happened in a flash, and your (and others') criticisms remind me of that almost entirely subliminal process; it is pretty amazing to me that you all should see, and be able to reconstruct from an image, my almost hidden thought processes that happen in an instant just before I presss that shutter.

Whenever I post such an image, I am aware of your subliminal presence and the high standards I know you fight for on Photo.net. (Of course I post for myself many types of images, but somehow I am drawn to your purism, perhaps like a moth to the flame -- something about you inspires me -- maybe it's the anger you feel for your art (and the brilliance I have seen in the few images you have recently displayed.)

 

You are right, this is an example of the 'theatre of the absurd', which, in another post elsewhere, I slightly beg to differ with you.

 

Yes, the world is the 'theatre of the absurd', but I am mostly there with my camera to record it.

 

Yes, I help it out by visualizing it -- but that only helps preserve images that somehow others passed by -- and I help resurrect another viewpoint that didn't always appear to me naturally -- through the use of a zoom lens or repositioning myself, etc.

 

And you are right, this is not a 'capture' in the true sense of that word -- but the member who used that word surely was not parsing words I am sure, or expecting the word 'capture' to be parsed.

 

You are exactly right, this image is one of both intention and visualization and the visualization occured from the time before the woman exited from the restaurant rear door (with the huge image from a cartoon movie on it from 'The Incredibles' which is the subject of another wonderful photograph (not yet published), until she hot-footed it across the broken asphalt here, as I took a short series of shots (over the objections of my D-70).

 

To satisfy your curiosity, except for the issue of the focus on her body and feet, the visualization in this image was nearly 100% of what I hoped for, and as to the clarity of the sign --- its 'pop' --- it exceeded my expectations entirely, especially as the rest of the scene almost came out in B&W.

 

In that sense, the scene exceeded my expectations. I would have preferred the sign to the right, just slightly.

 

I took this particular photo exactly for posting on PN critique forum, as my first choice was to take a more bleak photo, with a larger foreground -- much more empty. But such photos do not do well on PN, and images that 'fill the frame' do better in a thumbnail-first post, as here.

 

If it came to a museum post, I'd have to think about which one to display.

 

Your presence keeps me on my toes -- I know you're out there lurking.

 

Thank you for the ultimate compliment -- a comparison to the Master - Elliott Erwitt.

 

Respectfully (submitted) ;~),

 

John

 

Moments before I made the posted capture, this woman emerged from breakfast at McDonald's in Yreka, CA., before she headed for home (or wherever) in this frame.

The post appended above, is my first attempt to use this halting woman as a subject.

 

I hope you like it. The full frame version can be seen in my Travelogue II folder, presently, somewhere in the top 1,000 folders, but containing what I consider my 'lesser' work.

 

John