Letter Writer, Wan Chai, Hong Kong 1974

One more lovely shot with such warm, rich colour.

Nicely composed. Congrats Bill!!

This is my favourite picture of yours, and of those that I have seen on Photo.net.

 

It's a wonderful moment in time that you've captured, I certainly feel as though I'm watching through a window.

Wonderful sense of narrative.

 

Love it.

 

10/10

An interesting point is that you could still shoot exactly the same kind of image, today, 27 years later, in many corners of Asia... I love the boldness of the angle... Beautiful picture indeed !

This is a very interesting photo, but one that requires an explanation in order to appreciate it--not that there's necessarily anything wrong with that. Aesthetically, it is a bit too busy for my tastes, and it would help to see the face of the woman in the middle, but, as a record of an event in another culture, it is interesting.

I would have to agree with Marc's remark dated 2-1/2 years ago. In fact, if one would hace access, such scenes are even common in many Chinatowns across the world. That's not to say this picture isn't beautiful. It is.

For anyone over about 35, Kodachrome is the comfort food of film. Who can see this picture and not remember reading National Geographic as a kid, and marveling over the pictures? No wonder that stuff goes for $15 a (5 years expired) roll on Ebay.

I like to mood of the photo. The colours and the lights credit the shot as a distinctive image of the recent past of a colourful culture.

 

But: as other member remarked, I think that the comoposition is not the best that such a moment offerd. The action needs a title to explain it, like some movies need a voice over images to explain things. I think showing the face of the women and the hands and the letter of the writer.

 

I rate it aesthetically 6 and originality (in terms of composition) 5.

 

On the other hand it is a very powerful image and deserves being POW.

 

Congratulations!!!

Hi!

 

Thank God for Kodachrome...

 

It was funny, but when I saw this image, I actually thought of Norman Rockwell. (From me, that's a complement.)

 

Les

I have to agree with others that the composition of the photograph raises a number of questions with no clear answers, especially since I am ignorant of the cultural framework of this frozen moment. For me, however, this adds a great deal to the charm of the image. The questions draw me in and make me care about what this moment may mean to those involved. The technical aspects of the picture add to this inviting sense of mystery, and make this a photo I enjoy very much.

Is it safe to assume that the two women are dictating a letter to this gentleman because they can't write, and he is writing it for them?

 

Quite frankly, without the title, it looks like the man and his wife are signing a contractual agreement -- perhaps to establish a business relationship with the standing woman.

 

I like the colors, though -- they're muted and lush, like I'd expect from a piece of Asian art.

 

I also can't help but ask what these people are doing today, thirty years later...if they are very elderly, or what...dated images always make me ask questions. :)

I don't know if you intended this, but it is a wonderful twist on a Norman Rockwell painting I have of a couple obtaining their marriage license. The composition and overall look is almost identical to the painting, and the differences illustrate the differences between the two cultures. My first reaction was that this photograph was a parody of the Norman Rockwell painting, which I think is called the Marriage License.

Just some culture background. It's very normal for paying a professional "writer" to write and even rephrase a letter for people that can't read and write in old times. Especially for women, who were less educated than men, were in need of this type of help. This was a career when I was a kid in China. The writer in quotation means these writer didn't write novel or column, but letter in this sense. I couldn't image how interesting or meaningful this career is. Very likely, the old woman was asking the "writer" to compose a letter to her sister in her hometown and saying how she missed them. Even though, these letters could be fitted in some standard templates, but everyone's feeling is so diversified and cherishable.

Many thanks for the comments so far. It is an honor and a pleasure, I think, to be

chosen again for POW - I will let you know by the end of the week.

 

My thanks to Mingfei for the background. The one slightly deceiving element in the

photo is that it appears to be a shot of the interior of a room when, in fact, like many

small enterprises in southeast asia, it is an exterior spot on the street - in this case a

small alley.

 

There was no conscious attempt to be Rockwellian, though I was a fan of Norman

Rockwell in my youth. He was quite unfashionable at the time this picture was taken,

however, and I would have been crestfallen to have received that compliment then.

Now, I appreciate the comparison. In fact, in all of my photographs there is never any

time to be deliberative about anything. An interesting subject, composition, lighting

situation, or color scheme presents itself, and I am totally consumed with shutter

speeds, apertures, and camera movement. (Less an issue these days, of course). In

another instant, seeing me there, their concentration was probably broken and the

composition gone. I'm not even sure at the time I took this shot that I knew what

they were doing - perhaps that shows in the ambiguity others have in interpreting the

photo.

Lovely image no doubt. I do find the calendar distracting though and unnecessary unless there was a meaning to it (which, if there is I can't readily understand).

 

I do agree with others that the composition may not necessarily the best the moment could have offered. Good image though and I concur that one can create many interpretations of who these people are and what thery are doing and why are they doing it.

The composition is beautiful.

The calendar's meaning is to indicate the date, and if you could read Chinese, it would be significant to you as a contextualizer.

I was also struck by the responder at the top of this thread that felt the image required an explanation. It seems a lovely image even without the explanation we are readily given. Here are people engaged in some intensely important and personal activity. Traveling in distant lands often presents a person with curiosities because of the traveler's lack of experience. That the specifics are unknowable to the observer of this image, in no way makes it less successful as a photographic window into a mysterious world. A mysterious world perhaps, but an inviting one. It would have set me to wondering, but not requiring an explanation.

I would like to have been there, to acquire the knowing for myself. You are a fortunate man, Mr. Hocker... t

A nice catch. Congratulation on the POW. I live in Hong Kong and couldn't quite place what was peculiar about the image until I relized it was taken long before I got here.

 

These days you'd be hard pressed to find a letter writer on the street. Even in Mongkok where I live. There are still many business's like this around - in fact just today I shot guys rewiring these massive turbines and there shop was so tiny and narrow they just had this massive turbine on the sidewalk while they worked on it. Classic Hong Kong.

 

Just to add to Minfei Gan's information..

 

When Hong Kong was full of factories there were thousands of people that came from the mainland to work in them. Both legal and illegal. Many of these people came from poverty that most people can only imagine. For many came when they were kids and had little or no education so many could not read or write Chinese - or at least very little. As time went on this dificulty was compounded by the differences between written Cantonese and it's traditional characters prevalent in Hong Kong and the Mandarin from the mainland China with it's simplified characters . They worked as hard as one could imagine under dangerous conditions. In Hong Kong it's not too hard to find old women who are missing fingers - having lost them in factory accidents - primarily with placstics injection molding machines or in textile mills.

 

One of the 'tea ladies' at an office where I worked was like this - but as Chinese are known to do they don't grouse around they just get on with life. I helped her carry groceries from the market in Tin Wan most days - much to amusement of all her elderly Chinese friends - though she hardly need my help as she was physcially stronger than most men I know. She had 3 sons that all went on to become Hong Kong police officers. She was very proud of that. She never let me waste so much as a single drop of tea in all the years I worked with her.

 

The people from this generation are really survivors in every sense of the word. This is why many of the older people listen to the radio all the time. Is there a fruit vendors stall or Dap Pai Dong (Chinese style coffee/tea stall on the street) in Hong Kong that doesn't have a little single speaker transistor? I doubt it. For years it's been there only way to stay informed as they couldn't read or write - or if they did it was very little. Hence, the need for letter writers. Sadly, many never made it back to China and many lost all contact with relatives. This is often why you see old people in Hong Kong that are 90 and still work hualing scrap and cardboard everyday. They've got no one to take care of them and social welfare in Hong Kong is very little. So again they just get on with living and surviving.

 

But I digress... even after living in Hong Kong all these years your shot still resonates with me. Congrats.

I love composition and light, the paper on the wall does not create any disturb but characterizes the ambient; it's not important if it's a calendar or a poem...

I think that maybe the image could have been more clear in what they are doing, but at the end we just need three word to understand and it's not always possible to expect that an image can tell everything. Light and composition, with this special ambient, make the photo and at least for me it deserves a 6/6.

I won't stand opposed to those that consider this a fine photo, but I'm finding it tough going to get involved with it. While it has plenty of positive attributes, it lacks emotion and action. The figures are turned away from view, or are blocking one another, or themeselves, so it's hard to see what's going on. Yes, I can see they're concentrated, and serious, and yes, I'm curious, and so on, but after a very brief examination, I see I'm not going to see much more, and so I'm ready to move on. If the foremost figure were absent, or turned differently, maybe it would be more interesting to me, but what I see more than anything is clothing.

 

However, the tones are really nice, and I like how the colors blend together, and the exposure is good, the depth of field, etc, but I think the image is not only too quiet, which is not a bad thing, in fact, making a quiet image is difficult, but it doesn't have a spark, or anything within it that feeds the quietness. The old man alone would be quiet with a spark, or the absence of one of the women, maybe. It is almost like a wax museum display.

 

It's too static. There is nothing to imply action of any kind. Their gestures are static, their expressions, their posture, etc. All too static.

This is a perfect example of individual story told by one photograph only.

It is so meaningfull and rich - one may even say it`s like a drama or a novel. Absolutely related to the best one-shot photos ever made.

IT DOES NOT LACK emotions, in contrary - it gives a subtle suggestion and the rest must be revealed by audience. Only best artworks fulfill this condition. Different aspects can be disscussed: compositon (static), colours, technical quality. Real photography is not necesarily based on this. Congratulations!

Right, well, I didn't say it was bad, just that it has not action, and by that I mean both actual and implied.

 

It's almost as if they were all told to freeze for the picture, only they weren't doing anything to begin with.

I think some images are great "records" of a moment in time, such as this one. I would consider this more journalistic than artistic, and there is nothing wrong with that.

I see some good things going on here. First off, the older gent doing the writing has a first-aid patch above his eye that brings an air of mystery and intrigue to the scene. Did he fall down and that made him think about writing the family will or something of equal importance. He could even be a lawyer who is handling the estate after the father died.

At first I didn?t like the idea of the younger woman showing her back to us, but after giving it some thought I decided that this benefits the final print by keeping the emphasis on the elderly and the event itself. Her being there, looking intently on the going-on?s, can only reassure us that they are doing something of import that involves, or affects, the whole family.

 

At first I couldn?t figure out why I did like the photo if I liked the scene. It wasn?t the break from the conventional framing ratio, since, I like seeing non-static cropping when it helps the subject. Then it dawned on me: the top of the frame is excessive and it detracts from the importance of the photo. I?ve done some minor cropping and contrast adjustment to highlight the figures and the busy table. I also toned down the floor a bit to subdue the trash on it. I wouldn?t want to remove the trash because it adds another angle to the photo by including some of the papers that he has rejected to keep.

What happened to my photo?

 

Let me try again.

Uh, Isidro, we're still waiting.....

oh, there it is. invisible under one URL, but not another.

 

I think your crop is an improvement insofar as this static action problem goes. It reduces the free space, which tightens and intensifies what little action there is.

 

Good job. Problem solved!