'God's Custodian Accidentally Pulls the Wrong Plug And . . . . . '

In the famous book 'Slaughterhouse Five' author Kurt Vonnegut wrote

how his fictitious outer-space Thralfamadorians would destroy the

universe. 'A Tralfamadorian test pilot presses a starter button, and the

whole Universe disappears' (and so it goes). ('He Always Does and It

Always Will Disappear) (paraphrased)

Here, it appears this person, left, assumes the role of God's custodian

and this time Earth is the mistaken target - victim perhaps of a wrongly

pulled electrical plug or switch? (and so it goes.)

 

Your ratings and critiques are invited and most welcome. If you rate

harshly or very critically or just wish to contribute, please submit a

helpful and constructive comment, please share your photographic (or

literary) knowledge to help improve my photography. Thanks! Enjoy! ;~))

John

You take an 'interesting' (you hope) photo, in search of a story, on the chance one will occur to you.

 

That's what happened here.

 

Somewhere in the back of my mind was Kurt Vonnegut's Thralfamadorian Test Pilot, destroying the Universe, and when I snapped this it occurred to me, but how I would work that into a posted photo almost was beyond me.

 

However, when I saw this in my downloads from yesterday, I was convinced it had to be shown.

 

There is some substantial enhancement of contrast and increased brightness of the very washed out and backlighted poster -- to keep it within acceptable Exposure Values instead of barely visible - resulting in it's not appearing as it was when I walked by with my companion.

 

I marked it 'not manipulated' but you may consider it 'manipulated' or not, as you prefer, after learning that.

 

Whether you like it or not, I do.

 

For me, that's what counts most.

 

But I hope you do too, because I like to share AND to entertain with my photography.

 

After all, why take and post boring photos if you can help it?

 

Maybe there should be a category for 'whimsy'.

 

;~)))

 

John (Crosley)

Unless you explain your thought behind the pictures ( for this photo especially), it is hard to conceive the title and purpose of taking the photo.But looking to your photo with your thought-process, it beomes much easier to understand.This is my honest confession about couple of your recently-posted photos which I keep tracking,though not critiqued.

It may be my lack of knowledge or lack of my studies about the various cultures,customs,rituals of the people of different geographic area of the world,especially the western world.

That is why I love reading the prelude of your photos.That is quite an interesting part for me and I admire you for that.You are among a very few members of PN,who incorporates the backdrop of the image.I try in my photos to include,but unfortunately had received a negligible comments on those.

I know that image should speak itself for the story,nonetheless,we cannot ignore the photographer's own comment for the photo! I personally feel it makes the photo ' more interesting'.

What's your view?

Warm regards.

 

Susmit

 

 

the title made it a fine one.

There are two equally valid views in my opinion - one being slightly more valid than the other.

 

The first is that each photo should stand on its own as a photo. Look within the four lines of the frame and that is what you consider - nothing else and anything else is surplusage and 'crap'.

 

The other is that a photo may be part of a narrative and part of its worth may depend on a caption, story or other literary context.

 

If a photo is presented in a context in which it is offered for presentation as 'photography only' then it had best 'stand alone' for no one is going to tap the viewer on the shoulder and tell the viewer 'this is what it means' unless the photographer has had books, articles or reviews written about him and his/her work.

 

There is a photographer, now prominent, who recently reached galleries with his novel method of photography.

 

He took photos that included the sun, not with negatives in his view camera, but with actual photo paper with such long exposures and the lens so focused that oft times smoke came from the paper actually burning, then displayed the paper as photograph.

 

His work made it into a prominent LA gallery,was well reviewed by the LA Times Photo critic and apparently into museums and also sold well, I understand.

 

His work stood on its own and did not need the 'tale'

 

But the 'tale' certainly helped.

 

It was pretty good, interesting and ethereal photography (and of course very different),

 

Can you imagine him, an aging hippie by his photo, toking a joint while smoke came out of his large view camera aimed at the Golden Gate Bridge? (Toking = smoking when one smokes marijuana).

 

Certain portraits stand 'on their own' but others need contextual information to make them worthwhile. It even was that way in the study of Renaissance commissioned paintings, say of a wedding.

 

Things depicted had symbolism but no text to explain, so 'art historians' took up the slack and interpreted for us.

 

I do that for my own work.

 

Cartier-Bresson generally said nothing until he became a photo journalist then he wrote huge and precise captions. But he did not seek to 'interpret his own work 'in print' at least. It seldom needed it. That boy in Seville who was looking upward so mysteriously, eyes skyward? Looking for a ball tossed upward. We only learn that later through historical tales.

 

Perhaps there are subjects or objects in the photo or foreground or background that have significance but the significance needs to be explained to most or it otherwise is worthless.

 

Or even the subject's importance, worth, or significance needs to be explained (first woman to fly solo around the world would be a good example, if she were not well known, especially). (Reno Air Race Winner) (Owner who taught dog to 'talk')(Famous Child Film Star, turned super-wealthy, super-secret, seldom photographed investor, 40 years later, fat and balding), etc.

 

From the text of a magazine article, say in National Geographic or the former 'Life magazine or its French counterparts to the National Enquirer, sometimes photos make or break a story and almost always help make a story more readable and almost always help 'explain' visually otherwise indescribable things. (a photo really is sometimes worth a thousand words).

 

A caption (the text I use or a newspaper or wire service uses to introduce a photo, is its cry 'look at me', 'view me' 'or I'll end up as dead pixels or on your bird cage floor unviewed.'

 

A caption can be very important, and I made my living briefly writing captions that caught attention but were factual always and never tawdry. It's an art form, but one easily learned.

 

But sometimes it can surpass, as here.

 

A proper caption can make an otherwise unexplainable and mysterious photo into something 'real' and almost tangible - something that the viewer can wrap one's ideas around.

 

And still leave room for imagination.

 

I hope I have accomplished that.

 

I feel in my bones I have done so, but who knows; this is Photo.net?

 

With many photos I take, especially landscapes, where 'aesthetics means only 'beauty' then there is no such consideration. One looks to the four corners of the frame, and the same in most scenics and landscapes and many other representational genres as well.

 

But I deal often in ideas and 'stories'.

 

Some of my photos that tell stories need no caption or story they are so clear cut.

 

Others that are significant even do need a story/caption to explain them.

 

For instance my first photo was published in the NY Times the day of the Bobby Kennedy assassination, and I had walked into a street memorial in Spanish Harlem.

 

I photographed hands reaching out to a cross bearing a heart and photos of Bobby Kennedy, the words 'heard of the barrio' in Spanish and a photo of his slain, President brother, Jack Kennedy below.'

 

It was not obvious it was taken in a Puerto Rican slum in NYC, so the caption had to say that.

 

My photo last week of the old woman standing quite still, back to camera, at the base of the Metro steps in Kyiv, Ukraine, while people rushed in blurs by her off a steep, long escalator, might have needed a caption (I put one there for convenience and because it's required by PN rules for critique requests + I used to be a caption writer professionally, so it's pretty easy for me to jury rig an appropriate one (some times).

 

 

But really, why else would she be standing there so still except to beg?

 

The photo didn't really need a caption at all.

 

The story didn't need a word (I just noticed I wrote 'story' instead of 'photo' and won't change it. It was a 'story' in a 'photo' with no words needed.

 

This photo stands alone as a photo with some pretty good qualities.

 

The sign photo is interesting, it's on an irregular pentagon, a shape which appears in one (possbly two) of my posted photos (and in only one other member's I think, Tiffany Araluce from long ago, if I recall correctly).

 

And an accent figure at the lower left doing something --- we're not sure exactly what so I can 'invent' something if it's humor or whimsy.

 

That's where this photo stops being a 'stand-alone service.

 

Many photos are standalones, but this one is not.

 

It requires a caption and here my inventiveness came into play.

 

I realized when I saw the washed out scene on the billboard that if I enhanced its darkness and its contrast, it would have much more power, but to what end?

 

What was the story?

 

But this was epic destruction (a movie poster,I think, but I am unsure of the movie name and don't care . .. .)

 

Universe destruction by accident was the theme of Kurt Vonnegut's novel 'Slaughterhouse Five' or at least part of it (an integral part, as was the firebombing of Dresden which Vonnegut amazingly and guiltily survived as a prisoner of war.

 

His novel is his apologia for having survived the event that killed more people than either nuclear bomb in Japan ... yet was little known and still is.

 

I flashed on that when I took this photo,and as I worked on the photo tried to develop a fictitious 'story' to go with it (after all the photo within the photo is fiction too, isn't it?' so my story also easily should be fiction?

 

And when I came up with my solution, I let out a loud whoop of delight though I was alone in a room at the time.

 

And each time i see it after an absence, I almost do the same, I am amused by this; it's almost a form of onanism (though absolutely not as pleasurable, I assure you).

 

Of course, it's 'next photo' now I'm working on, but I love it when someone connects with my words and photos.

 

Come to think of it, all those 'photo stories' which filled the pages of Life Magazine and others till the '60s and early '70s often had great photos that meant little until one read the captions and/or the accompanying stories.

 

It's part of a long tradition within photography to take a good and/or great photo then make it be part of some sort of literature, be it serious such as a documentary, journalism, fiction, nonfiction,or even humour or whimsy (as here).

 

I am just keeping with that tradition, so long as some get the humor (as well as 'buy in it' enough to try to absorb themselves into the scene rather than get turned off or repelled by it.

 

My best to you and your kin.

 

You made a very profound observation and question.

 

I hope my answer was up to your hopes and expectations.

 

john

 

John (Crosley)

 

Some day I may gather and publish these things so this is © 2009, John Crosley, all rights reserved.

Your comment makes me smile.

 

I had hoped that viewers such as yourself would have a little humor.

 

There's far too little humor on Photo.net - far too many self-important (or maybe just insecure) people.

 

I'm maybe more secure.

 

I posted my first photo here five and one half years ago.

 

It was my best ever (so far).

 

It got the highest rates I ever have received (and was not posted for critique, yet is among the top rated photos on Photo.net ever).

 

It might easily have been Photo of the Week (first photo at that) if I had known how to post for critique, but I didn't. I did get that POW honor later, with one similar and more fragile in timing.

 

I may be the only PN member whose work has deteriorated with time.

 

To heck with it.

 

I'm having a heck of a good time.

 

Ratings are important as numbers on screen or writing on paper, but you can't spend ratings.

 

So, I post what I wish, how I wish and sit back and enjoy.

 

I look far past Photo.net but enjoy the critiques here, which give me fuel and needed objectivity (even if within the PN fishbowl).

 

I see photography as part entertainment, and that is part of the reason for this photograph. (it certainly is not a documentary, but maybe a mockumentary?)

 

Thanks for the short but very satisfying comment.

 

Glad to share with you.

 

John (Crosley)

Great fun John ! I have not read the lengthy explanations of yours above, preferring using my eyes. What I see is person about to decide to change world. He/she might have more success - and fun, why not? - in a world that is about to disappear helping to rebuild. He/she is leaving an empty corridor behind where no-one is there to hold/him/her back. The only person present was a photographer that had other things on his mind!

That long discussion was about whether or not a caption was necessary;

generally on Photo.net or with photos such as this, yes, but not with you for sure.

 

Happily.

 

I love your discussion.

 

Move to the head of the class!!!!

 

Fun with photography for beginners and experts, a symposium!!!!!

 

You can co-lead the symposium.

 

john

 

John (Crosley)

 

Would you have gotten it, if you had seen this with 'no caption at all?

 

I am curious.

 

 

If you see this, I am interested in your thoughts on what how you think you might have reacted to this bare bones with NO SUGGESTIONS at all; just hanging there on your screeen with a standard 'C&C requested, thanks. j'

 

I'm very curious.

 

John (Crosley)

Hi John,

 

It's always interesting to see something new from you.

I don't have any particularly incisive comments to add on the picture other than it is thought provoking and interesting as always, but I do find it particularly interesting how you 'position' your photos by telling the back story when you post. I almost always take the opposite approach and say practically nothing in my initial comments, and I even find it very difficult to title a photo. In fact, I only ever give a title when I post a picture on here, and then somewhat reluctantly. I suppose that it caused partly by my beliefs about pictures and partly by not being very good at making titles!

Anyway, my thought and question to you is:-

Do you think that adding the back story has a positive or negative effect on the people's reaction to the picture?

This question is at the forefront of my mind because I used some classic images in one of my classes this week (I teach EFL). When I showed my students the Cartier-Bresson's classic 'decisive moment' picture, their initial reaction was a bit of a shrug of their shoulders. However, when I described what was going on in the picture, it came alive for them. In contrast, Dorothea Lange's picture of a woman and her children in the great depression needed no such introduction to get an animated response.

I am just wondering what your thoughts are.

 

Cheers

 

Rob

For which there is no one correct answer.

 

I often think that a photo like this requires a proper caption when posting for critique, or people will be on an entirely other wavelength than I am and completely miss the point, then not have the time or take the trouble to come back.

 

With the caption for this photo (let alone the 'back story') for a few, this photo will 'come alive' and be seen as a tour de force.

 

For others, it will be just 'blah' anyway and nothing short of an amazing landscape will score with them, and that landscape must be heavily Photoshopped.

 

If it's of water, the surface must be time exposure, and the surface must be ethereal looking, even if otherwise stopped it would be surf crashing on rocks.

 

For a photo for critique that otherwise would be a mystery, then for sure, it must be properly captioned, or the critique audience will just disappear.

 

People (most of them) are unwilling to work to figure out the 'meaning' of photos like these on Photo.net - at least for a guy like me who is not a world master.

 

If I were Cartier-Bresson, they might have a different view, but alas, I'm not.

 

For lesser photos, or more clear photos, such as portraits, then one has a choice, and I just choose to be more clear and explanatory because that is my nature; I'm a writer and often get laudits (or plaudits) for the information attached to my photos which many laud (again) me for providing. A few complain, but far more encourage praise.

 

For this photo some sort of 'explanation' is essential 'for critique' but in an exhibition, it might be otherwise. Maybe 'no caption' (or title) at all.

 

It might be part of the 'magic' of a photographer. I'm posting titles (captions) and 'back stories' for the audience here on Photo.net, and it's specific to the audience.

 

I;m very interested in your experience in exposing people to 'back stories' from ESL classes as you noted, and if you wish, I'd welcome an e-mail (my e-mail is on my bio page) or even more postings here.

 

As to 'back story' I find it increases readership, as people show considerable interest - or at least 'many people'.

 

I have detractors, and some of them are strong detractors I have been told, but few now say so to my face.

 

A few did, but they were far outranked by those who have lauded my posting the back story.

 

I am a former writer so writing is second nature to me, and I can write sometimes over 60 words a minute at original speed, and faster if copying, so it hardly is the effort to me it might be to you.

 

People with pictures in their minds of me working tens of thousands of hours making posts have an unreal vision of reality about me.

 

I see a photo, make a post and add a request for critique. It may have a 'back story'.

 

Surely, in the comments (and I get thousands of them) I can include lots of 'back story' detail and often reserve important things for the comments. I will even suggest I have interesting or important details, if only someone will make a comment that is germane.

 

They almost always do.

 

Even an occasionally highly prominent member who does not 'rate' my photos often will sneak in and in a rare comment indicae he/she has been reading my comments 'for some time' with the 'back story' being one important reason.

 

Or in comments, people will reveal, as you have, that my photos are known for 'back story' (a relatively new term to me,that was not in common currency when my career in journalism started in the '60s, or so I believe, but I abandoned that career in the early '70s, and who really knows. . . . . or cares?

 

I just figure, I'm interested in things, and people I'm interested in viewing my 'original' photos are curious people, so to please them, I write a lot about what I do.

 

I have been consistently rewarded.

 

My first year of posting,I got 2 + million viewers that year (under old system) and now it's tens of millions of views.

 

With over 55 pages of 'other postings' under Google.com's listings under its PN page.

 

I just can't argue with success.

 

I'm interested in your success and would like to trade notes more (just as you've asked to do here.) It has interested me greatly, as i use PN as a sort of 'test audience' for greater things.

 

So, I look forward to further communications to discuss this in greater detail.

 

John (Crosley)

Hi John,

 

Thanks for the reply. I'll drop you a line soon on this fascinating subject!

 

Cheers

 

Rob

I'll look for it.

 

It might also make eventually a great topic on Philosophy of Photography Forum, but first I'd love to discuss it with you, knock the subject around a bit, trade ideas, experiences and viewpoints (I have more than one depending on the situation or even the audience or photo being exhibited - maybe even the genre or forum).

 

It might eventually be 'relative' what my viewpoint is, which would make me a terrible and unreliable chat show guest . . . . because I could not be counted on to take a fixed and acerbic swipe at some other guest or point of view . . . . but in any event, I do have many ideas.

 

I have greater aspirations than Photo.net now, and even when I started posting they were in the back of my mind, but 'if wishes were horses, then beggars . . . . ' and I revealed them to no one . . . . and just kept them as a possibility.

 

I am acting on them slowly but surely now; having been advised over a year ago to 'stop shooting and get into galleries and mseums! Put down your cameras; you have enough fantastic photos' but you see,I can't. It's in my blood to create, andI keep finding new and better or at least more interesting captures that stretch me further. (This is one, the still old woman beggar, back to camera at the base of the HUUUGE Metro escalator is another, and a third is the skull overlooking the beggar lady 'death politely waiting his turn'.

 

These are too important to me to NOT take them and I hope eventually to the viewing public.

 

I hope some day people who are Photo.net members will be able to say, 'Oh, yeah, I saw him develop first hand while on Photo.net. You won't believe the amount of crap he posted as well as the good stuff he's showing now! heh heh heh. Insider stuff, you know? I hope . .. . hope . . . hope . . . .

 

Because for there to be 'insider stuff' there has to be someone being bviewed who's considered 'worthwhile' and others have told me my work is just that, and even today I used my 'book' to prove to another (a diplomat) my seriousness as a photographer . . . . to get entry into a country . . . . when it was going otherwise to be denied for me and/or my staff.

 

Or at least that's how it appeared to me in the sequence of things (nice guy the diplomat too. Smart, urbane and well mannered -- really, smart as a whip and really looking out for his country's well being and following laws to the letter as well as the spirit.

 

I think we got along well.

 

It's amazing when a 'body of work' in the most unlikely circmstance will come back to reward one, and I just started out posting here with no stated goal at all, and posting old stuff and new, almost willy-nilly and with no apparent purpose -- even some days uploading 20-40 photos and not seeking critique,even ever.

 

And getting on those folders millions ofviews, which caused the site to have a paradigm shift,I think. Or at least undergo some introspection, especially about downtrodden 'street' photography which has now some renaissance here (not completely but there is some good 'street' here from time to time.

 

I hope mine is unique; I feel it and have been told it.

 

And I am using Photo.net as my test audience for hopefully 'greater things' - and views, number of critiques,the critique content, the speed of ratings and other matters that are recorded all affect which photos may go to exhibition and which will be withheld and consigned to 'personal' files of my hundreds (there are already over 1,300 here and about 100 I do for the rest of my life with my life's work.

 

I invite yours (and any others') serious ideas.

 

John (Crosley)

A stutter-step.

 

What basketball players call a 'stutter step' is a step that is slightly delayed (to throw opponents 'off balance').

 

That's sometimes what I do when I take a photo such as this under low light.

 

One can even be walking with a high enough shutter speed and when walking by, riding or flying even at near supersonic speed, take a photo that 'freezes' everything. A photo of airplane propellers at high RPMs will 'freeze' the individual blades, apparently, if taken at 1,000th of a second or above.

 

But when light gets low enough to be measured in the 'teens of a second (or less)( the upper body must have no motion, let alone no forward motion.

 

Otherwise the photo will be blurred from photographer/camera motion.

 

So, it is essential to taking a photo as here where timing is paramount, to be able to 'pause' 'in an instant' before resuming one's stride, in an almost inperceptible 'stutter step' - a move that professional basketball players may have borrowed from none other than HCB himself, who no doubt was a master of the 'stutter step' long before it had a name.

 

(after all, he was relatively tall, wiry - thin - reasonably athletic, and pretty damn wily).

 

In a different era, he might have been a sportsman, though at lighter weight,possibly a football (soccer) player.

 

John (Crosley)