'The Jump'

You may want to click on the larger version to view this boy, isolated,

jumping very, very high, and then tell me why. Your ratings and

critiques are invited and most welcome. If you rate harshly, critically or

just wish to make an observation, please submit a helpful and

constructive comment; please share your photographic knowledge to

help improve my photography. Thanks! Enjoy! John

This photo was 'seen' and 'composed' without this boy's having any idea or inkling that he was being photographed.

So, if this is a capture that interests you, why is the boy leaping?

I have a good idea, but suppose you were the photographer, what would your idea be?

Just about any response will be interesting to me, and I invite responses.

In my personal view, this capture embodies much of what is magical about 'street' as obviously I had already framed, set exposure/shutter speed combination to reduce blurriness and 'stop the action', and had composed for just the eventuality he might jump, and in exactly the place he is jumping (needed for the composition I envisioned and was prepared for.)

And, 'no', as a photographer, I do not engage in telekinesis or mental telepathy, but do engage in a study of what I nickname 'predictive human behavior' that caused me to 'anticipate' this capture, exactly as shown, though I was unaware minutes before of the existence of the boy or the area, as I walked nearby (and above, of course).

I had no communication before, during, or since with the boy or anybody related to him in any way - this is NOT posed in any way but is entirely spontaneous (except for my prepositioning myself and pre-framing the capture, etc., as described above).

I invite your comments.

John (Crosley)

Yes, I think because he is 'young and happy'.

And because 'he can', so why not?

It's easy for him, but then he is a ballet student, practicing. Alone, seemingly unseen, and therefore uninhibited.

Other shots show him going through various dance motions with his legs, individually and in series.

This is the grand jete (the great jump), if not in completely classical 'jete' form.

That's what I saw, from afar and above with my tele zoom.

Good statement and fine contribution.

John (Crosley)

The photo doesn't move me to guess why he's jumping. That's not what the photo seems to be about to me.

The photo, rather, seems to me about composition. It's also about the free-form abilities of the human body (and spirit) against the hard and cold, geometric facts of man-made realities, parks or green spaces built with concrete and benches surrounding gardens.

I feel your perspective, which is quite effective at making me feel a part of this scene.

I wouldn't say I feel spontaneity from the photo itself, though there might well have been spontaneity in the way it was shot. It has a planned feel to me, which I don't find to be at all a negative.

There seems to be a "perfectness" in the cleanliness of the lines here against which his body flies. I like that. It's disturbed a bit by the presence of the backpack on the bench, which draws some attention. I hesitate about that element but am not dead set against it by any means. Just wondering.

Maybe I emphasized the 'spontaneous' view too much; I did if you feel that is my entire feelings about this photo.

In effect, I was walking by a park quite uphill on a walk at park's edge and this was greatly down slope, presumably at the side/rear entrance to a performance hall, probably where this young man either had been in ballet practice or would soon go.

As my companion pointed, he was kicking his leg somewhat, then another leg, then he broke into a short and obviously choreographed dance step, such as you'll find in ballet, then stopped and talked on his mobile (cell) phone, then dance some more a little step here and there, and even leaped with his cell phone (great photo too, and almost identical to this one but 'wrong message' than I wanted to give. That would have generated some interesting comments, I think).

In any case, as I looked, I obviously understood I could not frame the boy alone with a 70~200 f 2.8 telephoto, so I looked for ways to 'frame' him.

Naturally, I rejected to 'splitting' in the frame the bench/grass/structure in the center of the photo because it was a geometric shape - a rectangle (or square like even), and to me it seemed that for a 'formal' composition, this photo might really 'work' only if the structure were presented 'whole' and the dancing/jumping boy as an accent.

So, I framed it and thirty to forty other photos of him practicing with this structure where it was, and the boy around where he is captured here.

It was wonderful 'luck' that I captured the most spectacular dance move at its apex with the boy at the most wonderful point I could imagine.

But I also have two or more of him in almost identical moves, not quite so interesting or so free form (see S-curve of his body), but with him also in the identical position or area.

This is just as you say it is, and that wasn't something I was ignorant of; I just chose to emphasize the 'free form' and spontaneous aspects.

Fred, you have done me several times better by carrying out the symbolism and analogizing it so well.

Yes, this is a 'formal composition' - consciously thought out, taking available elements of form and contrasting the boy to them.

Like so many of my better photos, it's about 'contrasts' and how the comparison of the boy with the structure 'sharpens' our focus on the boy, who takes only a very small part of this frame.

Also, as noted above, the placement of the boy in relation to the structure and the wall (more foreground) and the other wall (more background) is paramount to this formal composition.

This is, of course, about geometry; the landscape architecture here is very formal, and the boy its opposite.

I was amazed and felt that his jumping amidst this isolation was most surreal, and that's a facet of some of my photos that attracts me. (See the photo with men in costumes carrying air conditioners down an escalator, among my 'early black and white photos' taken when I was 22.

It was surreal.

Or see the photo of the woman clad in Saran Wrap on a San Francisco street, with two men in the rear of a box van staring at her (and into my lens), with no explanation at all.

It's another 'surreal' photo that predates this and I feel are precursors to this.

Not all my photos are 'surreal', I think, or even a small fraction of them, but I do love to take some surreal photos, especially when coupled with some good geometry.

So, when I saw the boy practicing some elementary dance steps and standing, practicing about where is depicted here, I stayed and hoped that he would do something I could say would epitomize the contrast between formal landscape composition and his individuality - for that is the essence of the photo.

If you don't wonder why he's jumping, I felt while taking this, that viewers surely would, and if there had been (there weren't) any signs, etc., explaining the scene, I would have cropped them out with the frame, but of course I didn't have to do that.

So, if you're not so moved to wonder, I think others may be.

I like very much your phrasing: it's ' . . . about the free-form abilities of the human body (and spirit) against the hard and cold, geometric facts of man-made realities, parks or green spaces built with concrete and benches surrounding gardens.

So, Fred, I have easily more than one perspective about this photo, just like many other things I take and in life in general.

This photo was entirely 'planned' in the sense that quite rapidly I figured out the composition I wanted . . . as the best available for the scene, then when he was in the proper place for me, I fired, and caught him in a variety of dance steps.

He'd dance, stop, then practice a move, talk on his mobile photo, and even jump with his mobile phone to his ear, obviously talking.

Later, as I passed again, he was joined by a bigger boy who was less skilled, and appeared to be teaching what was an 'older and bigger boy'.

He even jumped with his friend present, but I never would have shown that/those photo(s) as the secondary figure was confusing and required an explanation, just as the lone backpack on the bench gathers your attention and interest here.

Then, in ten seconds, he just walked away; no explanation. He and his friend had seen me, but I was so far away, and already had made my captures, so I just turned away, far away, and he and his friend appeared to make no moment of my discovery at that time (but again,after this and other captures of him singly were made).

I am pleased to see the word 'perfectness' in your analysis.

That's what I strive for.

You have paid me a high compliment, Fred.

Thank you so much.

john

John (Crosley)