'VPDA - VERY Public Display of Affection'

This couple on a bench in Kyiv, Ukraine's main shopping and central

street/park, are doing what lovers do, in full sight of just about everyone,

for a 'Very Public Display of Affection'. Your ratings and critiques are

invited and most welcome. If you rate harshly or very critically or just

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

comment; please share your superior photographic knowledge to help

improve my photography. Thanks! Enjoy! John

As usual I can not really see anywhere this image can be improved, you are quite the street master IMHO. What a great capture! The public display of affection once more is only half the story. The bystanders disregard (continuance of their own lives, much more sedately) right beside this couple is just as pertinent and really helps to make this photo. Thank you again, like always, for sharing.

 

-Dave

Hitler's Army ravaged this city and destroyed much of it in what they call The Great Patriotic War (World War II) and there was a shortage of men.

 

Stalin ordered his prized architects to restore Kyiv.

 

The absolute center street of Kyiv is not long but it is extremely broad, and then its walkways on one side are twice as broad, lined by esplanades and those are lined by park benches set in tiers.

 

I think the idea was to provide a place for the population to 'regenerate' naturally since they did not have many flats (apartments), and those that were there required sleeping in shifts, which was not conducive for 'boy meets girl/boy courts girl'.

 

Meeting was done 'on the street', and so displays of affection were done on the street, though then much, much more discretely.

 

Times are different now, and although Stalinist times were Victorian by comparison (there is a joke that sex did not exist during the times of Stalin), the need to procreate was very real, as so many Soviets (Ukraine was a Soviet Republic) troops were killed in World War II -- more than the men of any other nation (also the same in World War I, a little known fact).

 

In order for the population of the Soviets to stabilize two things were needed: One the men had to have a place to court women (and vice versa) and concurrently it seems that the wonderfully beautiful women of Republics of the Soviets, such as Russia and Ukraine were forced to choose among fewer and fewer men than in other societies in which the male folk were not so decimated, and thus a certain 'boldness' was necessary to acquire a mate (as was expected, at age 20 or 21, to procreate by 20-21-22, as the culture pressured, in general.

 

So, in addition to a meeting place, women were required to become somewhat more 'aggressive in the mating game, a trait that continues to the present. (I may be right or wrong, as this is theory only, but based on staistical fact and much personal and historical knowledge).

 

Stalin, for all his evil genius and paranoia, actually had his prize architects build a famously livable city center, with a broad boulevard (now shut off on weekends) and park like, where people sit and lovers kiss . . . seemingly endlessly.

 

It's really wonderful and unlike any other major citycenter I've ever been.

 

Ukrainians live in small flats still and housing is scarce (and expensive) so meetings still are 'on the street' but not 'Victorian' as they were in Soviet times.

 

Also, everybody has their alcohol (see the brew at the lower right, by the bench foot, unless I miss my guess.

 

There are no requirements as in much of the US that beer (or vodka or 'cocktails) be in 'brown paper bags', and public imbibing is the order of the day . . . . '

 

But not like in Dnipropetrovsk, eight hours by bus away, where I lived,where imbibing took on very very serious proportions -- there being little else to do.

 

Thanks Dave for your critique. I think it has forced some serious insight out of me; or at least I hope so.

 

John (Crosley)

 

 

There are some interesting elements, such as the gesture of the man on the left. The kiss is passionate, but all in all the photo is a bit crowded. The girl "melts" into the woman in white.

Imagine it blown up and exposed on a wall: it lacks a "punch".

Did you find anything comparable in the work of you idol HCB?

Neither my best nor my worst, as you say 'it is what it is' and it is a slice of life' and that 'slice' is different than most people come across, but is more routine where it occurred, (still being unusual for there, with the couple, left, ignoring totally the couple smooching, right.)

 

And it was the total ignoring that was the reason it was posted, which required that it be 'crowded' - crowding also represents the intense competition for space on these 'park' benches which line this popular avenue and its park-lik esplanade, which is lined with three tiers of such benches.

 

In summer's heat,and good days in Spring and Fall, lovers (and others) compete for them, as the city life passes. An excellent place for a stroll, to sit and imbibe, to chat with friends, or to smooch (I've done all the above,though imbibing was held to an absolute minimum - an impaired photographer is too easily a target.

 

So, crowded it is, but that's the point.

 

I think you missed that point.

 

I do idolize the style of Henri Cartier-Bresson, but I do not imitate him. I have learned much from viewing his works, including having taken a few color photos I felt were beyond his reach (he hated his color captures,but somehow a few of mine held together, and were of the sort I felt he was trying for.

 

But I'm my own guy photographically.

 

I may admire and even 'idolize' his photographic abilities, but the world doesn't need another irascible old man such as him.

 

God rest his crabby old soul.

 

This is a Crosley, not a HCB, and the two are different.

 

There are many of my best that HCB never would have taken camera to eye to take, but are wonderful (and many that aren't).

 

I am not a clone of anyone,but thanks for asking the question for it allows me to make a point. I DO owe much to him, just for showing me it could be done.

 

Yours with thanks.

 

John (Crosley)

This picture may very well be out of my league, but I'm gonna give you my opinion anyway :)

Somehow, the rightmost 1/8 of the picture doesn't seem to add anything usefull IMO. I think the composition would be better without the car to the right (but keeping the person on the sidewalk), even if this means not having the full bench in the picture. Do we need the whole bench?

Other than that, the two simultaneous stories in this picture makes it more intense, which I love.

Just my 2 cents.

I finished a book (second try with a few replacement photos) just before I left for Ukraine last time, then returned recently and am about to go back.

 

(The book is printed and for galleries and museums only -- curators and others highly placed, and will never go on sale and is extremely expensive to print.)

 

When I was here in the US, I had to replace a few book photos and remember getting into a discussion with the woman who publishes who wanted to include this photo, but I judged it insufficient to include with other photos and chose a much different photo (there were already three photos of kissing couples on the page.

 

I may have made a mistake.

 

The initial ratings AND the views, show this is an 'interesting' photo to many, AND, although I have sat on this for 1-1/4 years, always intending to post it 'some day', I never have until today because I just had too many interesting photos and too many of kissing couples, or so I thought.

 

Maybe there cannot be too many of kissing couples; views for this photo and initial high rates indicate it is being far better received than I anticipated, though I like it very much.

 

As explained in commentary under another 'contrast' photo [underpass, in reply to a comment by viewer Giuseppe Pasquale] I noted that anything (literally anything from brightness to sharpness to the clarity of a point) appears to be sharpened by placing it in opposition to something that is not so sharp (contrasting) and thus in opposition.

 

So, here the main theme is a couple kissing, and kissing with such abandon they are intruding on their next door neighbors.

 

That's also why it is necessary to include the bench; so we can get a sense of 'scale' as to how much of the bench they are occupying with their lovemaking gymnastics, and how much the other two are ceding 'territory' in acceptance of allowing without protest the full-blown ''mating urge' of these two.

 

In America, a comedian might have shouted at these two: 'Get a Room, for God's Sake!'

 

In Ukraine rooms are often inconvenient,and in places a man could work a day or even a week to afford one night's room in a very modest guest house, let alone a more expensive 'hotel'.

 

So, now, after the fact (the posting) I have finally analyzed this photo . . . to see what makes it tick - and it no longer is personal to me. Luca Remotti, critic, saw little special about it; I (and the sheer number of viewers so far),seem to think otherwise.

 

I might have figured out its popularity before hand, if I'd only gone to the trouble of analyzing it.

 

I do my very best in some photos which I call the 'ironic contrast'.

 

My first (and best ever) posted photo, the sour old man vending an artfully arranged handful of balloons with smiling Mickey Mouth figures inside each photo, mirroring in reverse the balloon vendor's expression is one.

 

The robust young lady with full figure,full purse and full shopping bag walking vigorously down this same sidewalk, flanked by and overtaking a frail, bent old woman in housecoat, thin, with no purse, and obviously little food and no (or almost no) money is another.

 

The old man with twinkling eyes staring into the camera, and behind him a pair of pretty women staring also toward the camera from a poster on a store wall, appearing to mock the man for his age is a third (and also Photo of the Week).

 

The 'ironic contrast'.

 

It appears this is another (and less biting) 'ironic contrast . . . . the couple kissing and obviously infringing on the 'space' of the pair next to them on a single park bench, but the others studiously avoid reference to them, though they obviously are being contacted (touched) by the smoochers.

 

Ironic contrast.

 

That's why I never had posted this; I hadn't figured it out, and why I only posted it reluctantly.

 

It's what Luca Remotti did not put his critical finger on, and why I felt necessary to 'defend' it when he started to 'attack' it 'politely' above.

 

So with your comment I looked at ratings (and views which are rapidly mounting) and decided it is an unusually appealing photo, and decided for the first time to analyze it.

 

On doing so, I understood that it is a less biting 'ironic contrast', only this time cast in opposing pairs -- the opposing sex couple making out and the other opposing sex couple touching, but appearing to try to keep 'distance' -- a most unusual choice from the several captures (and an intentional one) which creates the most 'contrast' and the most 'irony'.

 

I sometimes do things on a more subconscious (or unconscious) or at least inarticulate level, just as do many photographers, as photographers in general are an amazingly inarticulate lot -- which is often why they choose photography in the first place - solitary, artful, and inchoate, like I am frequently.

 

So, I took this, worked it up, stuck it in a folder, intended to post it someday, and never quite found the day (until today).

 

It was a good decision to place it with its personal warmth in opposition to other photos based substantially on composition (the geometry as spoken in Franglais, and as commented on frequently by Cartier-Bresson.)

 

This is a photo with numerous contrasts, only this time shown as opposing pairs, for a different twist, which may account for why I did not recognize it for its 'opposition' and its 'irony and contrast'.

 

Thank you for your comment, which helped point me in the right critical direction to understand my own photo (I must be very thick sometimes!!!)

 

Sometimes I can be totally unperceptive of the devices used and the potential 'appeal' of a photo to an audience such as found here.

 

In answer to L.Remotti's taunting query about 'did HCB ever take such a photo?: No, but I think (with some more effort on composition, he might have.'

 

(The whole bench and legs had to be included for a sense of scale and proportion, as this is a photo about 'encroachment, which is tolerated by society's happiness to see others 'in love')

 

Thanks for the indulgence for reading this: Any opposition?

 

John (Crosley)

I won't attempt any kind of deep critique today. I'll spend time thinking about what others have written and coming back to see this again. Today, I'll simply say this is a stunningly good capture. Love it!

 

Mark

I sat on this for a year and nearly a half, thinking 'is this good enough' until a light bulb went off in my head today, and it said 'sure it is'.

 

Reason: I had taken and posted plenty of photos of kissing couples on this and another service; some were pretty good.

 

This one seems to have special merit, in part because there is an issue of zealousness on the part of the lovers as well as a little bit of territoriality vs. nonchalance on the part of those being encroached upon -- all in the interests of 'love'. In a capsule, it makes a statement about where this particular society places courtship ia in its list of important things that those on the left should give such leeway, I think and in that, a more general truth about its society.

 

And the fact it's all taking place on a public street next to the most public and highly traveled street in the city and the city's heart which says lots about the culture too -- Ukrainians express their affection quite openly, at least as youths full of hormones.

 

Divorce often comes later - or sometimes cheating behavior, as there are more than enough good looking young women for all the handsome young men (and there are many handsome young men), and so there is continual competition, as among the more traditional there is great pressure to marry by age 20 or 21 and start having children.

 

Aging also starts young, however, so maybe it's just a wise thing to do; men tend to die in their middle/late 50s on average, and often look much older, while the women tend to live much, much longer lives.

 

In short, this photo is a snapshot of a microcosm of Ukrainian society . . . . . the youths bent on early courtship and probably marriage and children, as parents push them to do.

 

'Where are my grandchildren?' is the plaintive wail of many 40-year-old potential grandparents when their daughters are in the final stages of picking a guy and approaching marriage.

 

Such pressure is no longer felt in the Western cultures, though it was more common when I was a youth; all the marriageable young women generally were married by age 25 when I was age 25 and unmarried - all by mutual consent, here in the USA.

 

If the Ukrainians live a longer, more prosperous life style of the Westerners that most seek to emulate, will they also push back the age of marriage?

 

Young women there, seem to be FAR more mature, than young women in the USA, partly I think by reason that until two years ago, schooling ended at age 16 (it's 18 now), and a young woman then went to university, trade school or went to work (no time spent world traveling or 'clubbing').

 

Life is 'serious' in Ukraine, though Ukrainians take their rest with great gusto!

 

John (Crosley)

 

 

I never, ever thought JC is like HCB. You have your own style. Period.

 

I mentioned HCB because elaborating a critique in the end requires some comparison:

- with photographic technique guidelines

- with aesthetic "canons"

- with other photographs

- with other photographers.

And in the end we photographers can be inspired by other works, be they HCB, John Crosley, Garry Winogrand. Trying to understand what we like, how it was done and how we can work it into our photography.

 

When I look at a photo, I can only try to figure out what the author felt, thought, worked out when he was standing, kneeling, lying behind his camera.

But I can't know for sure, because the only term of reference is the photo itself.

 

If the photo is part of a "story", that's another story: a documentary of Kiev in street shots. But that requires another approach to critiquing: then I have to look at series of photos and not at single photos.

 

Still: 4 people on a bench are not enough for a "crowd". My feeling is that the photo is crowded, because there are too many things attracting attention.

 

Just some food for thought.Take care and "may you have a good life".

 

Luca

Photo of the week!

I understand the point(s) you have made, and in fact originally you did make good point(s) that challenged me and made me think, and ONLY THEN after serious thought was I able to analyze then reject your thesis.

 

But the critique was important to me because it started the process, and for some it may be more important than my rebuttal. It also has importance in and of itself, even if I view it as 'correct' or 'not correct', because you took a stand, and that is important for a critic -- to trust one's instincts.

 

I get the feeling from your reply that you are just a little prickly about my response, and I hope not, because I have nothing but the most wonderful feelings about your critiques - the contribute much here and are most welcome, always.

 

Of course, I will not always agree, as here, with everything, but I almost did entirely UNTIL I began a more detailed analysis, something I had not been prompted to do. My own analysis of this photo had been more superficial until challenged by you and even for the challenge I am most thankful.

 

Please take no umbrage at my response; like your critiques,my response are as much an intellectual exercise as anything, and we both seek 'the truth' or our own approximation of it.

 

Of course, there is no 'truth' -- only what ultimately we 'see' and 'feel' ourselves after analysis, and you have contributed greatly to that end.

 

Thanks.

 

john

 

John (Crosley)

I sat on this for a year and almost a half before I felt comfortable posting it, feeling I posted so many others (here and elsewhere) of couples kissing and others from this same street.

 

Only after posting it, and after being faced with critiques (positive and negative) and high viewership have I begun to 'understand' the appeal of this photograph.

 

Which proves the value of posting for critique.

 

Sometimes the photos I feel are 'brilliant' struggle, then a photo like this, taken on a whim and which involved only a few seconds of effort, soars.

 

Go figure.

 

You do street, and should have had photo of the week (as I've written) so you know, I'm sure.

 

Best wishes.

 

john

 

John (Crosley)

My verbal communication is usually ironic and humorous. I like to laugh silently, first of all at my self!

Unfortunately it is very difficult to "write" irony.

Rest assured that it is important for me to reason, even if in disagreement!

What I do not like is no reasoning! :-)

It was good to read your reply. As I said, the thought challenge provides food for thought!Luca

Just as I thought.

 

Your denying your prickliness only proves that you were prickly.

 

There is no need to deny it.

 

You were prickly and nothing you can say will disprove it.

 

******

 

Have you ever met with such reasoning before?

 

I have.

 

I have had a longer life than most PN members, and had interpersonal relations with many, and many I loved, and occasionally, I have heard such reasoning.

 

Well, Luca, I hope you can take a joke, as that is an attempt at presenting over the Internet some irony and some sarcasm . . . . more clearly.

 

And in the process, if you have 'interpersonal relations' with someone you love (or have loved' dearly, perhaps you have met with such reasoning (or lack thereof) before?

 

I certainly have.

 

Of course, to deal with such 'reasoning' (or lack thereof) usually requires patience -- often about a week or just less will cure the problem, if one just stays silent (in Russian/English 'keep silence') which usually is the best way to deal with such reasoning (lack of reasoning).

 

Ordinarily I write straightforwardly but do not this time because of a possible 'communication issue' that I had feared might ruin our rather straightforward relationship as photographer and critic(photographer).

 

I take the photos that I take and post them; when you feel so moved, you give me your best and most honest critique; they are not always right (in my mind) or 100% accurate, but for the most part they are pretty well explained.

 

I don't expect this to be a round table with Cartier-Bresson criticizing the works of Kertesz, (or vice versa) as I am neither, and I don't presume you think you are either. This is a friendly site and any reasoned critique is welcome to me, and I always have welcomed your critiques; for the most part they have been 'right on' and at first blush, your critique here above) seemed also 'right on' but the more I examined it, the less it seemed to 'hit the mark' and the more and higher the ratings and views came in they also seemed to go against what you had said.

 

Whereas, I had my own questions about this photo, the public has spoken; it likes this photo, and for the reasons I did articulate (at way too much length I am sure) above.

 

Bob Kurt called for it to be Photo of the Week. An exaggeration for sure; sarcasm perhaps too?

 

But he and I have only a small acquaintanceship, based on mutual exchanges on this forum and (I hope) mutual respect. (also he has taken a photo that should definitely have been photo of the year, not just photo of the week (homeless man/bum with laptop working away.

 

(Bob: See that, 'photo of the year' (my new estimation of that photo).

 

(That and the photo of the lone pedestrian and blocks of stopped traffic taken from above are two of the greatest 'street photos ever on this service'.

 

I make my contributions and try hard, but I just plug away; those photos are 'inspired'.

 

Luca, you are not always right, nor are you schooled in critiquing (or I think do you have a doctorate in the arts or photography, but you reason well, and communicate ably and with a good heart - and fairly in my estimation - and that makes your contributions always welcome here. Too many critiques begin to believe what they write and become 'too big for their own britches' but I think that is not and will not be the case for you, and if not, there may be a place for you just in writing about photography without any regard (positively or negatively) to your ability to produce great photographs (as sometimes the ability to write and/or teach is not the same as the ability to 'do' -- something that university students who flock to great teachers (regardless of subject know), but which when I attended university (and law school) did not, and thus was condemned to hundreds/ perhaps thousands of hours to dull, boring and uninteresting and often sleep-inducing lectures.

As an undergraduate at Columbia College, NYC, I signed up for a graduate course in modern Russian (Soviet)history with an acclaimed Soviet expert, who was famously intellectual but spoke English as a second language (if it can be said he even spoke English at all, as I only understood one out of three words he spoke due to his heavy Russian accent.

 

He also gave out a 'recommended reading list of several hundred single-spaced pages, at one graduate student calculated, multiplying the number of pages by an average university reading speed calculated it would take from 1967 to 2014 to finish just the reading on the reading list IF one read nonstop day AND night, just for that course.

 

In fact, if you read that story and read the date carefully, then compare the subject of my first photos, you will realize that professor and his audaciously dull lectures and his pretentious reading list WERE THE PRIME MOTIVATOS BEHIND MY BUYING MY FIRST CAMERA - A NIKON, AND THAT NIGHT GOING OUT AND TAKING MY FIRST 'STREET' photo of worth on my first roll of film. (three men on Staten Island Ferry on three benches supporting three poles, floor to ceiling.

 

In fact, without that professor (was it Alexander Dallin?) I would never have ventured into photography at all, and my own personal history would have been changed completely.

 

I never would have been shot in my senior year, as I would not have been going to Washington D.C.to photograph the race riots there, I never would have become a journalist as I never would have taken the requisite photographs to have entre into the profession, I never would have had the same life.

 

In fact, without attending those dull,boring lectures, and rebelling at them by by purchasing my first camera, then soon after being published, I would not have met my first (or second wife), fathered my children, attended the same law school, ever been a journalist, or had anywhere the same life.

 

As Marlon Brando, playing Terry in the movie 'On the Waterfront lamented to Karl Malden, playing the priest:

 

You don't understand. I coulda had class. I coulda been a contender. I coulda been somebody, instead of a bum, which is what I am, let's face it. It was you' Professor Dallin. (edited somewhat from the original).

 

Yes,I might have been 'somebody' and never have taken a photo.

 

Maybe a business tycoon, a Congressman, or someone else, but somebody that nobody who knows me would recognize.

 

Its amazing what power a so-called 'negative influence' can have over someone's life.

 

This man, who gave the most long-winded, boring and ununderstandable lectures on earth, and was hailed a genius, drove me into . . . . photography . . . . to keep my sanity.

 

Thank you professor Dallin.

 

Your boring lectures and pretentious reading list changed my life, even if its effects didn't take place except in fits and starts.

 

I have resolved not to be as boring as you, but anybody who has read this far knows otherwise . . . I suppose . . . .

 

(to be continued next posting)

 

John (Crosley)

I live in Kiev last 40 years. By a photo it was took about one year ago. I learn to see at you! Your photos are pleasant to me very much! Best Regards, Valeriy

You have a name famous among (and for) artistry. [Tretyakov Gallery/Museum, Moscow, which I have visited several times)

 

I am pleased that you like my photos.

 

Look for me again, soon, right where this photo was taken, or anywhere in your wonderful city.

 

It is pravda (truth) for Kyiv, what I write, if you have read my writings? (You can use Google translate if you have not). I do the same for Russian and Ukrainian, often Your comments about my photography (and writing) are welcome..

 

Maybe we'll 'see' each other in reality some day, not just on the Internet; if you do (you will recognize me), please stop me and say 'hi' and that you saw me (or my work) on Photo.net (in English or Russian).

 

Thanks for the very nice comment.

 

John (Crosley)