'Loneliness in Public'

Loneliness does not just mean being confined to a small flat (apartment)

with a small television and a perhaps a cat; it also can mean sitting in a

very public and well-traveled tunnel hoping for a handout, while living on

a $100 a month pension in a land where prices have risen 60% in one

year compared to the US Dollar, the chief store of value, while the

pension has had a very modest increase. Your ratings, critiques and

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

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

constructive commentary; please share your photographic knowledge to

help improve my photography. Thanks! Enjoy! John

The old woman is wearing a fur coat.

 

Real fur or 'fake fur'?

 

I didn't ask her or even realize it, as it hadn't occurred to me that she might be wearing fur at all. It is not in my experience (as an American) to see any but the very richest women wear fur coats, and then mainly in times past. Maybe that once was true in Ukraine too, and maybe this is a coat 'of times past?' but has present-day usefulness (it snowed the next night, and the weather turned quite cold).

 

John (Crosley)

Interesting composition. It seems that the old lady is holding the wall! Best regards!

The weight of the entire wall is on her?

 

I worked this up on a much poorer quality laptop.

 

Now I'm looking at it on a Samsung highest quality very large monitor and the quality of the capture just blows me away (however immodestly it sounds)..

 

I recommend for anyone who has a choice of monitors on which to view this,particularly the 'white' walls which are not white at all but a mixture of whites and grays -- painted plaster (cheap paint at that which is all over my ski parka) - that they do so, and just leave the photo there for a while if they have time and even walk away from it if they have to go out of the room, as I have done.

 

By doing so I have a new appreciation for this photo that I didn't have when I put it up for critique. I liked the lines, for sure and the subject, mostly, (fur and a beggar with converging lines) but the tones also are outstanding, if viewed on a high quality monitor and with the subject and the converging lines, it can be stunning, at least to me (and I have never said that about my own photo at all, ever) Of course I have taken better photos, but not so surprisingly good as this has turned out to be when seen on a large, high quality monitor.

 

That's my story, and I'm sticking to it.

 

I'd put this on exhibition just for those tones and lines (and the subject of course) -- the larger the better. (and it will withstand a very large blowup).

 

Anyway, that's my view, you are free to put down any old view or rate and I'll respect it. I don't have a true vote here. Just a viewpoint. And I'm not always in love with the photos I post, contrary to what some think.

 

John (Crosley)

 

;~))))

 

 

Well crafted urban story, fine compo, b/w seems like a logical choice. Pls. John forgive me for making a step or two closer to her..

again a marvellous play with lines - composition and 'pattern' of composition remind me a bit of "Rest amidsts roundness. Yet, this is certainly a very different photo.

I like how she is positioned at the intersection of the primary lines in the photo. The "break" in the horizontal lines suggests that here's indeed something wrong with her situation. And: lines of the arch and the signal colours are perfect metaphorical burden pushing her down.

Vladimir's crop is very interesting: I wouldn't go nearer, then she's got company and is no longer lonely ;-) - seriously: I think, through the balance of grey ground and white walls the effect of lonliness is achieved. The crop demonstrates nicely, how this effect is lost.

Best regards,

Wolfgang

Truly I might.

 

I didn't and a crop that big for me is out of the question except to 'save' a photo or if my lens is way to short where I need a long telephoto and have a short lens.

 

Yours is a very worthy photo, but it's yours, not mine. It might have been mine if I had been closer to her and more to her side than across the walkway, waiting patiently for the myriad pedestrians to pass (took several minutes for a virtual Dnipro or Columbia or Mississippi or Danube of people to flow by before I got such a break to photograph her singly.

 

But this is not a misrepresentation. during that time she had not one interaction, and was seated just as this.

 

|If I had an x-ray camera, that didn't 'see' the passersby, and only her, this would have been the photo I'd have been taken as those rivers of people passed her.

 

Photos sometimes lie and sometimes photographers are damn liars; I try not to let my photos lie or to be a liar with them by letting them misrepresent, and use these comments to 'set the record straight' when opportunity permits (thanks for giving me a chance to insert that comment 'in context')

 

By the way, Vladimir, your photography has hit a very, very high level - outstanding in fact -- (you're getting in my way -- I'm gonna have to have you bumped off -- oh, this is not Russia in 1998, this is more civilized (for me) Ukraine in 2009, almost 2010, and things are different . . . . and frankly there's plenty of room at the top (if I ever get there. give me a hand, because i think you're getting there, and | could use a lift as and if I get near.

 

I notice you also used the 'geometry' to help make your rendition (and it is a worthy one I would not have been afraid to post - we'll call it a Funley -- Fun(tak)(Cros)ley photo.

 

Think what we could do collaboratively!!!!!!

 

I have a very light hand when it comes to (1) cropping and (2) Photoshopping . . . . as I am a very heavy and prolific shooter and prefer just to go take MORE than work and rework what | have -- I felt for myself (only) that was the sign I might not be producing much of value . . . . and God knows I certainly produce and produce and produce. I think you know about that, you're a pretty heavy producer yourself, I think.

 

You have flattered me; thank you so much.

 

john

 

John (Crosley)

Some people, in San Francisco especially, see a photographer with cameras and automatically assume they're going out to 'shoot bums'.

 

I almost never have in San Francisco, although it has a huge homeless population (there are two in my portfolio, one approaching me, hanging into a parking meter that was a dubious choice and one considered for possible deletion, but several have told me it's a favorite, even so though, I have been several times sorely tempted to 'pull it', plus another of a man sidewalk sleeping with a huge purple arch leading to his foot, for an aesthetic composition that I would not pull because of its good aesthetics.

 

Fact is, that I don't go looking for 'bums' or homeless or beggars to photograph, but if they are there,I don't shy away from them either, as they are one 'end' of life, and if one sometimes shoots 'contrasts' as I do, then they are the 'end' that makes an 'absolute end' of some contrasts, or an 'anchor' to a contrast with subjects featuring wealth, health, family, work, conviviality, and so forth.

 

So if you take a beggar or homeless person and put that person in juxtaposition with some other person who is exactly the opposite, there is the contrast and that contrast may be in one or a myriad of other ways polar opposite, to then establish the contrast.

 

See how many contrasts there may be in my photo taken on nearby Khreschatyk Street (Kyiv's Main fashionable shopping and park-like street -- a wonderful street) of a young woman, well fed, attractive, loaded with shopping bags, well-clothed, a large purse, tall, and striding briskly at night next to and overtaking a hunchback, thin, short, old woman with cane, a small purse (empty no doubt) and a housecoat for clothes, barely moving along (no motion blur as with the young woman) and so forth.

 

They are opposites in so many ways that the 'contrast' element of the photo is easily fulfilled

 

But there must also be an aesthetic element in such photos to avoid making them simply exploitive - to push them more into the 'documentary' end and/or the 'aesthetic' end of photographic arts.

 

In that case it is the 'contrast' of the two together side by side with the brisk, blurry stride of the young woman overtaking the older woman and theater-like lighting from a display window from a fashionable store that lights the well-heeled and well-dressed young woman and illuminates the whole scene in a sense makes it a 'morality play'. (I haven't written that part before).

 

What I am writing is that there must be more, generally -- an aesthetic element -- and in this photo that aesthetic element is the loneliness of the old woman as epitomized by the long stretches of pedestrian walkway, the twin long empty, narrow lines before and after her, as well as the intersecting lines coming down precisely to her from the ceiling (at the precise joint of two of those sections and exactly where they are offset).

 

I do like Vladimir's take on the photo and would have been proud to post it as my own, IF I had taken that photo, all under a different title, but not with 'loneliness' as the story.

 

But here's a secret, the stories come after the photos are taken generally, though not always.

 

I think of the ideas of the captions/titles only to match the photos and seldom beforehand though that too is changing, or I make the titles/captoins up soon after, now more frequently.

 

Or even as a photo fails I might caption the failed photo I had in mind but 'didn't get' (there are a lot of those).

 

Fact is I always have eyes for the urban 'loneliness story' and just stop and take one when I see it, and don't have to worry about recognizing 'a story' or making up a story line - it's already there.

 

I'm a natural born story teller, and every human interaction has a story, even if a simple one.

 

|If you talk to me for ten minutes I can write five minute of it into a story, in news format generally . . . and used to do that for a living (assuming it really is news), and did that quite successfully and amazingly fast -- sometimes 60 words per minute or faster.

 

So, Vladimir's crop has the elements of success for a good photo but not for my story, but my story follows the photo although the idea precedes the photo.

 

|I can always change ideas too as the actors change their positions or the photos reveal different motivations, dialogue, emotions and/or positions, too.

 

I have no shame -- if it's a good photo, I'll just take it and find a 'story' that fits later, often.

 

I also used to write captions for a living and also for a living as an attorney, I used to (1) spend hours listening to stories of human interaction with woeful results and (2) for money to reconstruct those stories into something that would produce that money . . . from someone or enity responsible for payment, ;so I had to be a good story tellerI (or just was rewarded for my skills, whichever fits).

 

Here, I am taken by the aesthetics . . . . the artistry of the tones of the wall on my large, high quality monitor and if you double click and view the 'large' version, and have a very good monitor, you'll see some pretty amazing tones for a web rez posting.

 

It's that artistry/aesthetics plus the story (whenever it came about with the contrasts -- here the fur and loneliness - that transforms it from 'shooting bums and beggars' -- I think it to sheer artistry.

 

That's my view, and I have no shame about it.

 

And I've been there, where she is . . . . and if someone had taken a photo of me like that, they would have been entitled to their art, and I would have hoped it would have been great.

 

So there.

 

No hypocrite I.

 

Thanks for trying to step forth to 'defend' me,but not necessary but you are much appreciated nonetheless.

 

Vladimir is an able guy who did able work, and your view, while being absolutely correct, overlooks that there often is more than one 'correct' viewpoint if one only looks at a point from a different direction (see the aesthetics and use of thirds in Vladimir's rendition, using part of my 'geometry' and part of 'his').

 

I respect both of you guys; together this is turning out to be a lively discussion.

 

I thank the both of you.

 

John (Crosley)

The concept of both photos, both your photos is different, so is the impact and you'v have correctly pointed out that the 'Loneliness in Public' title could not stand cropped version. I think we have shown here that photography language is so delicate..Your reaction on my messing with your work did prove you a great person; I like your sence of humor too..Your comments on some photos should be printed in a book..About me going on a top issue, well, firts I should have to deal with it at my home:))

First things first.

 

About 'things at home' regarding 'other photographer(s) you may share a name and space with.

 

Sir John Mortimer, famous barrister of highest social and professional standing was also a writer who created in literature a much rumpled figure of a barrister who always seemed never to succeed climbing up the social ladder as his wife, Hilda, seemed to want.

 

A guy who failed to do what, as 'old daddy'' who was a prominent barrister, had done, (Mortimer's wonderful television series by the BBC, starred the rumpled barrister RUMPOLE OF THE BAILEY, played by the equally rumpled Leo McKern (for whom the part was written expressly).

 

Well, with an ambitious wife and being so dedicated to winning cases but caring almost not a whit about being 'proper', the almost eccentrically improper (but ultimately 'wise' Rumpole stepped on a lot of toes and was bossed around a lot by wife Hilda, whom he took to referring to as 'SHE WHO MUST BE OBEYED!'

 

You see, Rumpole was a sage.

 

He got everything right in court, despite a barrister's most difficult challenges (and lack of social standing which would have helped in British courts, and through the oddest of circumstances, despite an oddball and low class clientele with barely a farthing for attorney fees, and sometimes even being hired so he would NOT win, he always managed slyly to sneak in win after win after win . . . . .but of course since he didn't climb the social ladder and become head of LAW CHAMBERS (an office where lawyers practice) 'LIKE DADDY", he was -- in wife Hilda's eyes -- a perpetual failure.

 

He just never measured up, and he looked the part, all rumpled and disheveled (sort of like a Peter Falk (ColUmbo) of barristers, but who hung around in 'wine bars' (instead of pubs) and measured his questions differently but with equal or greater precision.

 

But as a sage, he also got everything right -- eventually -- despite horrific setbacks.

 

He knew she (wife Hilda) 'MUST BE OBEYED'.

 

And that is how it is with all men.

 

Men make themselves available, but it is women who chose the man, no matter how much a man may delude himself into thinking he has pursued a woman until she has 'relented'.

 

In fact, the bride has chosen him, or she would not have allowed him to heap gifts and attention on her until she has 'relented' and 'allowed' matrimony.

 

And Rumpole (Mortimer's character) also got it right, because once married, it is ultimately the woman who has veto power over everything, so it was ultimate truth, if seldom spoken, when Rumpole called his wife, SHE WHO MUST BE OBEYED!

 

I have nothing more to add.

 

Nor should you if you're sage.

 

John (Crosley)

Very sad and touching photo...

I know it's your city.

 

I have many photos that are happy and full of life or that just show the people being 'normal' meaning in English sense, regular.

 

But those do not 'score well or impress viewers from other countries -- they want to see the extremes.

 

You wait and see, and you'll see everything from me over time, including children playing, lovers kissing and the whole range of life.

 

Some moments are sad and others full of joy. You just must be patient with me; I do nothave 'tunnel vision regarding Kyiv, but some places and things that oirdinary people do (that are happy) do not also make good photographs.

 

Finally, in many other cities, you will not see such a scene, especially with a woman wearing a 'fur' (peltz).

 

My best wishes for a healthy winter now that you're over the flu (I suppose). Beware of slippery ice and falling . . a serious hazard right now.

 

John (Crosley)

I do not indict your city or your culture; I choose (often) to live where you live, a good endorsement of the Ukraine people and way of life (things can get too sophisticated in the USA with targeted marketing for everything, and absolutely everything done for a purpose, all of which is analyzed to death and he data of which is always sold for a profit. Sometimes too many people are searching for too many ways to profit from everything,no matter how small,as they reach into our privacies, one by one.

 

That once happened when poppa Stalin controlled Ukraine as part of the Soviet Union, but now it's relatively 'free', and a an encouraging place to live - a place of growth that is possible,if people can work out their differences which sometimes seem intractable.

 

John (Crosley)

in my opinion the original photo expresses perfectly the title. The revised photo might be better from an estethic point of view, but is of less impact.

Anyhow congrats for a great street photo.

Heinz

Thank you so much for the recognition.

 

Such photos are all too rare when shooting 'street' --sometimes where it all comes together in less than a second for one that more or less 'excites' the viewers as this one has.

 

Thanks for recogizing its power.

 

John (Crosley)

for aesthetics I prefer the crop.. but the uncropped better fits the title

I like this (original, uncropped) photo very much and it nicely fits with the title. But I have a question about an alternative composition. In one of your replies you write that

"...waiting patiently for the myriad pedestrians to pass (took several minutes for a virtual Dnipro or Columbia or Mississippi or Danube of people to flow by before I got such a break to photograph her singly."

I was wondering if existence of pedestrians would necessarily make the woman less lonely or make the photo worse in terms composition. The woman's body expression is so clear that I thought that with some people around the composition could still be OK. If, for example, a few couples were walking talking, laughing, etc. with their partners but not communicating with the lady, then do you think composition and/or loneliness feeling would be weaker? Thanks for sharing this work.

As explained above, I also like Vladimir's crop.

 

If I had been in a place where I could have taken that photo full frame, I would have taken and posted it; no problem. It's just that I prefer 'no cropping' when I have a perfectly good photo without cropping.

 

If I need to crop I have a list of reasons; 1. no telephoto of sufficient reach; 2. the photo is not good enough for a crop will 'save' it; 3. I misunderstood the photo I was taking and on review there was a much better (and different) photo hidden within ,and that might justify a crop sometimes) 4. protruding individuals, branches, people, car bumpers, tree branches, things. and so forth.

 

Otherwise I prefer to go with the photo I intended rather than a 'found photo'.

 

I take enough photos that I don't have to pour over every photo on my numerous hard drives looking to post process this or that mediocre photo into something really great - I've got tons of photos a post processor could spend years doing that with.

 

I'm a mjore natural type of guy - dedicated to more full frame and minimal post processing, and that also means minimal cropping -- even if that means passing by a better crop (I'll just go take another and different photo, as I'm extremely prolific and be enlightened by a suggestion as good as that of Vladimir). Also, this photo has done very good, and its 'tones' are very, very, very good. I know you have vision problems and I think you would be stunned if you could see the tones on a high quality monitor -- you might try even double clicking the image and putting it on your highest quality monitor and staring at it a while, then walking away. You might find the image quality grows on you.

 

Best to you.

 

Jhn (Crosley)

I think I actually addressed the issue of other passersby in a comment far above, but you didn't connect it or didn't see it. It matters not. Read on.

 

When there were individuals, they did not come by in small groups, they came by in huge, obscuring masses. There was NO OPPORTUNITY to photograph a pair of people talking or gesturing.

 

These rivers of people were intent on getting from one point to another, they were strangers and anonymous, at the height of daily travel and dedicated to their journey, not to communicating and as a result there was absolutely no talk among them.

 

So, the situation you envision, simply was not something that was something able to be captured since it didn't exist in my experience.

 

And,as I noted, if the rivers of people were invisible to my x-ray camera, she had no interaction with them,and he still would have been sitting there, with no interaction, even if they had been invisible.

 

But they had no interpersonal interaction separately or interdependently either -- each person was an island.

 

Watch one of my future posts for a photo of this 'river of people' and you'll see.

 

I think then you'll understand.

 

Meanwhile, please take it on faith, I am not known for writing things that are misleading (unless I try to make it clear I'm joking -- shutka in Russian).

 

John (Crosley)

I have a photo in this folder of a boy riding a street car coupler (Riding the Sausage) and sausage is the vernacular for street car coupler.

 

I saw that opportunity very late and went to photograph it with an 80-200 telephoto and included all sorts of extraneous wires, passersby, vehicles,etc., because I had no time to frame as the street car went away at fairly high speed with the only opportunity I have ever seen to make such a photo vanishing.

 

I shot the photo and cropped, narrowed, straightened, etc., later. It was the only choice. Cartier-Bresson would have passed it by, I think (he did not shoot with long telephotos though I am certain he shot with a 135 for his landscapes.

 

And contrary to belief, he did allow cropping (Life Magazine cover was cropped). Harpers Bazaar I think cropped some of his work. And so forth. Myths can sometimes be perpetuated by people with an interest in creating a mythos (my word)

 

He did not shoot just with a 50 mm (an account has him going into one country with a brace of cameras around his neck, with varying lens lengths). Life is just too complicated for the mythos of the world, though he may have preferred the 50 mm. But look at the Carrson McCullers photo and her companion lying on waterfront infront of a house and wonder if it wasn';t taken with a very wide lens, such as a 28 mm (or wider).

 

Mythos (again, my word, I think).

 

I chose this photo to minimize cropping.

 

Now, I have just taken a trip through (related photos) a feature of Photo.net to the right and below the posted photos. It says something on the order 'if you like this posted photo, you may also enjoy photos of this photographer other members have liked and for this one it points to other Black and White photos, and to my delight (and dismay) nearly all of the displayed photos are very poignant and touching . . . . and tell a story . . . both of which this one does (in spades).

 

Thus, this photo touches into a part of my portfolio that has been extremely successful.

 

Thanks, Meir for helpful advice over time . . . I think you have cleansed your soul, and you certainly have begun helping me.

 

John (Crosley)

I like the original, cheers Jana

. . . from you Jana, mean a lot to me considering where they come from.

 

I've loved your portfolio, though I seldom if ever rate and I comment on better artists almost never (they know that their work is wonderful, as I know you do with yours)

 

(just thought I'd let you know of my trips to your portfolio and that you are not forgotten though you may not have known I've crossed your threshold.).

 

It's interesting, since the fall of Communism, you've gone to the world to drink its photographic pleasures, and I've come (often) to one or more former Communist countries, in part because they were somewhat 'backward' though striving AND I could capture parts of three millenia this decade within 100 miles of Ukraine's capital city or its major city, Dnepropetrovsk, a major, but isolated regional center nobody in the West has ever heard of (but me).

 

And I've come to measure and document the changeover from Communist rule to capitalist economics as best I can . . . . . as well as the eternal humanness which is easier to capture in former Communist countries because the housing shortages have many people living much of their lives on the street rather than in (over)crowded flats. (Pravda?) I know that's hated Russian, but you get my point, right?

 

Maybe some day, I'll partake of desert or African pleasures and the chase of animals instead of people images . . . . as you make it look so inviting. . . . .

 

I am sure it is, until a pride of lions walks through a camp late at night, as I am walking to the latrine . . . . and run into one of them . . . . . . and they decide I'm a 'midnight snack'.

 

'MMmmmmmm, we knew those humans looked good, and all that fat makes them oh so much more tasty' . . . . I can imagine one saying to another as they lick their giant paws, after the kill and the feast.

 

Here's to the hunt (with a camera . . . of the game of choice).

 

John (Crosley)

being in the right place at the right time and having the EYE are essential in capturing one moment...and priceless to share this with the world. Great JOB! I admire how you captured this random moment and the composition too is amazing.

It requires patience too.

 

A vast crows was passing by, but any part of it could have taken away the meaning from this photo, so I waited for a break; it took some time.

 

Days later, I was in that crowd, and there she was, same place, withy sellers around her, sitting, alone and lonely, in the same spot, exactly, crowd or no crowd.

 

People or no people.

 

This is a somewhat epitomized version, but it helps make the photo, which is what a good photo should do, I think, and in my instance, especially through composition.

 

Best to you

 

John (Crosley)