"The Oxymoron: 'Parting' and 'Sweet Sorrow'"

Romeo and Juliet said it first, but its truth lasts, as this couple in

Budapest's Keleti International train station demonstrate before one of

them boards a train departing for abroad . . . and clearly to the

photographer are feeling unobserved by anybody. Your ratings,

critiques, and observations are invited and most welcome. If you rate

harshly, critically, or just submit a comment, please submit a helpful

and constructive comment; please share your photographic knowledge

to help improve my photography. Thanks! Enjoy! John

Nice capture. I like the way you used the train for framing the models. Congrats.

Thanks.

 

But no models here.

 

Just one passenger and one passenger sender. I was almost invisible to them, on another train vestibule, a second train away, in midday indoor darkness (open door however).

 

Saying goodbye (for real).

 

John (Crosley)

It is well shot, and a moment nicely captured.....good work.....regards

Thanks.

 

I always try for the well-captured moment; regrettably I don't always succeed.

 

I got another moment, blurry, and unpublishable, that shows how isolated they really thought they were!.

 

Never to be published and also completely unviewable anyway, so no temptation.

 

;~))

 

John (Crosley)

Fantastic candid shot John. Looking through the open doors of the cab gives a distinct "voyeur" feel to this shot. Excellent street capture. Regards - michel

This definitely is a 'voyeur' shot, not in my motivation, but in the fact I definitely can attest that they surely were convinced no one was observing them, based upon the contents of another, very blurry capture, which I took the time to examine. It just cannot be shown because (1) it is unviewable, due to camera shake and blurriness and (2) it could not be placed on Photo.net in any event.

 

I was unaware of just how 'intimate' this couple was when I was photographing them, but indeed they were 'very close' as that single capture reveals amidst its blurriness.

 

So, 'voyeur' is an apt description, though I am not especially a 'voyeur' in the usual respects of the word.

 

Thanks for adding a well thought out thought to these comments.

 

John (Crosley)

Very touching moment!

There was a period of decades when I did not photograph except every ten years or so, just when people challenged me, and maybe said 'if you say you can take good photos, why don't you do so?' I would go out for a week or a few hours and take some and then stop, not having anyone to show them to.

 

Photo.net stopped that; it gave me an audience.

 

Since I resumed now over five years ago, as I am much older, I have always looked for moments like this.

 

Such moments are rare, but when I capture them, I feel blessed.

 

Thank you for kind words.

 

John (Crosley)

 

this is great. I like nutty stuff like this. I also like your choice of B&W. Cheers, Micheal

Interestingly, this does extremely well in color; the train is blue and looks very good.

 

On the other hand, my train also is visible here which is barely noticeable; it's a reflection in the open window of the vestibule, but I'm standing in the opposite vestibule, in shadows, so I am barely visible in somewhat bright midday light.

 

But 'nutty'?

 

I'm not so sure that man kisses woman (or vice versa|) is exactly 'nutty'. It's what makes the world go around, and is hardly a Jerry Lewis sort of thing.

 

But I get the idea; it's not a highly photoshopped, seaside time exposure taken at dawn showing the sea surface as a mist-like substance. It is 'real' and it may actually 'mean something'.

 

You may make your own interpretation of course, (and some day I may take my Medium Format or larger camera, tripod, and make a time exposure of exactly that photo of the seaside, Bay or the Sound, that I seem to be making fun of, so don't get me wrong . . . . I like beautiful enen cliched stuff, too.

 

I'm just pretty good at finding such moments, and then pressing the shutter at the right instant, which many photographers may feel makes them feel like 'voyeurs' or 'pornographers' which this is definitely not -- in my eyes it's 'ART' and of a high order.

 

It speaks of the eternal attraction between man and woman, even apparently dwarfed by giant machines, but somehow towering above them . . . . if I can speak metaphorically.

 

Which is something my photos sometimes do, as well.

 

Thanks for a helpful comment.

 

John (Crosley)

:-) I was going to ask where do you find the time to wander the streets of europe, states and russia and altogether be in the net answering all the time :-))

 

a good street capture indeed, and as I see in the critique forum a Crosley classic! ;-)

There's a thing called 'desaturation' of a former 'Crosley classics' when I have a new Photoshop technique or (as here) a new filter that permits redoing something that previously was simply out of the question.

 

Here it's a new sharpening, smoothing, anti-noise filter, that allowed me to take a previous color capture that just never could make the transition from color to B&W properly, as many of my color shots could not, and suddenly it becomes acceptable, and even a 'Crosley B&W classic'.

 

Many of my 'classics' previously were shot in B&W even at the very beginning with many of my early B&W shots shot in Tri-X but also a good number also shot on color transparency film (Ektachrome 400) then later desaturated.

 

Some of them improved with desaturation, and others were more the worse for wear, depending on whether color 'added to' or 'detracted from' a particular capture.

 

My first posting, 'Balloon Man' (this folder, bottom. was shot simultaneously on two cameras, one a 35 mm in B^W and it's my best ever, I think (and my highest scoring by far), while it simultaneously was shot with a Mamiya 220 loaded with color and it was awful.

 

Besides poorer composition in the 2-1/4 square format the balloons of different colors all competed and took away from any coherence to the balloon mass.

 

That shot, in particular, is a shot that was meant to be B&W.

 

This shot however has been successful not only in B&W but also in color on its first posting long ago as a color photo.

 

I wanted to test the new finishing filter, supplied to me by a new associate, and also now to see how much better my shots are going to look now that I've ventured away from strictly Photoshop CS (whatever version I've used, including CS4) which just isn't' sufficient for noise, contrast, and finish.

 

The newly acquired filter works great, but for a while I won't discuss which one, and you can guess or not whether a particular capture has used it . .. . . as I'll be posting some which have and some which have not.

 

(at least I think, but its results have been so spectacular I may have to redo all my prior captures . . . . .)

 

But I do go to Europe now about once a month . . . . stay there from a week to a month or the other way around, go to the USA once a month and stay there a few days to a month .. . . . . a traveling guy and long have been.

 

It keeps me from getting stale.

 

I just found a fare to Cape Town or Johannesburg from where I am (it's summer there and frigid here with snow all over) for $588 round trip, with soon departure, but if I route through London the taxes and landing fees, and 'fuel surcharge' almost doubles it. The 'fuel surcharge' is a phony baloney sort of thing too, as fuel prices are down and it's just another 'hidden fare increase' which legitimate airlines don't price separately.

 

If I can get a fare out of here for that price without surcharge (bye bye bye bye and it's lions and big cats and lots of 'village people; (and I don't mean 'hippies' singing hippie anthems either,and maybe a side trip to Namibia.

 

I travel on the cheap Billie, accumulate those frequent flyer miles and luckily I know how to redeem them . . . . which is something most mortals cannot accomplish. (years of experience -- decades, even, plus law school and almost two decades of practice, (ended over 20 years ago).

 

I was going to go to Argentina with my assistant, but she got deathly ill (really, she came close to death with public health treatment before I paid to get her into a private hospital,, and we were going to go on frequent flyer miles -- even got the country's consulate to say OK to an impossible to get visa, after they saw my work and that I'd visited there before . . . . as they are scared to death pretty Ukrainians will settle there (gauchos ironically were often Ukrainian Jews -- a little known fact,and synagogues were found on the pampas). I'm not Jewish, but Buenos Aires is by far the most cosmopolitan of South American cities with a little of this and a little of that.

 

That trip still may take place, but 'family obligations' for her come first, of course,and prevent her from spending a long time there, as I would like for me (and may spend).

 

For me, though it's just 50,000 air miles spent for a ticket from a US gateway,and dinner in Buenos Aires at a fancy outdoor, plaza restaurant is $10 with table cloth, super service, silver cutlery and the finest steak (and hugest one) in Argentina and for a bottle of very good wine $4 to $10 more . . . to rival anything but the very best from Napa.

 

;~))

 

You just gotta go with the flow.

 

And avoid 'tourist hot spots'.

 

Never go with the crowd or over 'fashionable times' to 'fashionable places' when the 'fashionable people' are going and sending rates to the sky, OR learn who is discounting, particularly in a recession (as now, and everybody in travel is, right now).

 

When in LA I stay in a hotel at $59 a night that formerly charged $150 a night and get upgraded to a corner executive level room that's HUGE and treated like Royalty, but could hardly pay a monthly mortgage on a bungalow in Santa Cruz for such a price.

 

(won't name the hotel, but you can e-mail me -- its' a huge and prestigious chain and I don't want to make public the low rate they give me or my name will be 'mud' with management.)

 

Plus I get 'points' good around the world at their other hotels good for now maybe worth up up to a month in other hotel properties -- last time I used them it was good for 20 days in a very fancy hotel (for free), not even taxes, and (for me) they resurrected a huge number of 'points' that were 'discarded' five years ago because I actually 'forgot about them' thinking them of 'no value', until a hotel manager whispered in my ear how to resurrect them . . . . when I needed them the most.

 

(so I stay at his hotel, repaying him his kindness, and get a very very nice rate and friendly staff in the bargain.)

 

Traveling around actually can be cheaper than buying a home in today's declining market where home prices are eroding - where you lose money every day you spend in your own home).

 

I figured that out in 1996 when I divested my home in Santa Cruz area . . . . and headed for parts unknown, certain that house lending practices and the run up in housing prices were going to cause a crash,(as they have).

 

(I believe in my own advice, and take it; I once was an economist/securities expert on Wall Street, who left because I knew much of what they peddled there was worthless including what they wanted me to peddle to others (the only true good thing about that was the high fees, which later in practice of law (long since shuttered) I actually earned (for the most part), sometimes at amazingly low rates per hour but with usually stunning results (not always, but usually).

 

Billy, I'm suis generis. (lawyer speak for one of a kind).

 

I figure out the essentials and put them together my own way, which often is different than anyone else and not by the book, not because the book is always wrong, but because I trust more to know the essentials than someone else's book.

 

(*the 'book' and 'experts' said 'San Francisco and Monterey Bay Area housing prices were soundly based and would essentially rise forever) -- Hah! Hah! Hah!

 

I foresaw what was happening in a hurtful way and barely escaped with my rear end before the crash.

I sold just as the market was turning and got out with my ass intact . . . any later and I would have been crushed.

 

It was tight, but I could clearly see a crash, though not with such HUGE severity -- severe I foresaw, but not enough to nearly close down the global economy.

 

(I was unknowing about the extent of 'derivatives', Icelandic banks, Spanish builders . . . . and Ukrainian bankers supposedly taking bribes to make very risky loans . . . . (allegedly) which turned a bust into almost a depression world wide and caused banking failure almost world wide.

 

John (Crosley)

 

(if you know the building blocks and how they work, then make your own buildings; they may look different from someone else's but if you do know your blocks they'll work out OK, and sometimes better than someone whose fad idea becomes 'generally accepted knowledge' just because it's widely accepted but may have hidden -- and fatal -- defects, revealed only when everything has already crashed.

 

I never trusted anybody in fiance since the few months I worked for a San Francisco brokerage firm and their highest grossing broker ran into the 'back room' where I was trading stocks, and bragged 'to no one in particular' in his excitement' about how he had burned some rich doctor with some soon to be worthless stock picked up for pennies by the firm and soon to go bankrupt which the firm had been touting for very high prices . . . . . a 'bust out' if ever there was one.

 

I saw the handwriting, got out of there and never looked back, though I was scolded for 'missing the opportunity of a lifetime (to sell my soul), by some Gordon Gecko wannabe and lookalike.

 

(It is well known the new Bay Bridge has a defect exposing it to complete failure in even of a certain well-known violent terrorist action, but it looks good and modern and they're building it anyway, despite full.knowledgeable warning from someone highly respected and highly placed who said 'don't do it' (and I don't even like the guy') -- the truth is the truth.

 

It may only be a matter of time (or good luck).

 

Self-deceivers abound in this world.

 

History is bound to repeat itself because people refuse to learn.

 

The US has a large number of people who are proud to be Luddites.

 

They reason: 1. 'If it's so, it must always be so.

 

2. 'If it once was so, it always will be so

 

 

3. If it was so and it was seen a a strength of our country, it was 'God ordained'. God favored the USA (and thus was against anybody we we

A prominent photographer on Photo.net has written me privately asking about the background, and whether it is genuine or just of 'no importance'.

 

I assured him this is a pure 'street' shot, taken 'as is' at Budapest's Keleti International Train Station.

 

On further examination, it appears that the original station may have been composed of ironworks and during updating the ironworks may have been enclosed by walls, and the iron girders may have been enclosed.

 

The portion behind the embracing, kissing couple, is, by my educated guess, the accommodation for a supporting girder in the last remodel of the station, no matter how long ago that was.

 

In other words, it's of no-never-mind and certainly of no importance to the photo and no reflection of its authenticity which is 100%. See my single photo color folder early on for the color version of this photo, in case of doubts.

 

I have little interest in manipulation of anything: my motto when someone suggests I manipulate something: I'll just go out and 'take another photo',and learn from what's missing in the last one.

 

My photoshop skills are not even to the point where I can take a layer and remove it to 'cut and paste' it somewhere else, and I have no wish learn that.

 

I prefer life raw and untouched, with the only manipulation (besides contrast, brightness, etc.) coming with camera placement, shutter speed, sharpness, choice of saturation, etc.)

 

;~))

 

No digital tricks here.

 

(or if there is a digital alteration -- exceedingly rare -- I'll alert you to it.)

 

John (Crosley)

Well seen and well framed shot.