'Feeling Out of Place'

The question is who is out of place, this commuting woman in her winter

wear or the beer advertising party goers she appears to be interacting

with (or refusing to be interacting with) in a local Metro Station, Kyiv,

Ukraine. Your ratings, critiques and remarks are invited and most

welcome; if you rate harshly, very critically, or with to make a remark,

please insert a helpful and constructive comment; please share your

photographic knowledge to help improve my photography. Thanks!

Enjoy! John

John, you have captured a very interesting and intriguing story with this photo! I like the feel of motion you created and the choice of black and white makes us focus on the expressions. So engaging and very well done! Regards, Doug.

Sometimes fine 'stories' are found when a tired woman leans against a subway support, plastered with a beer advertisement which is made up of glowing shades of green covering every support and virtually every wall in the whole huge station.

 

(It's near Kyiv's and Ukraine's largest, most prestigious university, and the Ukrainian youth (especially young men), are amazingly prolific consumers of beer, especially when warm weather comes.

 

In summer it becomes HOT and HUMID -- thundershowery, perfect weather for a tall cold one, so the marketing is right on, as it is young men (as in America) who lead the way in beer consumption.

 

I think in the US this advertisement would be forbidden; the youths depicted probably are not even 21, the standard and uniform US minimum drinking age now that New York City long since has raised its age in the five boroughs to 21 from the former 18 (it was considered long ago that youths18-21 did not drive in the city's boroughs or own cars - or so the rationale went -- when I lived there at age 18 and had my first 'legal' drink in a bar at age 18 -- that it was OK to allow 18-year-olds to drink since they couldn't drive and thus wouldn't drive - as a matter of practicality and economics (however misplaced).

 

I had my first legal drink, a whiskey, in a shady bar on Broadway above 110th Street on the West side, along with the dreary daytime drinkers, invited by a fellow student from Oregon to have my 'first legal drink' then and there.

 

Four p.m. on a weekday -- how very very dreary, and after that I hardly ever set foot in a bar again. I found bars to be dull, smoky places of escape for those unwilling to face the world (my view, from being in several Manhattan bars) Drinking never showed me much -- lucky (or unlucky as you may view it) genes I guess.

 

In Ukraine, (and neighboring Russia and many other former Soviet states). if you can get the money over the counter (or even have money at all) you can buy intoxicating beverages, it's like a national right, probably somewhere written in the national constitution somewhere under 'unalienable rights not otherwise enumerated' probably both in Russia and Ukraine, I would guess, having lived in both countries (off and on).

 

Drink is both a blessing and a nightmare; it ruins countless lives, but doctors cannot get access to proper pain relievers for their patients, so patients in great pain turn to drink when they hurt beyond minimal prescription medicines . . . . . as there is a curious suspicion of 'drugs' but not of alcohol which ruins more lives than imaginable, and prescription drugs which really will attack 'real pain' seem unattainable, even though some Ukrainians hurt unimaginably like people in other lands where more serious drugs are available from prescriptions.

 

A great many in Russia and Ukraine (like many in the US) are self-medicated with alcohol, but alcohol is short-acting, addictive, and deleterious to health, including gradually killing off the brain (organic brain syndrome) when used heavily over a long period, and damages in utero infants (fetal alcohol brain syndrome which condemns children of alcoholic mothers to orphanages for their lifetimes.

 

Results reported to me by US couples who have searched for adoptable babies across Ukraine -- and found theirs, undamaged, but of course they turned away a great many Fetal Alcohol Syndrome 'damaged' infants . . . . and of course, orphanage babies in all but the best, most caring orphanages,, if neglected or not handled often do not develop social skills and often do not even develop the ability to talk or to love or be loved -- often 'ever'.

 

That is frequently a result of too much alcohol for pregnant mothers, unbridled, but alcohol does kill pain and also keeps the populace relatively happy and content - it's part of a millennial-long social heritage of some very social people, and not just something brought along by this government or that.

 

Such an ad would be forbidden in the USA because of the age of the depicted celebrants, who are overjoyed with their party.

 

I think US advertising standards even prevent those in their early '20s from being so depicted (voluntary by the beverage industry?)

 

This Danish beer's party goers are depicted having the time of their lives on one of the world's best 'premium' beers, though not a beer bought by most Ukrainian youths, for whom there usually is no money for premium brewskies, especially when drinking more than one (which is almost always).

 

This young miss just leaned against the depicted party goers, perhaps paying no attention to what was behind her, and along came me, leaned forward with zoom and 'snap' along came this (as part of a crop).

 

Voila. "It is done' or 'there it is' in French.

 

Simple as pie, but you gotta be pretty damn quick, or she'll react, change her expression, and her eyeball will be looking at you and your photography equipment and thus break 'the look' so essential for this photo's success.

 

I like this one; a friend who messaged me mentioned this one in particular, though it was 'slow to catch on' at first for some reason.

 

I think it will endure.

 

Thanks for the recognition.

 

It had to be black and white because the young couple and background are in shades of 'green' (ugh).

 

Desaturation fixes lots of ills, one reason so many 'classic' 'street' photographers favor it I think, besides their having been no history until late in the game of color film, while early color faded easily with bad, poorly-matched and easily faded dyes that meant the 'true' 'color; of color work would soon become just a memory.. ;~)))

 

If you think of it, B&W -- even Classic B&W -- is not 'pure' as itself, it is a 'manipulation' -- unless you're colorblind or a dog (dogs cannot see color).

 

Unmanipulated views would naturally -- thus -- be in color (except for the colorblind and those gosh-darned dogs).

 

John (Crosley)

John, thank you for the follow-up! I enjoy your writing as much as your work! Warm regards, Doug.

I always like to get feedback on how well my writing is received/ there's no writing ratings here, and it's totally limited to casual reporting.

 

Thanks for the feedback. I try to keep it interesting.

 

John (Crosley)

Can it be because the ad is for Tuborg?

 

Heh?

 

I don't know your nationality,but Tuborg is Scandinavian, and your name seems to indicate that.

 

Kidding aside, it was a photo that begged to be taken. I've been by the same place many times since and never seen such an instance again.

 

It's either take the shot or pass it by for a lfetime, sometimes.

 

Thanks for the feedback.

 

John (Crosley)