"The Lost Luggage' -- A Study in Rectangles, Parallelograms, Right Angles, Trapezoids, and...."

'The Lost Luggage' speaks for itself. Your ratings, critiques, and

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

or wish to make a remark, please submit a helpful and constructive

comment, please share your photographhic knowledge to help improve

my photography. Thanks! Enjoy! John

This photo is rich in rectangles, parallelograms, and related four-sided figures - trapezoids.

How many are there and do they add or subtract from the photo? Are they a theme in the photo? Are they somehow interrelated in the composition?

If so, how?

Can you name one such figure you don't think anyone else will 'see', even if it's not complete?

Pop quiz in 30 minutes.

It may 'look' like it's a simple photo.

You may want to look again.

John (Crosley)

;~)))

This seems like a casual 'snapshot'.

I think it's one of my finer works, though simple appearing.

It actually is quite complex, and strangely appealing, not just the subject matter but the composition . . . just look at it and how the puzzle parts fit together.

In any case, somehow it 'works' which is all one can hope for.

Thanks.

John (Crosley)

Yes, I think I captured a moment, and I think I did so deceptively simply that people (initial raters) overlooked just how carefully constructed this capture is.

That's OK.

The raters jumped in, knowing something was causing them to rate, even if low, but they felt compelled to rate. That's a sign of involvement; one sign of a successful photo -- regardless of ratings.

I call this sort of photo a 'ratings magnet' - not so high views or even comments, but it attracts raters who often are not quite sure why they feel compelled to rate, but they do.

I know why, but they think a photo must be more 'complex' or 'amazing' in many cases for a photo to have a high rate -- joke's on them.

I know my photos' worth generally (not always which is part of why I put them here).

But this one's receptoin doesn't surprise me. It's 'simple' looking but far more complex and appealing than most would like to admit.

Note, I said 'most'.

Some have 'seen' it for its worth, I think, and I feel they are 'correct', and some of my higher-scoring photos I don't always feel so great about.

And I say so.

Best to you Carl.

John (Crosley)

Thanks so much.

It's deceptively simple.

Just analyze it.

It's more complex and complete than expected by viewers.

All in a split second, too.

Thanks Marizio.

john

John (Crosley)

Early raters didn't understand the completeness or complexity of this photo.

I can imagine them, seeing it in the queue, saying 'two people on a trolley' 3/3 or 3/4 or 4/3' being quite self-satisfied, then moving along.

Little did they know if they had lingered and done some REAL analysis.

;~))

It pays sometimes to 'pay attention' rather than rate split second.

I enjoy this whole process -- this one is a 'ratings magnet'; a photo which does not immediately draw high rates or views, but just draws rates, because somehow it's 'appealing' . . . . for the reasons you mentioned, but it's so deceptive, people don't really understand that.

I do.

That's why it's here (today with 16 ratings . . . and now climbing from just about a 3/4 average to its present position. It's bound to be an 'everbearing' photo -- one that keeps getting clicked on, despite its seeming simplicity, and not just because it 'caught a moment' but because for its deceptive artfulness.

It's funny how things work out if you don't complain about initial low rates.

;~))

john

John (Crosley)

for my new photoshopper, who has a good sense of such things and asked him honestly (he can express his honest views) if there were any way to improve this capture in the sense that this is a structure of the building blocks of squares, parallelograms, rectangles, and similar structures.

For those who gave up on the question of the 'hidden' structure, mentioned above, please note the upraised left hand (facing us) and left arm of the man, and then note how it complements the upraised right arm of the woman (to his right) and form 3/4 of a rectangle.

All that's missing is to draw a line from hand to hand to form another rectangle!

All this (and one other photo) was composed and taken within less than a second or a second and a half, (after first viewing the scene and approaching, camera down. I had spotted the scene from a distance, hoping they'd keep their miens, and their places long enough, and given their circumstance, that seemed like a pretty good bet. (I had my own luggage on a luggage cart at the time).

There's almost no good time NOT to have a camera ready to take a photo, luggage in hand or on a cart or not.

Just stop for a second, take the photo and move along.

Many times people are unaware of being captured, (or they may delight in sharing a good capture if you choose to share a good one.)

As noted above for all its apparent simplicity, this photo is quite elaborately structured, however, naively and however done 'on the fly'.

john

John (Crosley)

The theme of trolleys (or luggage carts if you are American).

The couple sits on a luggage cart. Basically it's an affair that is a platform with two uprights for handles at each end. If the handles were connected, it would be a giant rectangle.

The mechanism has small wheels, ideal for transport on an even floor.

Now, across the entire background from one side to the next are luggage carts/small luggage trolleys; sort of miniature versions of the giant one they are sitting on. Americans know them as the annoying 'Smarte Carts' because they must be paid for.

In essence, this photo has a theme of repetition or mirroring of luggage carts (or trolleys), both numerous small ones and one big and a background carpet of small ones.

The background trolleys are interconnected and also have small wheels, but since they are interconnected (nested) one cannot imagine sitting on them.

As if to put an exclamation on the whole scene and highlight the theme, there is an illuminated sign with a luggage cart/trolley at the left side, in case one otherwise might miss the idea.

I had not put them all together until just a few minutes ago, and no critic heretofore put forth the theme; can I them assume no one made the connection?

Again, this photo is far more complex than its apparently simple subject would suggest.

john

John (Crosley)

Flann O'Brien, in 'The Third Policeman', writes about people becoming part of their bicycles, and vice versa.

A good bicycle is a great companion, there is a great charm about it.

'How would you know a man has a lot of bicycle in his veins?'

[...]

'If he walks too slowly or stops in the middle of the road, he will fall down in a heap and will have to be lifted and set in motion again by some extraneous party'.

I've sometimes felt the same way about my suitcase, especially when travelling frequently, and especially now that suitcases have wheels. Perhaps these people are feeling the same way about their absent luggage. I too have felt a certain separation anxiety if it has ever explored the world on its own. These people are responding by sitting on a luggage transporter, behaving like luggage, setting an example for their errant suitcase, hoping to tempt it back.

Behind them, a pair of smart carte signs cruelly mock their plight. The signs seems to say, "Look, this is how our carts should be, each laden with a white suitcase", all the time knowing that these people want nothing more than to fill the empty platform of the first cart in the line, but cannot.

I hope their cases returned to them very quickly. And I'm pleased you were there to capture this wonderful moment, John.

What a wonderful, literate comment.

There is little need to respond, except to point out if is one of the  most wonderful comments, I have received whlie on Photo.net as I progress through my seventh year with tens of thousands of comments.

Bravo for your commentary writing -- fabulous.

john

John (Crosley)

Thank you, John. Your photos are often thought-provoking, which is a considerable achievement. I must remember to view your gallery on this site more often -- it's always a rewarding experience.

When a visitor on film/tape told Cartier-Bresson in his living room/salon that the visitor was particularly enamored of a certain photograph lying around (none adorned his flat except Muncasi's famous photo of three black African boys entering a lake in splashes), Cartier-Bresson's reply was: 

'Really?'  bemused.  'I didn't think that was any more than a snapshot.'

Fact was he didn't know how to take a snapshot; he probably never had the ability, and by the end, completely had lost the ability to 'see' as others see, without applying his great artistic gift of composition and timing.

During my vast period between serious photography, people would hand me a camera and say 'you were once a photographer, here, take our photo.' 

And my reply would be 'I don't take snapshots' perhaps a little too snootily.

Maybe I was afraid I'd lose the gift I'd had in my early '20s and a little later, and uncovered once or twice a decade since until I got to be 'vintage' as I am now.  (That does not mean, however, covered with mold and dust'.)

A great deal of thought went into my early photography; I was a thinking young man, attending Columbia College, Columbia University, N.Y.C. and 'thinking' was the curriculum no matter what your actual coursework.

Book a week for most courses, and generally five courses at a time, occasionally more.  Five or six books a week.  It's hard not to be immersed in thought almost all the time when one has an undergraduate education like that.

Rebelling at that, I picked up a Nikon, went out and took what was a worthy photo on my first roll of film, from a compositional and historical standpoint (three men on ferry boat, this folder).

Others followed.

The thoughts however, preceded the photography and the photography was only a way to express it, but what a great way.

I did not 'see' so much or 'too easily' at first, but what I saw and recorded has stood the test of time; I'd still pronounce my early works worthy and still among my best.

And they've stood the test of time.

Now I see MORE and MORE and MORE, all the time.

I cannot go out without seeing so much it scares me almost.

But I'm only frightened of the prospect of not going out and recording what I see with my now more mature vision, and thus losing all those wonderful shots forever; If I don't capture them, who will?

The ideas are more mature, the vision also is, and it's coupled with much more experience in handling my equipment plus modern equipment (auto everything/frames per second, etc.).

Rather than 'hunting quail with a machine gun' as Cartier-Bresson lamented auto cameras, they have been a great boon to yield. 

Nothing auto composes and nothing ever will, unless it auto selects the 'rule of thirds' or some such, by formula, and that will be all wrong for my style of photography.

I doubt any computer ever could be programmed to 'see' as I see, even far into the future.

I hang onto every day, going out when I can, to make new recordings, and come back most days with several 'keepers' and every so often a lifetime keeper.

Like a couple of days ago, with two lifetime keepers -- one an all time best -- among my very best ever -- all from just one walk down the street.

Life's sometimes good, even when one's 'vintage' and lame.

And these photographs are reflective not only of my inner compositional skill, but its application to my very complex (often) thought processes, which instantly can jump from subject to subject, as the occasion and my vision demands.

If I could run like I think with a camera, I think I'd hold world records.

Alas, I'm lame and must walk slowly, but my speedy thinking causes me to walk right up to people, and older guy that I am, I just feign disinterest (often) and then when something interesting happens, spring forth like a cobra for the capture.

Or conversely, sit there and quietly take photos as though I'm some stupid tourist testing his first camera until I blend into the background all the while quietly taking wonderful captures (or trying.)

Then I often invite people to view my captures (and often make lots of new friends from those people).

And I do make so many new friends that way.

Taking photos again has been a high point in my life, opening the doors to a whole new world of friendships and a whole new outlook on life.

Thanks for the compliment(s). 

Without these photographs, you and I never would have crossed paths, which I regard as an exemplary point in my life.

Witness your wonderful comment, unsolicited, and perhaps extemporaneous on your part, an act of pure creation born of spontaneity . . . . a tribute to my photography that I hold dear.

john

John (Crosley)