'Why Fathers Don't Want Daughters Dating Until Age 25 At Least' (Note Tongue Stud)

Most fathers would cringe if they knew that their young daughters not

only were smooching in a fast food restaurant, but that the guy had his

tongue out as bait and it had a big tongue stud through it for everybody

to see, which leads me to concur with many who claim they don't want

their daughters to date until 'age 25 at least'!

Your ratings, critique 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. Thank you in advance for sharing

your photographic knowledge to help improve my photography. Enjoy!

John

Sometimes without a proper caption people will miss the most important small detail that 'makes' a photo.

Here, that tiny little metal tongue stud on his thick tongue was the prime reason for posting, yet most viewers would immediately pass over the photo unless it had a proper caption (title as you call it).

But I wrote captions once long ago for Associated Press, so I know the value of good caption writing; which is why they put me in an editor's job after I quit photography and writing.  I knew how to get people to look at photos and what 'made' photos interesting.

Personally I think this is tremendously interesting, even though the small subject is very hard to see without double clicking to make photo its largest.

The couple did too, as they had broad smiles when they heard the mirror slap, and looked around and saw me with camera, by that time looking FAR AWAY, in a different direction, as I always do, just as basketball players do when they feint.

They were very entertained by being singled out and came to see this photo and were very impressed when I 'blew up' the tongue stud' to show them the point of it all.  (so was the security guard, for the first time, one who had a sense of humor -- will wonders never cease!)?

Thanks for the comment.

john

John (Crosley)

Thanks.

I had wondered about posting this, but frankly I love it!

So, like I do, I just posted it and hoped for the best.

I'm glad so much you like it.

(A good or excellent caption helps greatly with such a difficult to see post when it appears first in thumbnail).

It might be easier to show first in a museum or a gallery, where people walk past it and 'can't miss' the 'tongue' and 'tongue stud', but posting here with thumbnail postings first is quite a bit trickier, with special hurdles.

This photo might easily have been overlooked entirely without the caption.

john

John (Crosley)

This photo, like almost all 'landscape' oriented photos I post, has been resized downward by Photo.net, so the view you see when you click on the thumbnail to get here is NOT the photo I uploaded, full size.

To see the full size photo, click a second time on the photo above, and quickly the full size photo will appear.

Then you will have a better look at this guy's tongue and tongue stud, and won't need a magnifying glass (if under age 50).

john

John (Crosley)

A good realisation of a thought... But john, I wonder some points. why didn't you prefer a colored version and a closer frame? Regards..

Siempre genial en el detalle documental.

Saludos.

This should be photo of the week.

A beautiful shot with a very nice title, John!

I am sure this is well worth all of the comments here, the image for such moment been so well lit and composed with great details, contrast and tone.

As far as I know, such dating in UK was all ok at the age of 18 and at 21 the girl is free even to live with her boy friend, this is the first time I know that the age of 25 is the permitted one, at 25 might not much left in a girl to share with her friend, it seems getting old, just joking:)

Thank you for sharing it and wishing you all of the best.

First, about color and why in black and white.  After years of posting both in color and black and white, I have developed guidelines that work almost into rules.

Some photos do well in black and white and color and it's posting choice whether to present them as black and white or color.

Others have distracting colors, and a color or colors or any color at all may take away from the central point of the photo or its composition, so that photo should be presented as black and white.

Contrariwise, the composition of some photos depends entirely upon the exposition of various colored elements in their original colors and to fail to do that negates the entire reason for presenting the photo - those are entirely color dependent photos.

This photo has as its main point a very small detail within a very large frame -- the man's tongue sticking out and further the metal stud on that tongue.

The woman's overcoat is colored, the table is colored, the cup he rests his hands on, and the print copy on the wall (a Mark Rothko) all are colored, and thus all tend to pull the eyes away from the somewhat fragile central subject -- his thrusting tongue and its tongue stud.

So, since this photo is not color dependent at all, and in fact derives its strength from its composition not its color, its presented here in black and white -- plus black and white is traditional or classic for 'street' photography.  Not required, but traditional.

As to 'size' that is the way I shot it and I happen to like it.  It's either shoot it the way I see it, or crop it.  I don't post crops generally -- they suffer from being crops, and thus was just a lucky shot anyway -- who even knew he had a tongue stud until AFTER the photo was taken?

Well both he and she did, but not me.

In any case, if you mean that the viewer has to 'work' to 'get the point' that's all right by me.

Sometimes people feel rewarded when they have to hunt something down and are happy when they find something they feel rewards them.

I think viewers here feel amply rewarded -- at least they get what is promised in the caption.

Also, the framing I find suits me.  In earlier days I would have cropped in the camera like crazy, but not any longer, and this has been a very successful photo AS IS.

Never mess with success.

It's like messing with the ju ju.

You just don't do it.

thanks for very good questions.

john

John (Crosley)

Yes, great attention to the detail in this documentary (street) photo.

I smile as I write this.

I was not sure I could successfully show this photo -- only a triumph of good caption writing I think allowed people to want to see it, and follow through without disappointment.

john

John (Crosley)

I am not sure of Photo of the Week.

I'll put my caption up however for Caption of the Week.

How's that?

This WAS a sink or swim photo without that, I think.

john

John (Crosley)

As always, recognition from you not only this time for the photo, but also for the captioning (a rare occurrence), is treasured.  Your photographic discrimination is well known and cherished by me, so a few simple, kind words are treasured.

john

John (Crosley)

Rashed S.

I surely hope the part where you say 'just joking' applies to your whole critique.

when I was 14, we had parties where for four or five hours in someone's basement this is all the boys and girls who attended did.  No actual sex, but kissing (makeout parties they called them) were popular.

Very popular.

I found it was good training.  I've never had one complaint as an adult about my kissing abilities.

Of course the caption was 100% in jest.  Fathers are always the last to want to throw their daughters into the dating scene -- they alway remembers what their hormones were like at age 12-16, and worry horribly about their daughters, especially fearing their daughter's reaction to her own hormones.

;~))

This stuff about coming of age at 18 is mostly balderdash -- at one time it was legal age was 12, which of course was way too low, but in many countries it's 14, still too low, but in many countries or States it's 16, but same acts for 16 in one state will get an ankle bracelet for life for a guy in California, Oregon or Nevada where he rule is maturity at 18.

God help is you take a photo of your girlfriend, even if she's 'legal' in a 'legal state.  That's illegal, so far as I can tell, under much of US law.

Sexual or not.

I don't take any such photos or try to, but the new Puritanism of American galls me.  I was a teenager, and a responsible one, and didn't somehow at age 18 pop up and become an 'adult'.

Europeans are soooo much more advanced (this was taken in Europe).  Admittedly public displays of affection are not the stuff one finds in Germany or Netherlands, where there is much good private housing, but it is not so plentiful in Ukraine, so it goes out into the open and is practically a public tradition.

A very happy one as far as I'm concerned (and this couple too, who were VERY HAPPY to be photographed.)

john

John (Crosley)

After reviewing my work, that of the classic 35 mm black and white photographers who didn't have 'zoom' lenses worth anything, and who used 50 mm and 35 mm lenses, in reviewing the importance of 'context' and composition in 'street' I came to the conclusion, and have been coming to the conclusion more and more than strong zooming is less and less desirable.

Some of the small details in Cartier-Bresson's finest works are no larger than the tongue stud or tongue in this photo, yet they stand out clearly.

Previously, because I could, I might have zoomed more, but I didn't.  I didn't know the tongue stud was there, but in any case, I wanted to frame a composition of two lovers making love in a public place -- not a tongue stud and tongue.  Those elements were 'icing' on this particular cake and not especially predictable (not visible with the naked eye from my distance anyway and not seen through the telephoto as this is the first instance I brought the telephoto up to eye level, then fired away not having seen his tongue withdraw or insert before.

Good thing, as I think the framing is successful and with after knowledge, would not change the framing.

john

John (Crosley)

For an old coot with a partially paralyzed right hand and arm (very painful too), even holding a camera is a trying ordeal.

My greatest analgesic is not Tylenol, Aspirin, Oxycodone,  Codeine, or anything else.

It is nailing a shot like this.

Really!

When I capture something like this and share it with the world of photographers and others, I get a 'rush' unlike anything else I've experienced. Frankly, I hate narcotics and drugs - and their 'high -- I'd just rather be free to wander with a camera and my 'vision' and get shots like this.

I felt that rush from the moment (the first day) I bought my first Nikon (my first camera ever) early when I was in my '20s, before I met Henri C-B, but his greatness caused me to understand my work paled in comparison and just give up this craft though I had nailed down a wonderful job at a wonderful organization (AP) as a photographer i in the most sought after assignment in their whole empire (San Francisco during Hippie Days, Jefferson Airplane, Three Dog Night, John Fogerty, Berkeley, Gimme Shelter and so forth).

I just gave it up.

I compared my work to Henri C-B's and said (not knowing who he really was and supposing him worthy of an exhibition at the local museum but 'really nobody wonderful' I presumed who was just one small part of the competition I'd face as I'd try to work myself into the photographic fame I had foreseen myself achieving as a 'street', documentary, and/or news photographer.

Boy, he sure was good, too.

And boy was I wrong in my estimation.

I had supposed him just one of dozens or hundreds of very able photographers, not one of the greatest of the Twentieth Century.  Source:  Charlie Rose and Richard Avedon, 'The Charlie Rose Show'.

Dumb me.

If I'd have known that, I might have stayed with it, especially if I'd known HCB's tour there in San Francisco I saw was his swan song -- he was retiring and selling prints to finance his retirement and take his last bows as a photographer. 

He really did give up photography about that time, and that was the end of HCB as a photographer though he lived until just six years ago to age 94.

Dumb me.

I just saw this seemingly polite French guy who I didn't know from Joe Blow who shook my hand as I entered his exhibition.

Then I looked at his amazing photos, went back to my new job at AP and told them I wouldn't be taking photos for them -- they made me into a writer - later an editor and photo editor, ending up in New York City world headquarters sitting on their top council within a year and a quarter, two assignments later.

Lots of my AP friends and acquaintances got Pulitzers, including Sal Vader, my brief mentor there in San Francisco (He got his Pulitzer after I left).

But I wasn't judging myself by Sal Vader (a wonderful guy) but by the work of HCB himself - whom I had never before heard of.

I was really dumb.

I ran into the security guard today who was looking over my shoulder I think as I took this photo . . . . nice guy . . . . one in a million security guards, who actually has a brain and understands his job is to keep people orderly, keep people from stealing stuff, and not to prevent YOU from seeing THIS by hassling me.

(I can't print if I know he actually 'saw' me take this or it might endanger his (or is it a her?) job, so I'll just have to leave that to your imagination.)

If I ran a restaurant chain, if I could, I'd have 100 such smart individuals working for me . . . . and leave the thugs behind.

Intelligent security guards are very good for business. The whole world now is camera crazy, and only the stupid guards pick on people with larger cameras, since everybody these days is a photo hobbyist and has a camera (camera phone) and/or a video (videophone) and the only difference is the SIZE of the camera.

And this couple was VERY HAPPY to be part of my minor 'art' exercise after they realized what was going on, and send me kind greetings, then waved a friendly goodbye with big smiles when I left.

Hans-Peter, there's lots more than just a 'quick eye' then pushing that shutter button. 

One has to run a gauntlet of permissions, implied or written, or risk breaking rules (written, unwritten, or societal) to get shots such as this, and the ultimate reward is to get a remark such as yours (and here the blessing of my subjects too)!

Thanks for expressing your kind thoughts.

john

John (Crosley)