'The Flower Seller (Boss Plus)'

This the scene a recent evening in the Kyiv, Ukraine Metro, where a

flower seller in pedestrian tunnels connecting lines was complemented

by cleaner advertisements (Boss Plus!). Your ratings, critiques and

remarks are invited and most welcome. If you rate harshly or very

critically, please submit ahelpful and contrsuctive comment; thank you

in advance for sharing your photographic knowledge. Enjoy! John

Hi. Very much like the colour theme and mood here. Compositionally, I'm a bit uneasy with the central positioning of the flower seller. Perhaps a big crop on the left plus not having the leftmost figures might work. Very nice idea though!

I'm glad you made a comment, and suggested your 'improvement' to this scene by cropping and repositioning a figure within the scene.

It might be a very interesting scene, what you suggest, but it would be entirely another photo.  It presupposes that the aspect ratio (ratio of height to length) be changed, which I try to do as little as possible, and as you probably can see, I like to frame my composition in the viewfinder.

This indeed was framed to put the flower seller in the center, in part because if the aspect ratio is to be preserved, this is the most interesting and absorbing view - given my penchant for symmetry.

This shows two tunnels of a three-tunnel split in a pedestrian walkway -- to the far left is another tunnel but one of which I could not get a good view for framing.

But there was no way to take more interesting or as good a view from anywhere else to NOT put the flower seller in the center, but this is the view I preferred anyway.  I am NOT uncomfortable sometimes from using a horizon to split a frame (few have noticed when I do), or 'break' other so-called' rules, such as putting the subject in the 'center' because here the sell is NOT the subject.

The subject is the entire scene, and in part it's the position of the BOSS PLUS (translated) sign circles. 

If you look carefully, you'll see they're pretty evenly spread through this frame, either in a group of six of the groups -- if you count the right three, then the singles and the groups again across the frame.  

Or if you only count single 'large' Boss Plus purple circles, there's 'three of them', rather evenly spaced - I hope just enough not in symmetry to add a little 'tension' to the photo.

So, left to right, big Boss Plus sign, a group of three, then a larger one.   Then the sign behind the flower seller's head and shoulders, another sign behind the walker to the right and finally a group of three.

If you're only counting large signs, then one to the right, one in the distance and one to the left, rather evenly again spread thoughout the frame.

This frame was specifically designed for such spacing, and it's part of the reason (1) it is posted,  (2) it is not cropped and there is not a new aspect ratio with the crop; and finally (3) it was the most inviting and 'interesting' to me, which is why I framed it that way.

If you do think your view is better, please download this, crop it as you think is better, and let's have a look.  If yours is better, I will possibly incorporate it into future and saved editions of this shot. I'm not too fancy or hifalutin not to take a good tip.

Thanks for contributing.

I look forward to a better rendition done by you (or anyone for that matter).

john

John (Crosley)

After re-reading your suggestion, I saw that you thought I should not show or even possibly 'remove' the other figures to the left.

Since they overlap with the flower seller, it would be impossible even to crop them out since cropping within a perpendicular frame (square or rectangle) when one figure overlaps or blocks another means another method must be used.

Potentials to achieve that result involve either (1) cutting off part of the flower seller or (2) removing the flower seller entirely, which would mean of course no such photo - no photo as I envisioned it anyway - would be left.

If I 'removed' those you find offending, I would have to 'select' them, remove them, and somehow 'fill the area' with whatever I could by cutting and pasting, or using 'content sensitive fill' which I don't think I'll ever use except for possibly a sky with dust particles caught on my sensor . . . ruining an otherwise good photo.

I think, unless you can show me a reworked version, I'll just stick with this. 

I'd love to have a background guy doing inexplicable handstands or cartwheels, to make a really 'surreal' photo, but even Cartier-Bresson  only has one such photo in his collection (kid walking on hands in Montenegro mountain road, or somewhere in that area).

I LOVE such rarities, but they are rare because they are seldom seen, even by me.

Simon, if you can improve this shot, don't hesitate to submit here your own version from mine.

I'm very interested in what else to do with it; right now it's as planned and 'seen'.

What do you see?

john

John (Crosley)

To avoid being too 'obvious' about the repetition of the 'BOSS PLUS' signs (translated here for ease), I attempted to show some of the signs 'covered' by passersby and the seller.

I think it added more dynamism and kept the photo from becoming a reiteration of the advertiser's own work.  Who wants to be a recorder of advertisements, even if in pretty and dynamic colors without trying to make a good composition out of it?

Sometimes objects partially blocked can invite 'viewers' to try to 'see' or 'imagine' them as full  -- perhaps the brain does that anyway, or tries to.

If it sees three 'BOSS PLUS' signs then a fourth, but blocked, the brain may say it must be a 'BOSS PLUS' sign, even if it's otherwise defaced or somehow incomplete and that is hidden.

Your eye 'makes' it complete but must dwell on the content a trifle longer, and the longer a viewer is 'engaged' mostly the better the photo.

What do you think? 

I'm open to ideas and suggestions.  I don't have a 'lock' on truth or 'the right way'.

john

John (Crosley)