'The Idealized vs. Real Worlds'

We tend to think of infancy and childhood as times when youth should

be untouched by the travails of life; soon enough life's rigors are

encountered and for some are they are overwhelming. This midwinter

thaw photo taken in Ukraine where there is little or no social safety net.

Your ratings, critiques and observations are invited and most welcome.

If you rate harshly, very 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

I was really attracked to this picture.  It captures a contrast in a very original way.  I was however wondering why I found this a good picture but not a great picture. 

I identified two things, The harsh yellow and purple colors distract from the main topic.  And secondly the babies face is not clean the dark lines on the face are a pity.

I could not resist and made a black and white version, and did some quick corrections on the babies face.  What do you think ?  Better ?

Ben

Black and White is much better. The color version looks finger painting like I used to do in kindergarden.

This is one of those photos that HAD to be taken, though the sun was beyond the horizon on a cloudy day, hence the bluishness overall, corrected somewhat.

I had a choice also of converting to B&W, and I rejected it, but not after some agonizing (not long, but real agonizing.).

You have improved the clarity of the baby's face, now somewhat dirty in the color version, but its tones and the baby flesh still come through well in this version with very good color.

The man (is that a man . . . I think so) seated atop his plastic-wrapped goods, wrapped in plastic, has green gloves, and aside from the varying colors of plastic he's just a lump and might easily be overlooked.

That's the reason I did not post my workup in black and white (I did that also and it looked like yours).

I wanted a little more attention on the seated figure, for more contrast, even if it meant that the child figure would be more 'dirty' looking from the road grime on the jotmey bus's  (marshrutka's --- Bagdon's)  side.

You are right, 'good but not great', and that is dictated by circumstances--over which there was very little control.  I think black and white changes the emphasis a little, but feared then the more casual viewer might miss entirely the lump of a man (?) foreground including his distinctive colors -- his own individuality expressed in colors, especially those gloves and if missed the contrast and meaning of the photo would be lost.

Yours is a good argument for your case, and on a different day, I might have made the same choice.  Maybe the day I posted this I was being more idiosyncratic?

Thanks.

john

John (Crosley)

Please see the comment  to Ben Huybrecht's b&w workup, above; it is a worthy choice, which I had rejected, but not by much, though for a good reason or two.  (see above for explanation).

john

John (Crosley)

IMO, the color version is the better one. So many details are lost in the b/w.

This is a harsh slice of life juxtaposed with the innocence of the baby.

The "dirtiness" of the baby's face doesn't bother me at all. It's simply the result of a dirty bus. Why anyone would want to clean it up is beyond me. Life IS gritty.

I believe that too many photos are scrubbed way too clean as it is. Just my personal opinion. Best Regards, Beth

I agree that so many of the photos on this service, and even elsewhere including galleries are often way too scrubbed clean.

I don't know if there really is a 'market' for viewers like you and I, since we may be in a small minority, but scrubbing clean is like buying only potatoes that have been washed through a scrubbing machine and thinking ones covered with dirt are somehow less healthy.  Hah!

This IS life.

I deal in LIFE, as many (including myself) now know (and I now realize).

I chose color because it put life in the man, encased in plastic, and I think added to the capture, but also added detail, since in black and white it was too washed out without a lot of extra Photoshopping which I was loath to do, including doing special outlining of facial features, use of healing brush, cloning, etc. 

I don't like to do those things and go with whatever seems more 'natural' mostly out of instinct,and partly because I am NOT a master of Photoshop, in large part out of choice; I'd rather take photos than manipulate them.

I don't really want to be able to manipulate them too much; I'd rather go take new, fresh ones.

Thanks for different and refreshing input.

john

John (Crosley)

John,

Regardless of what the "artists" state, I believe you have made a true capture of urban life and the content speaks tombs. Thank you for having the presence of mind to capture this and share it with us.  Best Wishes.  David

Thanks for the laudits.

Frankly this was one capture I looked at and said to myself 'How can I possibly pass this one up' even though the late afternoon light/early evening light was dim and there was a lot of dirt/slush/ice in the foreground and road dirt on the bus including on the child.

Fact is, there are certain photos, I as a 'street artist' just cannot pass up.

I took this from two different directions, from what you see as the right, looking this direction and this direction, looking toward the buses; I chose the second because the buses had a more distinct and even background with their identical (albeit dirty) colors.

Did you notice the cornucopia of pork sausages which yields the child? 

Sausage is a staple of those Ukrainians (and neighhboring Russians) who even can afford meat.  Rich land, rich country in natural resources and 25 per cent of the population, its major newspaper says, survive on $100 a month, yet there are multibillionaires too and fashion shops galore in this town (Dnipropetrovs'k) and capital, Kyiv also.

Ukrainians in American once did me an enormous favor in the Seattle area where they settled and so I went to pay them back with buying.   I went to Costco and bought the finest meats I could buy and bought them numerous pork roasts, also beef prime rib roasts and the roasts from which t-bones are cut plus chickens galore. 

Days later I visited them and expected to hear their freezer was full and they had enjoyed GREAT barbecue.

I was told:   'Best sausage we ever had!'

They ground it all up into sausage and ate it.

That's the culture.

This poor fellow, foreground, (if it's a 'he'), probably has someone feeding him at least potatoes, but potatoes are 6 hryvnia a kilo or about 3 hryvnia a pound with eight hryvnia to the dollar, so they're relatively expensive.  Also there's inflation; the country is existing on IMF credit; without it there's be chaos in their currency, as with some other Eastern European countries (and of course the neighboring Euro is in BIG TROUBLE too), while the American just keep devaluaing the dollar, which the Euro zone agreements forbid - instead imposing austerity on the poor while the rich Germans walk off with all the money and a very healthy economy and a little bit with France, BENELUX, Northern Europe, etc., and Swiss (not a Euro Zone participant).

I do notice he's very prepared for wintering as homeless, plastic wrapped and obviously to me his clothes are stuffed with newspapers (ideal insulation) so he may indeed be warm (this particular day was hovering above freezing, then at this hour was turning to freezing and getting slippery).

I deal often in contrasts:  contrasts in lightness and darkness, contrasts in age (old and young), as here, contrasts in wealth (also here), contrasts in prospects (also here).

You probably can think of other contrasts -- for instance the guy is bundled against cold, the child is naked and warm appearing.

The contrasts just go on in some of these 'obvious' photos, and this did not requre an enormous amount of foresight or skill like some of my photos which were split-second.  But this might have been; I turned around a minute later to re-look and maybe re-take, and the jitney bus had already gone.

I never saw another jitney bus with the same advertisement; it was not common and not on other buses.

As I said, this was a photo that HAD to be taken.  Not to take it would have been photographic neglect for what is is that I do.

Nobody would have known but me if I passed it by, but then I just cannot do such things; I have a mission (but not from God, it's self-imposed whether in Los Angeles or Inglewood (as today) or in Ukraine, as in earier this month or Rhode Island. 

The mission is universal; just as people are universal.

Thanks for the invigorating comment.

john

John (Crosley)