'The Way We Were . . . . '

Once, not very long ago, the song lyrics 'Smoke gets in your eyes' was

descriptive of the way almost every public (and most private)

conversations were conducted . . . . with a cigarette, some heavy

puffing, and for the adventuresome, (or the wannabe intellectual)

perhaps a pipe, also with much smoke. Things have changed

nowadays, mostly, but apparently not for everybody, as witness the

above. (Please do not rate on the subject of whether you like or dislike

smoking or my apparent attitude, but only on photographic merit which

may include 'impact'. Your ratings, critiques and comments are invited

and most welcome. If you rate harshly, very critically or wish to make a

remark, please share your photographic knowledge to help improve my

photography. Thanks! Enjoy! John

The smoke you see is all 'natural' - none created by image editing,software, such as Photoshop.  I didn't have to 'add' smoke to this scene (and would have passed it by if it needed smoke added to make the image smokey enough.)

john

John (Crosley)

Excuse me, I gotta go wash my hair . . . smells of  . . . well you know what.

jc

This makes me so glad I quit smoking..ughh  Nice shot John

I am aware, because I watched the averages, that there are a number of 2s in the ratings, but likewise some large numbers of 6s and I think even 7s.

Some people have charged this photo with their feelings about smoking and voted against smoking with their rates -- dundeheads.

It's a powerful photo - one of my most powerful.

Look at the number of rates vs. the number of clicks -- people seem to want to say 'my view on this one matters' to a great degree.

To me, this is one of my best, mediocre rates or not; because I know how raters rate smoking and other things some 'hate', and smokers also will downrate bad depictions of smokers.

Catharine -- your reaction was strong - ugh!  Also 'nice photo'.  Both entirely honest reactions.  For that you get an 'A' in critique.

john

John (Crosley)

I found this photo in a review of older captures (dress here is not seasonal, you may notice).

I was amazed that I did not single it out for posting or other treatment before.

john

John (Crosley)

Can you make a convincing B&W version of this photo?

I tried for hours, convinced this should be shown as a B&W photo, but the white/blue of the smoke blended in with the white face and black background of the men's jackets and was not cohesive.

Can you do it?  I'd love to see your workup, particularly if it's powerful and successful.

john

John (Crosley)

:) I tried some hdr, last night,  it seemed like a good photo for it.  I like how the eyes pop .

Yours in a most interesting version -- something I didn't even come close to.  Mine all were much darker.

Is this HDR, or some facsimile thereof?

I find it interesting and helpful, especially in the treatment, as you say, of the eyes, which are fantastic, but the smoke still is not cohesive enough and doesn't obscure the smoker's mouth enough for my taste as a photo of 'smoke engulfing the smoker' which is what the photo might be captioned.

Very good effort though, and original.

Any others -- photoshop experts?

This really should be a B&W photo given the subject matter, but how?

Catharine's effort was good, just not what I want yet.

I posted color out of desperation, AND the fact it turned out to be a pretty strong photo in color even though I thought the subject was best presented as B&W.

Anyone capable of separating out the smoke as a layer, and adjusting it solely, then reworking it back into a B&W photo.  I'd love to see your work and know how you have done it, if it's really good.

john

John (Crosley)

I agree that this would be great in B&W but I, unfortunately, can't lend any help on photoshop conversions.  Photographically speaking, the image is certainly a strong street capture and effectively conveys the defiant attitude of the smoker.  For me, however, it is the piercing stare of the other guy that draws me into the photo and keeps me coming back for more.  You hit a homerun using the wideangle.  All the best.

Thanks John.  :) I tried adding, cloning, burning more smoke over his mouth but its lots of smoke, no mouth. I think its perfect as is. I like his mouth and teeth.  I wonder if you just tried some sharp on the eyes and maybe desaturate the orange or yellow just a tad to fix the guy on the left.  Maybe sharp the smoke a little using sharpen tool, easy enough done.  Looking forward to see what people do.   For me its definitely a 6/7

Can you imagine that I sat on this capture for almost 2/3 of a year, only looked at it once, didn't consider it for posting, and simply forgot about it until the other day.

I was reviewing past captures, and when I saw this it just 'knocked my socks off'.

I am always reminded when I do capture review much later of street 'great' -- photographer Garry Winogrand, whose tilted-horizon, 'edgy' photography was called by MOMA's John Swarkowski to be the most important photography of its genre of the second half of the 20th Century (though Cartier-Bresson also lived in that half of the Century so maybe the comment overreaches).

I almost fell outta my chair when I saw this on review, (sockless, moreover)

Winogrand didn't develop his film sometimes for months or years (he shot film and prolifically).  He died with thousands of rolls of film undeveloped and tens of thousands of contact sheets not made or reviewed.

[snarkily, since he lived and taught in LA and had taken to taking 'street' photos from the rifgt (passenger) seat of a car, people had suggested his latter work was mostly repetitious or 'unviewable', but I cannot say anything, because it's all hearsay -- there was, last I heard, a movement by a former wife and perhaps others to put it all together.

[i feel kindship with many 'street' photographers, and more and nmore with Cartier-Bresson, as I understand more and more his photography, literally for some I could be standing in his shoes, even though regrettably my photography never will more than approach for my best his lowest standard, and even then rarely.  I quit photography because of seeing - and meeting - the genius, and rightly so.

He liked to look at it from an editor's eye and unbound by prejudices that come from having experienced recently the circumstances under which a capture was made.

Hence, the city of capture, here, is marked as 'withheld' or some such and same for country.

It doesn't matter.

It's a guy (white) with a cigarette, blowing smoke. (Into my face if truth be told, I think I recall).

But whether I 'invited' it or he did it to 'get my goat' is irrelevant to the capture -- I cannot remember which.

It's a 12 mm. capture -- I am drawn to super wide angles, but do well with telephoto or 'normal' also -- it's just getting used to different ways of looking and seeing, and often (and this day too) I carry cameras with both length zoom lenses, so I won't miss much.  I try to be versatile.

And people let me get really 'up close and personal' (hackneyed I know) when I use a super wide angle - I must not be too threatening or I've worked out the 'aggressiveness' from my personality so it doesn't become too obvious.

Thank you for a thoughtful, well-written critique, and welcome -- there's plenty more [interesting I hope) photos to come, even from today/tonight -- including, (I hope) one near 'world class' photo.

Thanks also for the interesting point about the eyes -- they're lightened here somewhat; in the original capture they're quite shaded/dark and more foreboding, but it seemed just to be a problem with lighting which was inadequate and easily fixable, which I did gently, and unobtrusively.

john

John (Crosley)

Many times past (not this one) I put off posting or working up photos because my photo editing (Photoshop) skills were simply inqadequate for the task.

I had extra money a year ago and hired a photoshopper, then another, to do work, but not for work shown on this service, as that's against terms of service.  What you see is all my own work, however inadequate.

It keeps me honest and also keeps me out there shooting, as the hours I spent trying to turn this into a viewable black and white if it were daylight or even early evening might have been turned into shooting hours (if I didn't hurt so much from injuries I have, which prevent me from shooting very much -- my tremendous output is from compressed short shooting sessions which are enormously productive; you gotta do the best with what you have and the cards you're dealt.)

I learned much from simple, briefly watching both the Photoshoppers, viewing their output, even though one worked entirely from home, but worked with tremendous dexterity and quickness - sort of like Photoshop as done by a 'gamer' -- two hands and full speed ahead.  Unfortunately, the money ran out, and in any case, Photoshoppers can be a very tricky lot; many are failed or 'not making it' professional phographers -- often wedding photographers, who are capable of doing wonderful things with photoshop, and their wedding work will not countenance other than the very straight forward.

In any case, there are a number of photos I remember putting off 'until my Photoshop skills get better', which never have been worked on and are capable of being pretty good; this is just one that got overlooked.

Even these days, after seven years on this service, I have about the equivlent of one year's  Photoshop skills, but without use of levels; everything I do it a decision, and if I don't like it, I go back in 'history' and change it.  Previously, levels also did not offer many of the filters I used, such as the very important shadow/highlight filter, which is incredibly important to my work, though a little less so now, as I've finally ventured (after six or seven years) into dodging and burning.

I know that sounds incredible, but it's true.

But 'scores' have shown a difference -- raters seem to like the still minimal photo editing I have now begun to do.

But 'keep it minimal' is my mantra -- usually no more than a darkroom tech could do in a chemical darkroom.

Like I said, keeps me honest and also keeps me out there shooting, where I'm really apt to get a true showstopper rather than trying at home in front of the computer trying to bring out something usable from a slightly more shabby capture that 'had promise'.

;~))

john

John (Crosley)

I noticed you mentioned doing 'cloning'.

With rare exceptons, I don't clone at all.

For dust, or things for which a film and chemical darkroom print might have required 'retouching' with pen and/or airbrush,  then I feel small 'cloning' is OK for me, but I represent my efforts as largely untouched and think I have a reputation for that.  The ethical choice to 'clone or not to clone' is up to each photographer.

I came from the news industry (after I began taking photos), and there, more than simple retouching was unheard of, and also impossible.

These days, cutting and pasting, is easy work, but as one newapaper photographer who had a thing for making his photos be 'improved' by cloning, cutting and pasting and generally 'fixing them' found -- the news business depends on truth, not idealized visons of someone's view of what the truth should be.  

He was fired, and it's doubtful he could ever get a news photographer's job again.  He was finally caught after systematically 'fixing' large number of his photos -- not just a single transgression as he pleaded at first.

'Fixing information' may work in dictatorships and under tyrants (not well, as Egypt has proved and same with the Soviets), but it's not for me.

From time to time while working at Associated Press Photos in NYC, I worked with KGB agents (never revealed as such, but they soometimes came to me  to make nonpublic transfers of reworked photos they wanted sent to Moscow for their ostensible employers -- Izvestia, Novosti Press, and Tass, and that work provided them, as KGB spies, cover for their nefarious business.

They took photos of down and out Americans in the worst circumstances, then worked them up with airbrushing to make them look worse so Soviet viewers would draw different conclusions than fact about life in America. 

The idea was to make Soviet citizens think American life was a sewer, but it's not. 

It wasn't then, either, and even some godawful American slums, if cared for, would compare favorably to a lot of Soviet housing . . . . though the Russians/Soviets did keep their insides OK, but let the outsides go to hell.   US slums, by comparison are often hell inside, with roaches, nice, rats, and such, and I have never seen that in Russian  housing however close such housing may have looked to this American as a slum -- and there is plenty of such housing.

The reasoning was "why should I fix graffiti or help fix the security system (if rarely there was one) -- that's somebody else's business, and if they don't do that, it's not my affair, and I won't get involved."

Typically, especially in Russia where I spent time, citizens would not get together, to 'get involved' -- even to improve the wrecked exteriors of their own buildings, and thus 'help' boost the values of their own flats (apartments).

There was something nefarious about cooperation, in their minds, I think.

Lights on a floor landing in Russia or the Soviet Union in all but the best buildings would go out, and no one would replace them; the whole floor might be dark for a week, a month or a year, despite the security risk.

Graffiti might accumulate on front doors, walls, mailboxes and lobbies of huge high rise apartment buildings, but no one would fix, when I visited Russia.  'It's not my job' was the explanation.  No one would organize, and if they did, no one would talk to them.  It was good under the Soviets system to 'keep silence' and that is still part of the culture.

Years later I married a Russian woman.  She told me the KGB did not keep the truth from her family.

She told me that the joke in the Soviet Far East where she grew up and later closer to Moscow where her family moved was the wish that Russia and the USA would both declare war, -- for about 24 hours -- the USA would 'win', (by prearrangement?), and then the USA would send the Soviets 'foreign aid' which at one time was given very generously worldwide.

Unknown to many Americans, many Soviet Nuclear experts had fine houses built for them, and other benefits given them by the USA, in exchange for not giving their nuclear secrets to the rest of the world when the Soviet Union fell.

I met people who built and designed those houses then constructed them. 

We sent millions of pounds of meat (mostly chicken legs) to Russia and other republics when the Soviet Union fell apart in 1991, Christmas, to help avert mass famine -- a most generous gesture. 

One patriotic Russian wpoman I knew well complained -- "'Bush legs' (her name for the chicken) didn't taste good"  [they were named for President Bush who had the wisdom to help the Russians and was a pretty darned good president compared especially to his son.  He was at least a good man.]

From time to time, I would encounter American and western nuclear inspection experts as they arrived in Moscow -- teams of them -- to ensure the Russians (no longer the Soviets) were indeed destroying their missiles and warheads.

[That I did work with people I knew almost to absolute certainty to be KGB agents, long ago was part of my job at Associated Press.  We all knew who they were, we all despised them, but it was our contract with them to send their crappy propaganda photos back home to Russia. 

Years later, now, I am happy to report not too many people really believed them, and that is after years of visiting Russia and Ukraine -- the two biggest Republics of the former Soviet Union.

Remember, Stalin killed more than Hitler.  People in the Soviet Union then did not know that, and would not have believd that of 'Poppa Stalin'.

When he died, women weaped openly and genuinely.

For a long while the propaganda machine of the Soviets worked pretty well.

But along came open long distance telephones. 

You could call into the Soviets Union from anywhere in the world.  Censors often were listening, but could not stop the talk, only punish later.

Xeroxes (which made copying 'illegal' books posible - the so-called samizdat).

Video tape machines made movies accessible throughout the Soviet Union, illegal or not.

Radio Free Europe.

Voice of America.

Russians/Soviets who visited the USA and did not defect, told true stories of the wonders of the Western world.

It's impossible to destroy the truth over the long run.

In this computer age, shutting the flow of information off seems to be an impossibility.

And with computers and the Internet, citizens are bringing down tyrants.

These are not good days for tyrannical regimes.

'Big Brother' lost his chance -- the technology got into the citizens' hands.

If you get outta line anywhere in the world, there's a Yelp site, or will be one for your type of complaint with others interested.

It's only a matter of time.

It's a good day for the world.

This photo is about 'the good old days'.

Only, it seems, they weren't such 'good old days' after all.

My choked up nose and sinuses and continual sore throat ceased when smoking by all around ceased.  I breathe freely now, pain from others' smoke forgotten, almost.

Don't tell me stories of 'the good old days'.

Deliver me from them.

This is a photo depicting 'the good ol' days' as they truly were, seen from more modern and enlightened times.

john

John (Crosley)

Pardon me for misspelling your first name.  Apologies.

john

John (Crosley)

John, let me know what you think about this B/W version.

You made a great effort, but basically it is not any better, I think, than I was able to do myself . . . . there's something about the smoke in color that obscures so much of the guy's face and still is cohesive as an agglomeration that I cannot replicate in the B&W versions I worked out, and I speny lots of time trying.

I don't think you were able to capture that 'essence' either, though I can imagine that you didn't just spend a few minutes on it either hitting 'desaturate' buttton or B&W conversion in Photoshop under 'image>Edit image>B&W and even adjusting color channels.

There's got to be a secret a pro photoshopper might know, but I'm damned if I know what it is, and presently I am without someone on staff or availalble to me regularly or nearby.

Really skillful photoshoppers are available for rvery low prices where I am, and their skills can be outstanding, but it takes time to run an 'advertisement' and then there probably should be other work as an enticement . . . not just a sole image.

You made a great effort, but it's still an 'effort'.  The color version still better portrays what I want to show, and somehow B&W seems so tantalizingly elusive, for what should seem to be a simple task -- apparently not.

The gravaman of the photo is smoke and smoke that obscures and is cohesive, yet is smokey in that it has whisps, currents and other vagaries since it is a mixture of gases and  suspended particles.  I guess the problem is it's semi-transparent but more in many places than others and not in some predictable fashion, as it's basically ephemeral.

I just for now can't put my finger on why it can't be successfully (so far) made into a 'great' B&W photo with some ease or so far at all.

Anybody else care to make a try?

If need be I can provide a larger file, though really this one is pretty large - -much larger than I used to post when I started here over seven years ago.

Thanks Sid so much.  You honor me by your effort.  I know it took a lot of time, and you hoped for a better response . . . . and frankly so did I.

It's not 'bad', but it's not 'great' and for this photo, it requires a 'great' conversion or it'll just stay as a color capture, with regrets.

Thanks so much again, Sid.

john

John (Crosley)

This photo is a Photo.net rarity, a ratings magnet.

Even if to register disapproval (for the smoking I think rather than the photoraphy, which to my mind is full of impact) at this juncture with less than 100 clicked views, there are 23 raters, meaning one out of four viewer has expressed a rating opinion.

That makes this photo a very rare bird among posted photos.

Interesting. 

Is it as bad as the ratings would suggst, or are there many protest ratings against the depiction (any depiction) of smoking, as I know some people who rate only highly or not at all have stopped by to rate, and at other times, low ratings unexpectly took a large upward bounce after a new rate -- indicating a very high new rate.

Is this a case of 'kill the messenger?"

I like it; it's one of my best, and to my mind it has great 'impact'.

If not, tell me why, would you, using photographic terms common to this site?  Catherine Hall said it well above 'Ugh'  'Nice Photo' - for that she got an 'A' in critique. 

She analyzed it exactly as I did . . . . .  

Do you have a different view you can verbalize?

john

John (Crosley)

Thanks John. I am not a Photoshop expert either, but I thought I would give it a try. I would be interested in seeing other tries also. Sid.

What the hell, one more try for you to not like. Like I said, I am not a Photoshop expert either, and therefore this one is not as good as it can be, but I think it is better than my last try.

It's better for the smoke and cohesiveness of smoke, but the guys tonalities and skin -- etc., look severely degraded.

There's still got to be  way.

Photoshop experts - help!

This service has so many . . . . .   some people call it Photoshop.net for good reason,  not for what I postkl of course.

Thanks Sid, no cigar still, but that doesn't mean I don't entirely respect you for trying.

john

John (Crosley)