'He's Mine!'

A shop owner, right, with the message conveyed: 'He's mine!' Your

ratings, critiques and remarks are invited and most welcome. If you rate

harshly very critically or just wish to insert a remark, please submit a

helpful and constructive comment; please share your photographic

knowledge to help improve my photography. Thanks! Enjoy! John

Very strong B&W. Could be two "equal" shots glued to each other, two worlds, however belonging to the same reallity. Great the diagonals, the look, THE VERY IMPORTANT HAND, giving balance in the total demension and the total tone balance. "He's Mine". The young man clearly is understanding the situation, is realising his position and emotioned because he must have decided in keeping silence. Two slaves, an aggressive anxious one and the one on the left waiting for liberation after realising that trents and maybe all kind of promisses are rather relative. The apportion of different tones, fantastic.        

Maybe there is a town called Withheld somewhere, but not in this country which must be either Russia or Bulgaria! 

The gesture of the man seems like he is running the photographer away, which is usual in countries like withheld, ha! I live in such a country and it has happened to me although I am six foot tall and 124kg! You don't have EXIF on your picture, but I suspect the lens aperture was too large for the bad guy isn't exactly razor sharp! I use aperture priority mode and keep the f/11 when walking around with my camera! f/16 if it is brighter outside! The composition is good, as it should be for the purpose of depicting the event!

And John, if I helped you a bit to improve your work, please come and help me improve mine, ha!

Cheers!

PDE

Thank you for your congratulations.

I almost never really know if my viewers here will like or dislike a photo, with some rare exceptions, but I know what I like.

This particular one not only is pretty good in black and white but it also works out pretty well in color - well enough to post, even.  Some such photos cannot be used in color - imagine if the mannequin in the foreground had a pink jacket or shocking red coat -- it would totally distract. 

Here the colors harmonize. 

I didn't stop to talk with the guy with the hand - possibly for reasons you can guess, but when someone makes a gesture toward me, I habitually fire the shutter.  

It's made for some wonderful photos!

Imagine that I really had little interest in this situation and was just out for the late afternoon under a canopy at a huge, newish bazaar of fiberglass shops, focusing on the mannequin's eyes mostly for practice (notice they're razor sharp) when the door opens and out comes the guy, right.

So, although I don't understand what he said, when he made a gesture with his hand, I fired instinctively.

I'm not exactly James Nachtweg, war photographer, though I did carry a camera as a freelance briefly in Viet Nam and campus riots/police sweeps, and race riots -- as a photographer/photojournalist I did leane to keep clicking. 

One barely 'interesting' or even better photo might turn into the next 'amazing' photo if one learns to click more when events change and compose 'on the spot' as I did here/ the diagonal of the hand/arm is no accident. I had to step back to compose that and also readjust my zoom, as I seem to recall, to make the arm/hand 'work'.

The worse it gets, and the closer you are to what's happening the more you click, and the better the shots are apt to be.  It's almost an axiom or a corollary of taking 'action' photos.

I'll let your ruminations about the 'story' speak for themselves - it's enough that this photo 'engaged' you . . . for which I am very proud. 

You are no sycophant, Olaf. 

But at the same time you have only commented on photos of mine that I thought were interesting and good -- a good combination and a rare synchronization of taste.  It is rare to have such taste in common with anybody including a now prominent critic on Photo.net like yourself.

I really would have liked not to given this photo a caption, but the software doesn't allow me to do that, so I just slapped on one . . . . you can put your own on, and it will have as much meaning -- not the case all the time with my photos.

Big smile to you from the city of [withheld] in the [spring] or [Autumn] of the great country of  [withheld].

;~))

I hope my photos are NOT nation dependent but speak for and describe the whole world's peoples.

A hearty thanks to you, Olaf.

john

John (Crosley)

The country of [withheld] is NOT Russia or Bulgaria, but for all essential purposes might as well be. 

It is a country, however, that in its own way speaks in my photos for both those countries, and the man with his gesture speaks for a non-homogenized culture -- a culture that is NOT like the US where everything is marketed to death -- where everything that is done is first done before a 'focus group' to determine reactions, then little sensor in say, supermarket' microcameras track eyeball motion (truly) as people go by certain display and display advertiements (reclamen), and so forth.

This man certainly has NO understanding of modern 'marketing' or 'retail sales' other than that (supposing he's the owner, which I cannot verify) that the owner buys at a lower cost than the cost of sale plus the cost of arenda (rent) and electrichisva (electricity) and oxorona (security guards) etc.

But I swear it's not in Russia, though I have lived there (near Begavaya, Metro, Moscow and also in Ryazan, for sure, and spent time in St. Petersburg and a little time in Lipetsk.  There was a time I spent more time in Russia than in the USA for several years actually.

Frankly, it's been several years since I've been to Russia, but even in the interim before my last trip there , Moscow had grown 'like Topsy', with Tverskaya Blvd, once a small highway, now loaded with businesses all the way to Sheremetyevo II airport

Now I'm not even sure that's the main airport - the terrorists chose another for their recent attack.

I used to hang out with a retired Russian Admiral and his family (I married his favorite niece who later got brain cancer).  We'd pile into his old limousine, he always had his little red 'party book?' credential which was great for getting through official lines, like at the airport, and we'd go for big macs (for him), fries and shakes (for him).

I learn he now has had numerous heart attacks and wonder if he's still alive. 

With Putin in power and  a son who was an aide to Putin, he last wonders if he still did like me, as I began carrying a camera . . . . .

He's a good follower of political winds . . . a former adviser to Brezhnev I think and a great story teller. (but never anything ill-advised or forbidden).

I miss his company, frankly, as power change in Moscow has made relations with Americans now more problematic for those of prominence.

He was in power in days gone by with his submarine missiles -- attack missiles . . . . pointed at Western, NATO and US targets, and we had our nuclear bombers and missiles pointed your way . . . . MAD (Mutual Assured Destruction . . . . and Sting had it right all along.  'The Russians Love Their Children Too' [when he was with 'The Police'.]

And boy, do the Russians sure baby their children, even as they become grown up!!!  Especially the boys!

Pierre, you have invited me to help improve your photos.

I am not sure how I could.

Maybe use less Photoshop on some of them, but that's your style and you know how to use it, and I just don't. I resist, for fear I'd overuse it.

And some of your 'photos' aren't really photos at all, but genuine works of art!

Pravda, and no payback or exaggeration -- truly works of art and way outside the Photo.net fishbowl.  I only speak the truth, too (flattery is way too hard to remember.)

I'm heartened by your comment and salute you from the country of [withheld].

john

John (Crosley)

;~))

Without that wonderful hand with splayed fingers and the arm reaching, this photo would never have been seen by anyone.  It would have had no meaning or structure/composition at all.

The hand and arm plus the man's expression, mirroring and/or contrasting with the dummy (mannequin in colloquial English), is what I feel changes this photo into a composition.

I learned a rule a long time ago.  Set up to take photos.  When you take the photo, be aware that other photo potentials may arise, and they often are wonderful, so keep snapping.

When someone crosses in front of me or is running my way, my camera automatically follows them.  If I have a zoom, I'm zooming all the time or looking to place them in a larger composition . . . . depending on lens and other circumstances . . . and how surprised I am by the running . . . . and when someone walks across my path while photographing, I usually lower my lens UNTIL just as they start to cross where I was pointing my lens in the first place, and then start snapping again.  When I point my lens down, I also avert my eyes, or just look away, which I am pretty practiced at, knowing when to look back based on their pace or watching from the corner of my eye with my good peripheral vision.

Just keep snapping is a good motto for the fledgling street photographer AND photojournalist.

I learned it on 'street' and it got me my first and only job as a photojournalist . . . . although no one called it 'street' those days . . . . it was just 'photography' or 'candid photography' but really wasn't called 'street' by anyone I was aware of.

Who first popularized the term 'street' anyway?  (Am I correct, or was I unaware in the late '60s)  That's when I took up photography as a young adult . . . and later put it down for decades and decades until Photo.net gave me a forum.

I am curious.

john

John (Crosley)