'I'll Think It Over'

A market shop owner mulls over a price, and says 'I'll think it over'

which it appears he is doing seriously in this recent photo.

Your ratings, critiques and remarks are invited and most welcome. If

you rate harshly, very critically, or with to insert a thought, please

submit a helpful and constructive comment; thank you for sharing your

photographhic knowledge. Enjoy! John

Is this man giving the price offered serious consideration, and is he genuinely 'conflicted', or is he just an actor (good actor>). 

I solicit your thoughts . . .

john

John (Crosley)

The charicature is great..! The background the worst ever seen..! :)

Olfa, you are correct on both counts.

If nothing else, the background places this retail 'giant' in correct context.

He is NOT Sam Walton, founder of Wal-Mart.

He's re-inventing retail all over again, his way.  Probably doesn't even have books.

It's like that all over -- just show up, buy product and sell it, hopefully for more. 

Good eye.

Thanks for the comment (wait for the next photo -- one of the BEST backgronds I've ever posted).

;~))

john

John (Crosley)

The agonising expression as he considers the deal is "priceless" no pun intended, the hand over the mouth further evidence (if any were needed) of his careful, almost painful considerations.

You have give me some good indicators in the past about your approach to street photography, and indeed made me smile as you recalled some of your more errm confrontational subjects. I have taken a couple street shots now myself, one the subjects asked me to take a shot, the second I remained unobtrusive and took the shot with a long lens. So my question is, how did you go about taking this one? And were there any repercussions?

Cheers John

Alf

My place, this gesture means something like: Ah, what are we going to do now, ah, what have I done, ah, I completely forgot about that...! And the look in the eyes like this may also mean in addition: Sorry, what have I done to you etc! Also means deep reconsideration in the light of some new, neglected before fact! I would call this a very good psychological study! 

Warm regards!

PDE

An interesting facial expressions! But I think it's an actor playing with the buyer :-)

This is a wide angle shot.

Unless there's a very good relationship, being so close with a side angle risks serious consequences if one brings up a camera at the last moment.

One starts by showing that one is taking photos, then goes about business, then maybe keeps taking them as one continues doing business.

That's what happened here; all with his full 'consent' -- or at least not disapproval.

He viewed this and others afterward and definitely approved.  I'm glad you approve too.

Thanks for acknowledging that my words have helped make you take the step into street shooting; that's why I write this -- not just for personal gratification.

john

John (Crosley)

I have a number of photos of this guy, a genuine bazaar seller/owner, and I chose this one especially because of what I felt was the 'power' of the eyes, with the skin and sockets pulled away from the eyeball by that powerful hand as he 'considers'.

Of course, he was complicit -- how could he not be when photographed so closely?

But then he had no control over when I pressed the shutter. 

Nice guy, too, and wonderful, onetime acquaintance, possibly never to be seen again.  You meet wonderful people on the street.

Thanks Pierre . . . your comments come from a special pace -- you are one of the most accomplished photographers on the site, and also one of the most experienced in what is posted.  Thanks for the attention to this photo.

john

John (Crosley)

This man is not an actor that I know of. I met him as I walked past his bazaar shop.

However, there's some thespian in so many people, and sometimes a guy with a camera (such as me) is all it takes to bring out the actor in them.

This guy was wonderful in front of the camera -- so much you think he's accomplished, when to the best of my knowledge this is his first time in front of a serious camera.

My best wishes.  (Beware the Metro, according to the news! But I don't know why, yet).

john

John (Crosley)

This was inadvertently posted without a request for rates.

It has been opened for ratings -- my mistake.

It is not a 'critique only' photo.

Please feel free to rate.

I don't always agree, but rates in totality have some validity about popularity with the PN audience.

john

John (Crosley)

The photo of the man is exellent.

It's very good.

The background, well.....

I agree about the background -- you take what you can get in 'street'.

That's really what these things look like, though so for 'documentarty' it's true 100%.

Thank you for he compliment on the portrait.  I actually took this just over a month ago, and haven't seen this guy since -- I may never see him again, and only saw him for maybe five minutes in the first place.

But, he was a very nice guy, and was MOST expressive.  He also was a joy to work with, and didn't complain (even seemed to relish it) when a camera was practically shoved in his face).

(I know where he might be found, and I'll be sure he is told of yours and others' compliments.)

;~))

john

John (Crosley)

The nature of 'street' is that sometimes as a photographer you spot a wonderful background but cannot scare up any 'subject' to show it off.

I keep man inventory mentally of such backgrounds in case I happen to be in the area.

My parents used to tell their kids, 'it's as easy to fall in love with a millionaire as a poor person' but it had to be love.

Well, it's as easy to find a good photo in front of a good background as a bad one, if you happen to be in front of it, waiting for the photo to occur, and I often know all sorts of likely good backgrounds.

But sometimes good photo subjects sort of 'sneak up on you - occur unexpectedly'

This was such a case.

Understand my analogy?

john

John (Crosley)

It should read above:

'I keep an inventory' rather than 'man inventory' as written. 

Editing now is blocked after ten minutes from posting, or I would simply have edited the reply comment.

Readers:  I apologize for any confusion.

john

John (Crosley)

Yes I know what you mean.

It can happen or you can search for it.

If it happens you don't have a choice.

Unfortunatey you get the best photo's if you don't

search for it.

For 'candid' work at least, I have three various ways or methods of shooting street.

1.  I walk down a street, mall, retail store, airplane aisle, beach, etc., and when I see a possible capture, I raise camera (sometimes not even that) and take a photo. 

2.  I walk or move or even sit and wait and view possible subjects/photo actors, and watch for interesting people and backgrounds, and if the people are engaged in activity I think MIGHT lead to interesting behavior that will occur in the near future, I hang around them, even deviate my path to be near them or sit near them and wait.  Same with backgrounds that I find interesting.

Consider this photo, a 'waiter':  http://photo.net/photodb/photo?photo_id=2553746

I was well rewarded for waiting what turned out to be hours, because I was almost CERTAIN it would lead to a good photo, and the reward was a folder/portfolio and possibly lifetime best.

I have numerous others like that, where waiting proved out.  I also follow people around who are maybe 'lively', sad or whatever emotion I might want to capture, or at least they might be expressive, or maybe just walking in a pattern that has the correct interspersal for good composition, but it's not yet 'right' and I wait for it to 'work out'.  There are many variations on this of course.

Cartier-Bresson did this in his famous photo of the buildings, walkways and the running girl on a Greek Island, also perched on high looking down from buildings to the street and a lone bicyclist framed by the steps in Hyeres, France ass well as numerous others.

The critics of Cartier-Bresson called those shots his 'waiters' and indeed they were. I do the same and have since before I met him (briefly).

3.  The other is to inventory likely places/situations mentally that I come across but have the wrong light, the wrong people the wrong vehicles, are blocked by traffic, etc., and so forth, such as some backgrounds, intersections, etc.

Then I come back or pass by from time to time, and one time everything may be perfect or I'll wait a short time and soon the scene fulfills itself.

Cartier-Bresson claimed that if you wanted something it didn't come, yet he often violated his own rule and thus was quite hypocritical - I think in older age, he was trying to burnish what he knew was his growing legend, and tried in biographical film/videos to make his shooting sound somewhat 'magical' - however although much of his work was very intuitive and NOT consciously thought out and obviously occurred in split seconds some was NOT and required great forethought, patience and waiting sometimes possibly for hours even days.

His claim to 'not wanting' was his big jest (joke) on society, I believe, and also to photographers -- he waited and waited for some photos, and the more 'magic' he claimed there was in his photos, the more he had worked. 

His most famous photo (man jumping over a reflective puddle, almost landing in it behind a train station) was a re-do of a situation he observed the previous day -- yet he claimed in film/videos he magically couldn't 'see' through the viewfinder what was happening.

Bull, according to his 'told to' biographer.

Indeed he couldn't as his view through the viewfinder was blocked, but he told his biographer he saw the same situation the day before, and he could see OVER his preframed camera anyway, and obviously caught the shot, not by magic but by quick reflexes. 

He tried to have his joke on posterity with that one.  The 'biographer' had promised not to write the biography, yet he was a writer given numerous intimate conversations over a very long period as a sort of confessor, who followed Cartier-Bresson's example - the biographer just broke the rule and wrote the biography anyway.  Cartier-Bresson, famed for his orneriness, must have smiled, knowing that is why he told this man all.

HCB's hard work often was immediately rewarded, but if you view his photos you see sometimes he had to have waited around for long times, having spotted a likely situation.  He confirms that in films/videos which he narrates or in which  he answers questions.

I commend those films and his unauthorized (but 'told to' biography) for the true facts about his style of shooting, and advise all to take everything the old coot says with a grain of salt. ;~))

There are hybrid situations and like all categorization, this is not complete -- it is only general.  There are numerous other non-candid shooting situations, also, such as portraits, product shots, landscapes and so on, ad infinitum.

How do you prefer to shoot?  Let me know, would you?

john

John (Crosley)

You say 'fantastic shot' and I agree the capture of the man's face appears unique, and I'm pleased with it, but the composition, framing and background still are not the very best, in my view, and that of several others.

That's the problem of shooting 'street' -- not all the elements of a great photo align at once -- a great expression may be tarnished by an unhappy background . . . as here . . . one that does not complement the subject's great expression.

There's really nothing to do, but 'take another photo' and keep at it.

That's what I do.

Thanks for the compliment.

john

John (Crosley)

Its interesting what you write about HCB. I have a film called contacts.

It contains 33 famous photographs from the past talking about their photo's, while showing contactsheets.

One off them is HCB. You can see how many shots he took from one situation. Sometimes seconds between. In that time with his Leica. It most cost him a fortune. But then he was rich.

Some off his famous pictures where, I think lucky shots. Some where hard work, waiting and waiting and many many shots.

You have too earn you talent.

When I go too makes pictures sometimes I make a 100 and I am satisfy with perhaps one or two.

I just walk and look and if I see somthing I raise fast my camera.

The camera with a strap around my neck in front of me.

When it is difficult I just make the photo without raising the camera.

That gives sometimes unexpected good results.

And I use photoshop as I use in the analog time small pieces of black paper for dodge and burning.

When I don't like the background I use a dfferent aperture too get a small DOF.

I think talent is seeing it.

Well my english is not that good, sorry for that.

I have most all the films featuring (or even his documentary 'Le Retour' about the end of the war made for the victorious Allies whom he joined from the French Underground which he joined after his final escape from German POW camp).

I do not have 'contacts' and I'll search for it, on places like U-Tube etc.

The other films are available through non-traditional sources, even though they may be 'out of print' -- if you know where to look.  I also recommend highly his biography which is NOT in my library, but his biographer was a French journalist, given extensive interviews over a long period as Cartier-Bresson, the old renegade was in his much later years.

He reminisced about his photography with this man who he asked (1) not to keep notes (2) not to record and (3) not to write.

So, how did the biography get written of the famous old man who defied all the rules - the man who said he felt like a prisoner on the run all his life?

The biographer said he plainly followed Cartier-Bresson's example, as perhaps Cartier-Bresson  had planned.  He broke the rules against no writing and no publishing and in fact kept detailed and voluminous notes, just after each long and wide-ranging discussion.

So, on film/kino/video, we see the avuncular Cartier-Bresson proclaiming that his famous shot of the man jumping over the puddle behind the train station about to land in the reflection was shot with the camera's viewfinder blocked and indeed part of the photo even had been cropped -- and Cartier-Bresson explains that if you examine the photo it is a little blurry at the edges from being shoved between French planks.

His thesis is that if you just sally forth and are receptive, somehow great photos will fly into your lens.

The biography (or somewhere else I read) reveals something different -- something Cartier-Bresson did not tell the public and maybe never thought would be written.

He had seen the man the previous day do the same or similar maneuver, staked out the place, shoved his Leica through the fencing, and waited.

His viewfinder surely was blocked but the camera was already pre-framed and he could look 'OVER' the camera for the timing.

Rather than getting his most famous shot 'as if by magic' (my quotes) it was just good, old, hard work.

I do myself sometimes take hundreds of photos, but only one or maybe two will please me.  I've seen film of Cartier-Bresson winding the film knob of his Leica iii series and he was FAST.

He had to be to get what he wanted, and he was amazingly fast in focusing too, as I learned from film shot of him working (surreptitiously and not shown until after his death).

;~))

I like to write with authority when I write, so I do my homework.

It's seldom when I can be caught making wrong claims, and if so, it's inadvertent and something that I'll acknowledge of it's clear.

If I'm not absolutely sure about something I write, I'll try to convey that, also.

wim, thanks for describing how you shoot -- I think many read these comments, frankly, and your description of how you work also may get reproduced if I write further.

I get much feedback not just on this site but sometimes by e-mail about how helpful my comments (however extensive) sometimes are in motivating others to do seriously what they wanted to do, but could not imagine how!

Thanks again.

Others?  How do you shoot?

john

John (Crosley)

I did not have this photo set aside as a 'most interesting' or noteworthy photo, but did really enjoy this man's 'look'.

Obviously viewers have too, and for that I'm very happy -- viewers often can surprise me, and for that I'm an imperfect picker of photos.  And as noted, it's an imperfect photo, and others have pointed that out as well, and their criticism is well received.

I sometimes get scolded for putting up 'lesser work' among my very best, but sometimes what I think is 'lesser work' gets highest marks by viewers and what I consider work of high accomplishment does not -- go figure.

That's what this exercise of putting photos up for critique is all about.

After over seven years here, I still often get surprised . . . . and happily so.

I value the collective wisdom of the photo.net critique -- however imperfect and flawed it sometimes can be, it still is a good rank of 'popularity' if nothing else, and when those who are long-time members of accomplishment come by the comment, I really sit up and listen.

john

John (Crosley)