'Four Hominids'

This photo of four hominids, was taken recently in a major European

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

If you rate harshly, very critically, or wish to make a remark, please

submit a helpful and constructive comment; please share your

photographic knowledge to help improve my photography. Thanks!

Enjoy!

It's a wonderful composition with elegant grey tones and cuurious subject! Bravo!

Thank you so much. 

I'm very proud of this one.

Best.

john

John (Crosley)

This was the best I could do with shy street sellers, foreground, in a split second, but I'm curious if you can suggest a better arrangement of the subjects, foreground, and the background perhaps with emphasis on the 'proportions of mass' in the photo or whatever else strikes your fancy.

I may get a 'second chance' at taking this photo, and for me it's worth it to maybe try again with this particular subject, and I have made my peace with these women -- they now like me.

john

John (Crosley)

Color or black and white?

I chose to post black and white here.

On another forum (unnamed here, you can search for it or e-mail me), I have posted the color version, which has wonderful colors.  It might be worth a look IF you like this.  I am not sure which is better; I even tend to like the color version, and may post it here sometime in the far future, when people have mostly forgotten about the black and white posting.

Some photos do well as black and white and color - not many, but a few.

This is one, I think.

john

John (Crosley)

Wonderful image, I like it a lot. The b&w is stunning, but it would be interesting to see colour version too.

The photo is of course, self-explanatory. What I like here is the symmetry in composition. With different lines of vision, the characters actually unite in a common "purpose".

In UK, with ever-increasing (sometimes to ridiculous levels of) political correctness, it would be interesting to see what certain members of the public would think of your title.

Regards.

I post infrequently on 'another service'. I don't link here out of respect for this service.

You can google.com my name and find that, and the color version.

Let me know your thoughts if you do, would you.

If that's too much trouble, my e-mail's on my bio page, and you can send me an e-mail and I'll lead you there.

I respect entirely the independence of PN versus any other service and do nothing to disrespect this as a business entity and do not send people to its competition directly to show that respect. 

;~))

john

John (Crosley)

Of course you are responding to my title 'Four Hominids'.

That would be a 'political correctness' problem if this were two black people, or two Jews in prewar Germany.  

Historically to denigrate Jews, blacks in the South of the USA or even previously, South Africa, racists and haters everywhere depicted those they disrespected often as subhumans, frequently apelike, monkey-like or chimpanzee-like.

That is not what is happening here, and the context shows that.

In other words, hominids and humans were equated by the haters so one could more easily hate.

Humans were said to be subhuman in order to strip them of their humanity -- it's an age-old trick. Dehumanize your enemy - it makes them easier to hate.

The corollary is to show the same people as real humans, with emotions, bringing up kids, showing love, etc.  Racists cower when presented with the truth and often claim it represents efforts to 'take over the world', ''Wall Street', or the world's financial system (maybe even the 'Federal Reserve').   Ref. some very famous, important people who were anti-Semitic like Henry Ford, Charles Lindbergh, etc., who believed in such nonsense and the millions who really believe that the ages old forgery 'The Protocols of the Elders of Zion' is truth, not a heavy handed and scandalous forgery from Jew haters.

I did look up the word 'hominids' in Wikipedia to be sure I was correct in my usage before I posted the title, and was satisfied it is 100% correct.

These women are not 'of color' or obviously or of any minority group, other than aged grandmothers, (maybe a majority in Ukraine?), so I went ahead and posted it.  It obviously has no hate motive in it.

If this were a photo of president Obama, then I would have not made the comparison . . . . but the comparison was compelled by the subject matter, and not out of any motive. 

(Sometimes it's best to bend over backward to help heal wounds where historical wrongs have left deep scars.  I grew up and the word 'Negro' was considered a polite word to describe  a person whom now we call African-American. 

There were it seemed about 100,000 derogatory and scandalous words that almost everybody but my family and I used, but the term 'Negro' only fell into disrespect publicly in the late '60s, it seems.

There were the Negro Leagues, etc.   The Negro Colleges.   The NAACP (color persons).    'Colored' was a strange term for 'black African ancestry since it was such a catchall phrase, and would encompass all non-whites.

The word for black person in Russia sounds exactly like the forbidden word 'Nigger' which I only quote for context and for accuracy rather than dance around trying to be 'politically correct' rather than historically correct. 

I hate that word. I cringe when Russians and Ukrainians use it and try to tell them how disreputably that sounds to an American but they say it's a real word, not slang, and is correct Russian.  Who's to argue further.  I just make the point and move on, having stated my view.

I never spoke that word casually or in hate or even humor in all my life . . . .out of my upbringing and respect. 

I was not brought up to disrespect others for wrong reasons.

Also African-Americans, often from Africa directly -- almost always master or doctoral degree candidates -- were frequent visitors to my house as I grew up . . . a very good thing in the Eisenhower, white bread America of the '50s and early '60s. 

I grew up knowing as graduate students some of the people who now are the leaders of Africa.  I met met them as a child and watched my mom work with them typing and editing their dissertations at our house.

You correctly observed about this photo's 'totality'  (my term to describe your usage) of this photo. 

It was meant as a 'whole', especially with the individual 'masses' or percentage of frame coverage by each subject, a subject I felt had some aesthetic quality.

I might have tried for better, but the billboard was just too high to do what I might have done if it were a bit lower. 

Sadly, for me. 

It's an entirely worthy background and the sellers worthy subjects.  With proper height adjustments and properly juxtaposed it might have been a world class photo. 

It still has aspirations.

I'd been by this scene several times before, these same women in front of it, selling, but this time they didn't 'duck' in time.  We've become friends, however, and shaken hands . . . I'm welcome to return.)

I make the representation now to others that I'm a 'photo artist' though an 'amateur' (for those to whom it might make a difference) but 'with high aspirations'.

That seems to assuage people -- put them at ease.

I tell them I might be hugely successful, or a bum.

Or both.

Depending on their point of view. 

Or both at once.

They can decide, and I won't quarrel, which is usually met by their smiles.

Street manners: It takes the better part of a decade to work things out.

But the good things work again and again, and since 'street' is almost always with new subjects, the same tired old lines work again and again.

;'~))))

(watch your e-mail, but take your time and don't feel obligated)

john

John (Crosley)

In part this is a photo  about tonalities, and because it's black and white, about gray scale tonalities.

In part it's about proportions, masses and symmetry, which is the basis of the composition of this photo.

Each monkey, has its corollary in a human below, but not the one directly below but the one diagonal to each monkey, in terms of size at least. 

That's my reading.

But there's more to my reading.

A highly-skilled sculpture once looked at a book I produced privately (and I gave him a copy).  As a sculptor, he analyzed my photos differently than anyone else -- he analyzed them according to the 'flow of lines'

I hadn't forgot that, because to my knowledge no one had ever done that, and told me about it.  He was amazingly clear and expressive about it.

Now, look at the various large lines in the photo.

Look especially at the monkeys' mouths, and now look at the outlines of the women's jackets/coats and how they flow.

Do you see a corollary between the flowing lines of the mouths and the jackets/coats' lines or the flowing lines of the outline of the women's torsos?

I do.

That's what this comment here is all about.

It's about the corollary of flowing lines, and their mirrors, top to bottom, or their extensions from top to bottom - marks of continuity in a photo that seems to have a clear delineation between top and bottom, yet has a common element, also, top to bottom, in the flow of lines.

Sometimes it takes a while looking at something with a critical eye to understand a photo's essence better, and when a photo's on the critique service for an extended time, I tend to see such things more clearly.

Do you see what I see, or not?

john

John (Crosley) 

john

fantastic skill here

such and effective take

and after reading your explanation i have leanrned so much from you

thanks

It also works quite well as a color capture -- perhaps even better. It's displayed elsewhere on the Internet if you look carefully.

I'm delighted to have your feedback; absolutely delighted.

Thank you so much.

john

John (Crosley)