'The Industrial District'

A 'fastback' of sorts and a hunched back of sorts, complement each

other in this view of 'The Industrial District' in a major Eastern

European city. Your ratings, critiques and observations are invited

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

make an observation, please submit a helpful and constructive

comment; please share your photographic knowledge to help

improve my photography. Thanks! Enjoy! john

A brilliant photo and very well composed!I really like all the horizontal and vertical lines that separate the canvas. The figure of the man is also giving a very special touch as well as the opposing direction of the figure and the car. Congratulations

Regards

Spyros

I'm glad this photo pleased you so much; the more I worked on it, the more I decided it was one of a kind and deserving of special treatment.

It is an unusual photo; you'll never see another like it, and for the record, it is almost impossible to 'set up' such a photo, but just to take photos, say, of a guy walking past an industrial area, as here, and hope that when the passing car gets to a certain place that you can 'mirror' the rear of the car to his pace and somehow also make this into a 'rule of thirds' photo.

I am not sure, because I didn't turn on 'grids' in Photoshop or exactly measure this photo, but I think if one measures the darker factory/warehouse area to the right, and then doubles it, one will find that it is about one half of the area of the whiter factory/warehouse area to the left -- a rule of thirds use horizontally -- or close enough to it to suggest this is an unusual use of that so-called rule.

Of course there is no such 'rule' but only some things that are made pleasing when split into thirds, and some people have taken to calling it the 'rule of thirds' even though there are NO RULES in my photography except to get all the interesting stuff inside the four lines of the frame and keep all the uninteresting stuff outside.

Their arrangement within the frame is what matters.

I think those who view this will be looking at the man and the car, and overlooking the relative proportions masses of light to dark in the background, as well as all those vertical (and horizontal) lines that you have pointed out.

This is decidedly a more complex photo than your average bear, to use a colloquialism, I think.

I'd like to rework it just a little, then see how it looks made 'perfect' in my book and blown up large, as this was taken with a good, low ISO, so it will withstand blowing up without falling apart.

Regrettably, though raters so far, don't see the 'brilliance' that you see, but that doesn't mean you're wrong; maybe just more discerning?

Best to you Spyros and thanks.

john

John (Crosley)

well done....clearly you have pressed the shutter on the decisive moment.

regards,

ot

Excelente equilibrio entre la persona y el auto, todo un acierto el blanco y negro. Felicidades.

I have a mentor, or did have, and from time to time I send him photos. The last time I sent him my Photo of the Week of last May along with some other photos that have garnered great attention and great views.

But, true to his independent nature and picky nature, he said to me on the phone recently, 'well . . . . you know, John . . . it's hard to live in two countries and have so many demands on you.  It's taking a toll on your photography, it seems like it isn't nearly as good as it once was . . . .'

Thud!

My ego took a nosedive

But it was only temporary.

I thought about it, wrote him back and challenged him  . . . . for he is known to be cavalier with snap judgments about people, even crushing snap judgments, and said not only was I getting better, but I was getting MORE good exposures per outing than anyone shooting street nowadays has any right to get.

I am disabled, cannot walk too far or so fast, and there's a premium on productivity when I can go out, because of the pain I experience, to make the most of every outing.

Gone, it seems, are the days when I could just walk out the doorway, any old day, and sometimes stay for long periods, due to a more recent injury to a leg as well as older injuries that have worsened by accident.

So, I have learned to 'make the most of it', and  when I'm out shooting, I  work like hell in composing with whatever's around,  trying to make something sometimes from almost nothing.

This is a prime example.

An almost deserted industrial street, one man walking and a car passing.

Who would ever have thought it would have yielded such a photo.

It needs some more work to make it perfect, but I'd hang it in a gallery, though with other work that is more 'particular' or 'peculiar' to John C., than my more popular and 'signature' work.

This is part of my essence just as much as my more 'signature' works.

I've been known to stand in one spot and take 100 shots of a scene, - about the number (or near to it) I took of the scene (The Bus Stop, V) that got me Photo of the Week here last May. 

And who knows, some of those 100 or so shots may have been better than the one I chose to post;  it's just that I chose ONE, and who knows if some one of the others might have been Photo of the Year if there were such an animal here?

Taking photos like this is its own reward.

I don't need my mentor's approval to know the worth of a shot like this.

He is a legend, too, and I could use his help in furthering my career, but if necessary, I'll make it on my own (or not).

He is and has been connected to so many famous photographers that I didn't even know who most were until I'd listened to their names over the course of three years' conversations with him - Nann Goldin, Herb Ritts, Sally Mann, Graciela Iturbide, and hosts (whole hosts) of others whose names I didn't recognize except perhaps his close personal friend (now deceased), Helmut Newton.  Photographers I once worshiped, he's on first names with . . . and photographers I should worship but whose work I once didn't know about, he knows them too, and they respect his judgment.

Then there is John, whose talents it seems now sadly have been pronounced 'eclipsed' or being 'eclipsed', according to him . . . . or are they?

He gave me an assignment one day three years ago to go to Art-Support.com and compare all my best work on photo and art gallery sites world wide (including photography in art galleries such as done by Sally Mann at the several Gagosian Galleries), and compared my work to the work being exhibited worldwide.

His point was to show me that I was 'ready' for exhibition.

I chewed my cud on that point for three years, and over that time, he made his point. 

Now he seems to be withdrawing it, but I now have my own certainty.

My best is good enough.

Some of my best is unlike anything anybody else in the world will ever create.

I will never be a superstar of photography like James Nachtwey, whose skill and nerve I worship, or the one man whose work when I saw it mirrored my own vision, so much that I 'gave up photography' -- Henry Cartier-Bresson. But I'm more than a rank amateur, too, and am not ready to be dismissed as 'being eclipsed' with waning skill.

I'm shooting with different equipment in a different environment . . . . and that makes a difference.

I now know I can take world class photos anywhere I happen to land.

Just drop me somewhere, give me some good, hopefully familiar equipment, and I can soon enough get some good, workmanlike photos and after a while, I'll get something admirable.

If I'm eclipsed . . . . that's OK, I'm doing fine.

I've been hampered sometimes by lack of equipment, or the ability to carry large lenses and cameras pain free, so that has eaten into my ability to do some of the things I would want to do . . . . but no excuses.

I can 'SEE' now better than I ever could.

I can 'previsualize' better now than I ever could.

I literally often know what people will do (or expect they will do) before they do it or even know themselves they might do it, and then preposition myself to be in the place to get the capture.

I have learned like a good poker player does in his card game often how to read the street 'tells' that reveal when people are going to engage in certain behaviors that presage movements or actions that underlie a good or great photograph.

It was not by chance I happened to be in the exact spot I was in when that man across the street was walking where he was, and I got lucky when the car that passed happened to pass at JUST THE RIGHT MOMENT.

I learned from watching 'War Photographer', the movie about Nachtwey's photography, the value of cutting off parts of subjects, and that has carried through in this shot.  We don't see all the car, and we're not supposed to.  Thanks James N.  Your photography and vision taught me a valuable lesson (indeed many, many lessons).

I can 'take chances' now better than I ever could.

The above photo is a good example of 'previsualizing' and 'taking chances' as well as 'seeing' and foreseeing (a variant of previsualizing, i guess).

So, what may seem for me shorter photographic outings than in past times, hampered even more by by pain, still means bringing home some interesting and sometimes prizewinning captures as those outings turn richer. 

If I had someone to carry equipment for me, I'd be in hog heaven, and if I had less pain, even more so.

When I get out (less often than before, for sure), i still bring home the bacon.

I intend to do that until the coffin lid falls shut on me, and if there's a chance, I'll get a photo of that too (no flash either).

;~))

You gotta take a lot of crappy photos to take one like this, however, so I can't just say I can go out and take photos like this every outing.

In fact, I'll never probably take another such photo.

This is the first and last of the series.

Some members still think this is a load of crap, if you look at the ratings.

I think it is the epitome of turning the squeal into into something highly salable, much as the farmer grinds the pretty awful (offal) parts up, adds some spices, and calls it sausage -- and some sausages are famous.

Sausage (except for the Germans, perhaps and maybe the Ukrainians who grind everything up into sausage) may not be the most appetizing and wholesome, and same for this photo, but it's edifying in its own way, stalwart, and for those who look carefully, it's visually nutritious, full of lots of little parts that are mixed into a greater whole.

There's a lot there for those who care to look, even if this is not especially an emotionally appealing shot, and instead is one that appeals to the scientist and the mathematician in many of us.

Sometimes that part of us photographers (and viewers) has to be served too.

Thanks Oliver (and for enduring this long reply).

john

John (Crosley)

I never had a Spanish lesson but your comment is easy for an English speaker to read.

You comment on the equilibrium between the pedestrian and the auto, and also say the black and white is a success (I presume you mean the relative colors -- black and white - of the two background buildings as opposed to this photo also being black and white.)

Antonio, thank you for a kind comment.

Please come back; you are welcome here.

Un abrazo.

juan

John (Crosley)

With a few things you can make a good photo.

All it needs is timing.

Very good job John.

'With a few things you can make a good photo.'

Wim, I hope you mean the you is me, 'John', and not just anyone.

I have my doubts anyone else might have seen this, but I also have seen your comments now for some time, so I think the reference was to me specifically.

Of course, the comments does have universality -- with a few good things ANYONE can make a good photo -- just I think this photo would NEVER have come into existence except for an odd moment when I stopped on a long walk, filled with pain and cold on a February day in Kyiv, Ukraine, where literally for the longest time there was almost NOTHING to photograph -- no passersby, no interesting buildings (except these two perhaps) and occasional cars passing.

In fact, Wim, to put it quite frankly, your comment is one of the highest compliments you could possibly have paid me.

Thank you so much for that.

john

John (Crosley)