'One of Many Queens of LA LA Land'

The 'Queen' depicted here is one of many females that one may

encounter if one spends enough time in the greater Los Angeles, CA

area. Please have a look at the reflection in her glasses, which help

tell the story and place the location. Your ratings, critiques, and

remarks are invited and most welcome. If you rate harshly or

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

This one's for you.

john

John (Crosley)

Bob Kurt indeed. Only is your subject too centralised and the outoffocus lady is disturbing. But who knows, maybe the master himself will kick my ass!

This is entirely a 'grab shot'.

She was walking toward me, and I walking in the other direction.

I raised my camera, framed this moving subject walking past me, and shot in about a half second or at least less than a second and voila.

It was over and that was that.

Nobody's going to kick your ass.

Bob likes young ladies, especially pretty ones unusually dressed on the street and takes his own wonderful shots. I thought this might interest him; that's all.

Without the reflection in the sunglasses, this is less of a photo, but with the reflection, it takes on a little more, I felt.

Most all comments are welcome here if they express a valid opinion -- you don't need to praise my work; I'm often my own strongest critic, even if I seldom write about it.

john

John (Crosley)

John, don't take me wrong. I'm not pointing the finger at you. This is a genuine, original and well seen street photo. If one day you'll find me in LA I'll probably be shooting graffiti or flowers but as you mentioned BK...

No sweat.

And thanks for the compliment.

I actually do appreciate constructive criticism; I internalize it for the next and subsequent shooting expeditions - (that means anytime I'm out which means I almost always have a camera, so being 'out' means 'shooting expedition' automatically.

And I'm not really too thin-skinned; Bob Kurt is great in his genre and also took one of the all-time classic street photos (bum with laptop) seen on this service, which should have been Photo of the Year, but he was robbed, I tell you, he was robbed -- that was one stupendous photo, by one able and deserving guy.  He should get a special award of merit just for that photo and/or his service to Photo.net.

Don't you agree?

I'll bet Bob does.

(and I don't really know him or much about him other than his work and that he's a self-proclaimed 'thief of souls' which means he's got a pretty sardonic sense of humor) [some animist and other religious people think a photo steals their soul, or the sum total of all photos of them steals their soul, so by that count, both Bob and I are both big-time soul thieves!] 

Oh, he also has one hell of a great selection of wonderful photos posted by others in his favorites gallery, too.

john

John (Crosley)

Acne. Worth menitioning? Well, I guess a testament to the lens?

Usually, Meir, I'd scold you for mentioning acne that is well covered by makeup.

However, when I'm in Ukraine I almost never see acne.

Is it that there's a special kind of bacteria that only grows in the West, or is it the diet?

In Ukraine they eat a lot of grichna (kasha# and potatoes and other staples without a lot of meat #meat often is for holidays#.  You do not generally see women or men with faces full of out of control or even much acne at all, and what little you see on women is very, very skillfully hidden by the most adroitly applied makeup - none of the sloppily, garishly applied stuff you find often applied by women who use poor taste in the United States.

Women in the Ukraine use it as 'art' to enhance what naturally often begin as ordinary to often very pretty faces, and spend an inordinate amount of time and money on beauty enhancement in their early years #and sometimes really let themselve go 'to seed' as their middle and later years approach so their natural beautty advantage over, say, American women, may fade by the '30s, as weight and health issues overtake great looks -- ON THE AVERAGE with many, many exceptions . . . . .

I note, that except for mayonnaise which is a Russian/Ukrainian staple, especially for holidays, fat is not everpresent in the Ukrainian diet except in the everpresent salami.

I once owed a great debt of the heart to some American Ukrainians #immigrants# for a great personal thing they did for a loved one, so I went to Costco #a giant warehouse store with GREAT meats# and bought $150 worth of the finest steaks, roasts, including t-bones, porterhouse, New York steaks, rib steaks and so forth and fancied they'd enjoy barbecuing those great meats or otherwise preparing them.

When I saw them next they gushed:

'Thank you!  Those meats made the greatest sausage we ever tasted!'

Live and learn.

I learned something about cultural differences with that.

Acne's presence may be a sign of cultural differences - lack of money, absence of so much dietery fat, and just a different diet may mean less acne.  Fast food is there, but it does't dominate the diet.  It's for 'dates', special occasions and the well-to-do. 

The relationships are worth investigating, so no scolding. 

Lens is not all that good, but it's stopped down here as photo was taken in full sunlight in mid-summer in a southern latitude so it's at its sharpest.

john

John #Crosley#

Even in the "holy land".

Sorry for the delay in responding.

Interestingly in Ukraine where I do spent much time photographing, and where women spend much time with mostly expert use of makeup, the tell-tale signs of acne often are NOT present.

Western diets rich with fats, sugars and other nutrients seem to provide ideal breeding ground for the body to produce acne, but in Ukraine where potatoes are for breakfast, lunch, and dinner (as reported to me by some of my very beautiful models, (not portrayed on these pages) and a diet also centered around greechka (kasha), and other grains, etc., such things as defacing pimples, blackheads, etc., all falling under the catchall of acne are far less common.

It's very rare to see an acne-scarred face in Ukraine, and I don't think the denizens have the wherewithall to buy Accutane (acne-fighting drug which causes birth defects and therefore is very dangerous and is a highly controlled substance).

Your is an interesting montage, and I apologize for not commenting earlier.

john

John (Crosley)