'Hollywood Boulevard: The Photo'

Hollywood Boulevard: a world of glitz, glamour and tourists, runs up

against a world of seaminess and tawdriness and they run parallel

and co-exist for some distance, as shown here, though the tourists

now seem to be winning over the bums and transvestite prostitutes.

Your ratings, critiques and remarks 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

great street B&W image. Great lighting control and well balanced volumes .The main lines go in three different directions, exploding dynamically from the main subject. It could be a good idea cloning the object on the right and crop a fraction of the bottom end of the frame.

i like this picture

Congrats

vezio

You have ably put into words exactly why I like and have put this otherwise undesirable subject up for posting and critique.

I invite others to view your writing and incorporate most of the first part of your critique as though I had written it myself; in other words, I endorse that part of it.

As far as 'cloning', I am a former photojournalist, and cloning (as opposed to judicious cropping) was strictly forbidden, and I feel bound by that ethic, so as far as cloning out extraneous or what may seem as 'distractions' - no cigar.  In fact, one of Cartier-Bresson's most memorable images (can there be a most memorable?) is peasant soldiers in a square in Beijing with a parent and child walking by.

Did you see that photo and notice at the far left there is an extraneous person not cropped or cloned out?  Cartier-Bresson, a journalist, would not allow that - it was against his ethic even to crop.

I crop sometimes, but sometimes find that that what seems to be extraneous actually ADDS to a composition -- the 'boxing in' effect of that darker mass, right, may actually ADD to the photo's composition by confining and framing the bum striding in his disheveled clothing and shoes.

Please note that the line of that mass, right, is parallel to the strider's leg and also completes by its presence an imaginary line drawn from the auto, above, to the sidewalk, which also is parallel to the bum's back leg.

See what I mean about being very careful about removing things that appear at first glance to be extraneous that in fact may 'help' a composition?

What do you think now that you've heard my side of that, Vezio (and viewers)?

john

John (Crosley)

Its well composed due to the unsharp frame left and right. Its open because it seems that he want to cross the street to go to the undefinite .... . BR JV

You have made an able analysis.

I now tend to view the masses (darker areas) in this photo, I think, as you have - that they tend to frame him.

He is framed by the man, left and also the traces of a person right, and to clone or crop the person, right would be wrong for this photo.

Also, he is framed (or silhouettted) against whitish pavement, yet sandwiched or silhouetted by the two vehicles left and right.

It's a chance capture -- one of two or three - and it's the one with the siren song that said 'post me', 'post me', 'post me', and so I did, and (like almost all my posts) no regrets.

Thanks JV.

john

John (Crosley)

I once had a critic -- a wonderful critic -- in Kyiv, who analyzed my photos in terms of lines.

His criticism, better, analysis, was in terms of the nature of the lines in my photos. 

As a sculptor,  he was finely attuned to lines -- that was what he worked with -- mass and lines.  He taught sculture and photography, as I recall.  He was a first class critic, perhaps world class, even if from an out of the way country for such things. 

(nothing out of the way about Kyiv's Pinchuk art gallery, though founded by the eponymous billionaire -- who of course named it after himself, and later lost much of his fortune, but is immortalized in the world of art.)

I thought of this critic when I looked at this photo and tried to explain it - it's a photo, I think, about flowing lines as well as mass of light and dark, relative sharpness and more blurriness.

Look at the man's shape as he schleps down Hollywood Blvd with a backdrop of tourists lined up on the far curb sandwiched between two pedestrians and also between two autos.  He just 'fits' with his obviously fast-moving shape. 

Sometimes things in 'street photography' just 'click' -- other times they do not.

I think this one 'clicked' because of that ineffable 'something', no matter what some harsher critics may ultimately say. 

I also like this one, and I don't like all I post by any means or fall in love with all my photos, at all, contrary to what some may think.  I have my favorites and my 'likes' and my 'like mores' and my ones I think are 'wonderful' as well as the ones I am puzzled why viewers love them when I don't.

john

John (Crosley)

The 'thing' lower right is a soft drink cup from Micky D's and a hand holding it.

I would NOT clone it out.

If you look at this photo from afar, it is a man striding with a long, loose stride, almost cruising, and he is bounded on four sides by the two autos higher up, and lower and middle, the two figures on the sidewalk.

Clone out the hand and the soft drink, lower right, and to me it harms the symmetry of the bounding, and thus helps destroy some of the je ne sais quoi (I don't know what or how to describe it) of this photo that makes it successful (to me).

That's my view.

john

John (Crosley)

In this black and white version, the pattern of the black tattoo appears to extend the pattern of the man's hair and makes the hair seem to be fuller and longer, rather than saying 'I'm a tattoo', and is a partially hidden detail that to me adds a little richness to this photo.

john

John (Crosley)

Trousers on right lowered at waist mirrors in a way right foot extended behind. 

Both lower and similarly so, making for a very minor theme, which I feel subtly helps this photo's viewability.

Your view?

john

John (Crosley)