'New Year's Festivities Beckon'

It's hard to improve on what seems so close to perfection but this pretty

young woman with some help from her mirror-holding companion does

some last-minute touchup outside a Metro entrance in Kyiv, Ukraine,

while New Year's festivities were still in full swing -- as New Year's is a

time when most of Eastern Europe is paralyzed by celebrations and

revelry (or recovering from hangovers). Your ratings, critiques, and

observations 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! john

"dolling up" for the Metro.  Never know who you might meet on the subway? The auto in the middle help by filling the space.

They were leaving the Metro -- the structure, left, is a plastic translucent cover to one of about eight different entrances, all of which at this station are similarly covered. 

They went off in a different direction, I asked not where.

john

John (Crosley)

Thanks for the nice observation; I was in very close.

I had exited the Metro (see the arching, translucent cover to the steps, left) just behind them, and captured them in a moment from the other side doing this.

I decided I wanted to try for a better capture.

This is  a complete story -- it really needs no words. 

Men are expected to be strong and tough and use that to try to attract women; women often like to use their beauty and charm to try to attract men, -- at least at that age.  It's a major part of life at that age (and beyond, but at that age, particularly, it's more simple than later in life).

That is particularly so in Ukraine where women of their age are expected to marry early, say(by their early, early 20s or earlier -- middle to late teens even.

Their response to my photographing them was the usual:  'Why?' and my response was that I document life in their city and even worldwide, good and bad, old and young, man, woman and child, that I take 'interesting photos', that this scene satisfied each part of an 'interesting photo', they were not finished what I captured at the start, so why not let me continue to photograph them as they finished?

They did, and this is the result.

They took my name, how to find me (Google my name, and in Ukrainian Google, a search turns up about nine of the first 11 returns under my name as me or my photos, so I'm VERY easy to find), I told them if they wanted a copy, just wait a day, a week, a month or even a year, for posting on PN, but a photo of them probably would show up.

Voila. 

This is at about 18 mm, or maybe just a little longer on a DX format camera, a real cheapie but good quality under very poor light at the end of the day (daylight ended between 3:45 and 4:00 p.m.) with ISO  boosted considerably, but it worked out very well.

I think I saw one of these two young women (girls?) on a web site in the last few days, as a model, but I can't be sure.  You meet all kinds.  I didn't inquire then; perhaps I should have.

There's the complete answer to your story; it was interesting to them, I think, and to me also, and I think we all were in agreement the photos (not posed, as I was free to take any photo I wished as these two went about their business) were pretty good AND interesting. 

Less than four minutes and the little episode was over.

I just wonder how many members here wonder how do I get so many interesting photos when they never so much as SEE anything interesting, let alone get close enough to photograph it well.

The answer is I SEE something because my vision is highly honed, if I can devise a way I move on it, and if I can, stick like glue in order to achieve my goal -- an interesting photo to show my fans and fellow aficionados like you, all the while often making friends when I can with subjects, however briefly.

I'm glad you found this worthy of mention; it makes the whole task of taking and exhibiting a photo like this worth while.

And it's a real 'slice of life' -- unique in its own way --  not as in America, where one can try to take a photo of some woman putting on her makeup as she drives while behind the wheel, hidden by her car's windows and body. 

This is right out in public on a sidewalk in a very busy area.

I think the whole thing is charming; it's one of the allures of being in a big city.  (I don't live in that city, but it draws me to it as I document it in my own interesting way. ;~)))

Best wishes.

john

John (Crosley)

I go to lengths to explain not because of any bragging rights claim, but for the benefit of the many, many members (and their successors) over time who have commented and written me wondering (1) if you need permission  to take a public photo (generally 'no' in public places except places of expected privacy like toilets) and (2) how on earth one can get up the courage to take photos of strangers without worrying about hostile reactions -- even getting the crap beaten out of them.

While  I sometimes get hostile reactions, no one has tried to beat the crap out of me, though bystanders who 'take offense' have tried to assault me (and been arrested for it) out of some perceived claim of being a 'public cop' for rights of others that do not exist' for photos they thought I was taking that in fact I was not taking at all (and legitimate, legal photos for which subjects had no objection  . . . in other words, crazy people or people with a chip on their shoulder).

Subjects are the focus of observation, and one can observe them well enough to judge when it's safe to photograph clandestinely or openly, if one has practice.

Bystanders who take offense are another matter completely and the occasional sicko bystander is extremely rare but can be absolutely dangerous - perhaps a person who sickly confusing 'street' photography with paparazzo photography (they are not the same at all) and bears a grudge or is just a hostile person waiting for an excuse to be hostile.

So, many wonder 'how do you take photos of strangers', aren't you worried about the consequences?  

The first thing is to educate yourslef on human behavior -- some people beg to be photograph, many don't mind, many object even vehemently, but when shown their photo and it's good, call over their friends to praise you, (or more likely your camera!), and a few do get upset, but you try not to show those easily angered people anything and just learn to move on quickly or into public areas where you are safe.

One of my main goals in these comments of length where there is an obvious question as in the one you raised, is to answer it so thoroughly, so each new members who stumbles into my portfolio is literally reading the equivalent of a book on 'street' photography.

There are neough tips and tricks in the nearly 15,000 comments including my 9,000 replies, plus the 100+ pages of comments under my portfolio about 'street' shooting to give anyone a degree in the academic part of 'street shooting', so they know their 'street' angst is not just their own -- everone (me too) goes through it.

I went to university in New York City, where there were teeming masses, and bought my first camera there, so one more person encountered by those masses -- this one-time thin young man with a camera -- was a small nuisance, and mostly I was free to learn my craft without significant worry.

Then came the riots, assassinations, wars, and so forth, and people WANTED those photos.  

Even today a few of those photos form part of history.

If you think in taking 'street' photos that each photo is a chance (1) to make 'art' of the street genre and also (2) to memorialize a part of contemporary history, then your self-justification is all well on its way to accomplishment.

The rest is to go out and take good, then better and better photos to keep up with your self-justification.

Read through all the 15,000 comments and 100 pages + of portfolio comments (especially fleldgling readers, not just you Peter), and I'm sure you'll agree, these extensive comments are just a book that hasn't been printed in book form; it's notes for a book that's worth reading and may yet be completed and published.

© 2012, John Crosley/All Rights Reserved.  Traditional publication rights reserved to this site, of course.

;~)

john

John (Crosley)

Beauty - first of all!
Such a scene on the streets of Kiev can be seen frequently.

Svetlana, these women are beautiful in the sense that many young women of Ukraine are beautiful, without having to accessorize or spend lots of money on hair styles or fancy clothing.  Their clothing is not expensive and their hairdoes are simply straight, well-combed hair. 

That sort of hair, and the same hair, pulled back in a 'bun' is all a woman with an excellent profile in Ukraine or Russia needs to do to accentuate her often lovely face. 

I would bet, based on facial profiles, that these women are Ukrainian heritage, probably 100%, especially the woman, right.  I had plenty of work with models several years ago and time to compare their parentage/heridity with their facial looks/profiles and have developed a 'sixth sense' for determining subracial heritage between the Ukrainians and the Russians and the inevitable mix. 

For an American, you might find the ability rather uncanny, but I am a man who watches carefully AND asks questions too.

I don't see such scenes as this too often - perhaps you do - but when I did, I only caught it from an angle and mostly masked from me, so I asked permission to 'come around' and photograph it from a more direct angle, and got that permission without argument.

It's a happy photo for me -- these women are simple in dress and hairdoes, yet somehow capture the essence of loveliness -- model beautiful, I think, in their simplicity.

********

I saw Christmas carolers singing on the Metro station tonight on my way to the US at Theatrana (or its connecting station).  They blocked off a section of the center Metro platform in a large circle to sing their Christmas songs -- really quite lovely.

(and on the way there, I passed quite near where I think you reside, but I know not where.)

I'll be back soon.  Wish your special one my best wishes.  That person knows who that person is.  (notice lack of specificity in keeping with your wishes.)

john

John (Crosley)

I know your education and skill in photography enables you to see, undertand and imply what I have said, probably from one look.

In that way, what I wrote probably uses you as a foil in order to tell newer, less experienced members the who, what, why, where and how of the photo, more than you needed to know, and I hope you forgive me for using you as a focus while I told those members what I am sure many benefitted from reading.

It's the one thing I do well; others contribute to forums, I 'explain' the circumstances surrounding particular photos that are often unusual so that people can envision how they came about, and thus can envision that some how and some day too might produce work under similar circumstances, without having to make certain decisions because those decisions are factors they already have confronted and often decided through their reading of colloquy beneath my photos.

Win-Win. 

I think it helps many immeasurably, and others it may discourage from such photography, but who's to say they would have enjoyed it?

Best wishes Hans-Peter; feel free to return any time.  Your comments are always welcome.

john

John (Crosley)l

I see no evidence of New Year's Eve. I see a lady preparing for the night shift.  Good choice of lens.