'The Pied Piper?'

This man with his instrument walked nearby, and before I could ask him

if he'd pose, he started asking me about my camera, and soon it

became obvious he was going to ask me to take his photo. I obliged,

of course, but not before he brought out his mustache and beard comb

and used a nearby window as a mirror for some personal grooming. I

chose the background because of its colorful advertisements. 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

Hi John,

I remembered seeing this man before and saw you'd posted a b&W version in early november of last year. This is an interesting pose and the guy himself is an interesting subject.

Personally, I find the advertisements distracting as the background. The man doesn't stand out much against them and soon my eye wanders off to the people drinking beer in the top left-hand corner.

I enjoyed browsing through your portfolio!

Mike

I marked your critique 'helpful' as I had actually given little thought to the background being so distracting.

I placed him there for the colorfulness of the background to complement his various colors, red for the face, blue for the jacket, then the red of the right frame and the green of the left two frames to make this a 'color dependent' shot. 

I had not thought this guy was so uninteresting the 'beer people' drinking Staropramen beer from Prague in the poster would distract, in part because the beer name is spelled in Cyrillic, so few Photo.netters could read it, and his right shoulder was covering most of the beer on display.

So, I had taken into account the possible distraction, but minimized it to myself; perhaps I was wrong, or others feel a different way.  I'll wait until others may weigh in on the subject.

This guy was a find, a real gem of an individual, and when all was said and done, he approached me, making excuses to talk about cameras when really he wanted me to photograph him. 

;~))

You never know where your next photo is going to come from; it's rare I'll post two of the same subject, but this was a split/color/black and white and 'head shot' versus a 'street shot', so I took a chance.

With over 1,800 photos, and almost none of them of the same subject, I'm sure nobody is worried I'm running out of subjects.

Thanks for a helpful comment.  I'll await further word from commenters on the issue.

john

John (Crosley)

Please note also that the various colorful posters are arranged in a pattern of four and artfully arranged so that he is at the centerpoint of the pattern - something I did not dwell on in shooting, but took care to ensure was there, just as a little something 'extra' in composition.

john

John (Crosley)

A really beautiful shot with a nice title, John!

With best regards,

Ruud.

Nice shot of an interesting character.I like the busy background,fitting to support the busy attire of the gentleman with the hat,the glasses the beard,his colorful bag but this does not detrack from that marvelous look you have captured.Bravo!

Meilleures salutations-Laurent

This man makes a second appearance, the first in black and white, but he seems really to blossom in color with that background and his pipe as opposed to a black and white portrait, although that also was very interesting, I think.

I thank you for noticing the title (caption).  I put some effort into creating interesting and/or descriptive captions . . . . a gift from which I once made my living at an early age.

Best regards.

john

John (Crosley)

Laurent,  I'm glad to see a different viewpoint than the one of Mike Morrell above for whom the background was distracting.  I found  it 'anything but'.

I'm glad you did too and found the time to tell me so.

I also found this guy wonderfully interesting; he and I seemed bound to find each other; I picked him out of the crowd, but he also had picked me out of the crowd -0- we were meant for each other, I guess.

Best to you et merci.

jean

John (Crosley)

In contrast to Mike's comment, I rather enjoy the whole presentation. I find that the subject holds my attention in that he tries to make out that he is an "old busker", but in reality he seems pretty "wellkept". The background is there "for a glance" but is not an attention holder.

A lively, "colourful" image (in both senses of the word).

Regards

Interesting character, a wonderful street portrait!

I'm glad to have your opinion on the background.

I'm author of what I think is Photo.net's largest presentation:  Photographers, Be Aware of Your Background which never will be finished, since Photo.net will not upgrade its preparation software so I can manage finishing it by adding thumbnails and allowing me to 'move' the photos and text one place to another by more than one photo up or down each time I make a move - an impossible task with hundreds of photos and comments needing massive re-ordering.

The presentation is unfinished and is really a book that needs finishing and updating with new illustrations. 

I urge you to look at it, and imagine that this is one of the photos in which the 'background' is chosen by the photographer, and this is paired with summarized in a paragraph from summarized comments here and the whole thing published after editing out some of the lesser photos and sporting a re-written the introduction.

It's on my table of things that need doing; I think it would be a valuable adjunct for many or most of the nation's photo education courses -- "How To Improve Your Photographs by Simply Being Aware of the Background' in which they are taken.

It surely would help tens or hundreds of thousands of student photographers (in my opinion).

Look through all my photos, and see which ones I've applied that principle to consciously or unconsciously. 

The process started out without verbalization and through the gathering of illustrative photos, I learned how to explain it I think satisfactorily.

It's a good way to improve almost any 'ordinary' photo - just move your camera a little, as I did this guy to integrate the background. 

This subject wanted to stand one place, but carefully I moved him a few feet to place him in front of this very colorful background for reasons that I could not explain due to language differences, but the ultimate test was he liked the photos very much - and congratulated me.

He is both an old man (maybe less old than me, but older appearing) and  a well groomed guy - he had his beard comb and mustache comb and used a window as a mirror to comb both parts of his face before he'd allow a photo.

So, we know he now only has interesting, colorful taste in clothes, but he's a little vain (or just has good and individual style?).

Best to you Grayham. 

I always know it'll be a good comment when I see your name.

john

John (Crosley)

Look carefully!

You might have stumbled across this man on the way to the Metro one day - Akademmischenko/Akademgorodok.  Just by the marshrutkij where they drop off passengers.

He was almost impossible to miss; Ukrainians generally dress so nondescriptly and noncolorfully.

Best to you, my artist friend [and special one(s) close to you].

john

John (Crosley)