'Georgia On My Mind? (the other one)'

When I saw this man, I found him so interesting looking and so different

from the other men in this major Eastern European city with his

professorial glasses and the way he carried himself that when he

stopped, turned away for a smoke, I came up behind him, tapped him

on the shoulder, explained he had an 'interesting face', I am a photo

artist and could I 'make his portrait' right there. He agreed, and this is

one of several results. Your ratings, critiques and observations are

invited and most welcome. If you rate or critique harshly or 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. (He is from the COUNTRY of Georgia).

Thanks! Enjoy! John

This man had a very thin, angular face, intellectual glasses perched on the end of his nose, and an air about him that was different from the Ukrainians among whom he walked. He had just walked out of a shop (a lottery shop, I believe) for a rest and a smoke.

I walked up behind him and did something I have never done; I tapped him on the shoulder when I could not get a closeup good view of his face, but had from a distance already decided his face would make a very interesting portrait, and in halting Russian began to explain that he had an interesting 'litso' (face# and I was a 'photograph' #photographer#, and would like to make his 'portrait' #same word in Russian as in English, but with entirely different pronunciation.#

I repeated that to me his face was 'ochen' #very# interesting.

He responded that he was Georgian using the English/American pronunciation for his country's name.  Russians call his country Gruzhia, and I talked to him using the Russian pronunciation, calling him a Gruzhian.

He agreed promptly to let me take his portrait. [Never ask for a photo, it's less formal and honorable than a 'portrait', but a 'portrait' by a 'photo artist', that's something else again.]

He took out his cigarette, reflected, drew in its smoke, tobacco and nicotine #no smoking allowed in the shop he had exited#, as I fired away maybe 15 shots after in the late, dark, very cold, snowy afternoon drawing down my ISO from about 2000 for late afternoon 'street' to about 250 or 300 for maximum clarity and vowing to hold steadily, as he was relaxed and not moving, so my body movement was the only movement issue if I focused well.

Apparently I focused well, and this time my VR was ON, though in past times when it's recently been accidently switched 'off' at such speeds as 1/10th of a second at 18 mm #widest for this kit lens#, I have had no problems with camera/lens movement -- even recently as low as 1/3 second with no V.R., as sometimes I can be a pretty steady holder.

He smoked his cigarette, I went into the shop afterward, showed him how to dial up my name on Google.com to locate his photo if it showed up here, showed him how to index it, thanked him profusely and left.

I'm easily found worldwide in Google.com, but especially so in Ukraine, where often 9 of the first page's 11 search returns on their Ukraine search page yield my photos, many purloined from blogs.  Google's search still is worldwide, but it reflects my popularity in Ukrainian searches and views according to Google's algorithms, although that may change every four hours - or less.

To my photo model #pictured# bolshoi spacibo #big thanks# again.  You were gracious to share your interesting image with the world and especially to linger in very cold #minus# temperatures with snow and wind.

john

John #Crosley#

Punctuation (open and close parentheses  '( and )' in the above comment was submitted correctly.

I proofread it, and it read exactly correctly, so when I submitted, the punctuation was correct; my Internet connection then was terminated.

Somehow the symbol # has snuck in, as it sometimes does in my 'preview' copy before the copy justifies . . . but the copy I submitted did not have any # symbols. 

If the 'edit' function remained longer, I would now be able to fix it rather than just say here in a new comment 'I did it correctly before my Internet connection terminated and could not see the resulting post until too late to post a correction in the original comment.

(For what it's worth).

john

John (Crosley)

i like it, a keen portrait of the man... many winters weathered, but hope survives - perhaps even thrives

John

"Interesting" ..... and educational .... I really like the DOF in this portrait along with the composition.

What I really appreciated was you describing how you approached the "subject" and explained why you wanted to capture a small moment of his life. I am ashamedly guilty (probably along with a large number of people who photograph other people) of relying on almost voyeuristic techniques to capture moments in the lives of total strangers. Your approach, to me, took guts but reaped the award of a brilliant portrait. This has to be salient advice to us "voyeur" photographers.

I do understand that a person who is told they are going to be "portraited" acts differently to one who is captured in flagrante delicto as it were.

One example that makes me personally uncomfortable is when "we" take an image of a homeless person or person who is in social distress, without asking even their name or their history. Maybe / hopefully other critical contributors to this portrait will comment on my over concern on this issue.

Many thanks for posting this image (one of my favorites) with the history behind it.

Regards Doug

I notice the word 'hope' used in your critique.  This is apparently a normal man and certainly found in normal circumstance, not around society's margins at all -- just in a shop as a customer, taking a break.  I get the feeling you maybe felt I portrayed a socially marginalized person.

Anything but (in case that was a correct surmise of mine, which I hope it's not).

I'm glad you like this portrait and my explanation; it started out with rates of 4s and has climbed steadily,  For hours it only had three views and I was tempted to pull it because.I felt maybe it fell between the cracks, but I persevered and have been rewarded because this is a photo I believe in and apparently members also agree now.

It's also really good in color, I mean really good -- perhaps better.

Thanks for the fine critique.

john

John (Crosley)

Some of my finest work, even today if truth be told, has been taken with the subject being unaware of being photographed.

I saw tonight a young man with his girl being thrust with his abdomen against a wall billboard, as he was about to lift her with his abdomen in one big (sexual) thrust (blocked at its apex by a passerby, underground). 

I shot what I could see, and he and she were unaware, but when they finally saw me, I just winked, smiled broadly, turned a 'thumbs up' of approval (or so he could surmise) to him, he returned the gesture, and they moved on, he smiling pridefully in response.

That was nearly 'in flagrante delicto' or 'being caught in the act', with the 'act' being 'delicto'.

Anything else is just a candid capture.

I make lots of candid captures, and if I use a 70~200 f 2.8 lens, with a DX (crop) sensor, then I am surely going to be taking portraits that the subjects are unaware of, and I'm so far away I may never be able to show them their portrait. 

I can even take a portrait of an oncomer from some distance, and not see it until after they've passed by -- even take six, seven or more photos with a D300 or so camera at six or eight frames per second, refocusing on autofocus each frame.

You never get to show subjects their photos with those, and those are not 'in flagrante delicto'; they're just anonymous candids. 

Nothing wrong with that, just anonymous.

Some with wider angle, such as this 18 mm (or so) crop sensor photo above, require getting close up, and it's very hard to take close up wide angle photos (pictures or portraits -- guess which I prefer?) without informing your subject, unless it's a parade, a crowd, a riot, or some other mass gathering.

You should see my favorite photo here in this portfolio of Richard Nixon, he's not 'in flagrante delicto' (in that photo, not yet at least), but it's candid, even though his left hand is toughing my right side and reaching a hand around my right side (my camera held overhead, head ducked sideways).

Again, in that, no 'delicto' and maybe not completely 'candid' but at 28 mm film, it was very wide angle.  (See Secret Service eyeing me, and not caring because I was no threat, never was, never would be).

But it was impersonal, even as Nixon moving through the crowd was trying to personalize his presence by reaching out to everyone, eschewing his normal woodness, wife Pat with gloved hands clutching his side, behind him.

(I recommend having a look through my portfolio; it's in its own folder midway through, but no link here, I'm afraid.  Also, please read the comments under it.)

In my first good photo, first roll of film, first camera ever (also in its own folder) showing three men on the Staten Island Ferry, one sleeping on a bench, possibly a bum, it wasn't exploitation, it was documentary. 

It may have once been seen as exloitative, but time has shown it is a slice of life in history -- don't eschew taking a photo you want because of someone's name calling. 

Make your own decisions, and then use discretion on what you show of those photos that might be viewed as voyeuristic or exploitative, but remember if you just sneak those photos without any hope of creating artistic merit, that's the sin, not taking the photo. 

I have numerous photos of bums in my portfolio with great artistic merit -- really, some of my very, very best.

That first photo, on the Staten Island Ferry deck, showing three men on benches, has become a part of history, just as the Nixon photo afterwards.

Don't refuse to take what you may call 'voyeuristic' photos unknown to the subject, just because someone might call it 'exploitative' or 'voyeuristic'.

Take the photo if it has interest to you or may have photographic or future historical merit. 

Sort the good from the bad at home in review, bury on your hard drives those that you deem to exploitive or voyeuristic, and learn from the process. 

Don't refuse to take them just because of some high-handed comment.

I take plenty of 'bum shots' and frankly in some of them,  especially when I approach them and ask if I can take a 'portrait' of their 'interesting face', it can be the high point of the person's day -- even the week or month for them. 

Who knows when anyone singled them out for a portrait last and then showed them something portraying them good on the digital screen. 

Subjects will stand still for more and more if you show them something good quickly and exclaim truthfully over it (if you say it's good, they often don't know better, but they may trust you if you act like you know so and do so convincingly).

So, we come to this photo, not exploitative, not voyeuristic, and with permissiioin - a true close up wide angle portrait, but its the creme de la creme of permissive portraits. 

It's a  technique I've worked well over half a decade in perfecting - how to approach total strangers to ask them for permission almost casually, and act as though I'm doing THEM a favor, if they do me a small favor first.

I've shared my method above with you, to get you going.

I'm very happy you have seen that it's a good exchange; my secret, shared, for your viewership (and possible critique, which was forthcoming).

I do it because this is a sharing site and I share.  I don't go to forums very much, but if you come to my photos displayed here, it's a book already written about 'how to' in all kinds of street shooting, just not in book form (YET).

I'm almost at 15,000 comments, and my portfolio has 100 computer pages of comments beneath (over half those 15,000 photo comments are mine in reply, but they contain nuggets such as this and above -- it's a true book, just not one that can be read cover to cover, but it may be written yet).

It's my payback for wonderful viewers and terrific critiques which keep me going.

Thanks so much for sharing your views and critiques (you and all other viewers and critics).

john

John (Crosley)

i did not, even for a moment, think him to be a 'socially marginalized person'... just read him as a person with a positive outlook on life...

It was your use of the word 'hope' that threw me off.

Just wanted to be sure we were singing from the same page.

Thanks for clarifying.

john

John (Crosley)

You wrote:

"makes me personally uncomfortable is when "we" take an image of a homeless person or person who is in social distress, without asking even their name or their history. Maybe / hopefully other critical contributors to this portrait will comment on my over concern on this issue."

If the photo digifies the person and he/she is paid commensurately, then I don't see a problem. A really good photo, that one later decides to print, deserves a significant bonus. I used to always carry model release forms to be safe  -back at a time I was a dreamer. Sometimes that is a "turnoff". I don't ask anymore.

Many times people who see me photographing will ask for money, which I always refuse.

They usually ask for $10 which sound reasonable, until one considers that I've taken well over 500,000 photos in that last seven years.

Even considering duplicate photos of the same person, that would be well over a million dollars, and even at $1 a photo for those whom I have taken 'candid photos' of, it would be into hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Few can afford that, plus the inevitable confrontation and bargaining . . . . and telling people that really their image is worth 'nothing' except as a memento on your hard drive, save the one chance in 1,000 that it might be worth something for amateur display.

Releases are for the pros, and even then few of the pros in this business of 'street' seek releases -- Steve McCurry of National Geographic and Magnum fame I understand does not, if I hard my facts straight.  Language barriers are one considerable hindrance as well, then there's the 'fine print' of releases to consider, and people's refusal for reasons of 'fear' they're going to be exploited for reasons only they can imagine -- their imagination often has no founds and their imagined self-worth often also has no bounds, as they look on  a 'rich' Westerner with a fancy camera as a 'get rich quick scheme'.

Therefore, for me, no releases, no model fees, except for professional models, and for charity, I give to those who need it truly, not necessarily beggars, and usually have someone else do the giving for me, clandestinely so it's not associated with me, if I am with someone else, so it's not associated with me, in order to keep from being approached again or having 'street subjects' 'mug' for me the next time.

What you see depicted in my photos is 'true to life' with never any expectations of secondary gain.

It would be nice to pay them all, but it brings many, many issues that are for me insoluble.

john

John (Crosley)

John and Meir

I agree that no money should be exchanged except in the causes of those you give (paid model, truly needy and charity).

Meir’s comment about “dignif(ying) the person” I believe is absolutely
correct and I guess is one way of the paying for the privilege of taking a
strangers  image whether covertly or by request.

As an extreme example, my thoughts turn to a classic Vietnam War image by AP photographer Nick Ut of Phan Thi Kim Phuc as she runs along the
road towards him after a napalm attack on her village. Not exactly the benign street scene / portrait we started discussing, but an image that initially held very little dignity for Kim Phuc, taken at a moment of great vulnerability. I understand Nick Ut helped get her to a hospital which led to a lifelong friendship and some amazing work by Kim Phuc …. reaping a “good” documentary photo with a “significant bonus” and more than commensurate payment in the friendship between two people.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phan_Th%E1%BB%8B_Kim_Ph%C3%BAc

I suppose if we worried about the ethics first, we would have missed the opportunities of capturing unique moments in a person’s life or the moments in history, however small.

I think the lesson for me is “get over it, get some social skills, get on with it”... oh and learn how to use my camera .... almost forgot about that ...

John and Meir thank-you for your advice and also for the images you have posted on this site, they are inspirational.

Regards Doug

Thank you for a great post. 

You are a perceptive reader, and that proves the worth of writing these posts -- if they help just one person improve, then it's worth the often times considerable effort writing.

Nick Ut's paths and mine may have crossed two times and possibly three.

I was in Viet Nam in 1968 taking photographs freelance.  If he was taking photos then, I might have met him and not remembered him, and he might not have remembered or had any reason to remember me.  I was in no way a standout and soon medically evacuated.

Later, when I returned from my 1968 sojourn to 'Nam by being medically evacuated to the US with a bullet wound, I recovered and was covering riots freelance at San Francisco State, shooting 'street', then disturbances at University of California, Berkeley that ultimately matured into the 'People's Park' disturbance and riots, which yielded my now semi-famous 'soldier with bayonet in crowd' photo shown in my Black and White premier folder.

At about that time, Associated Press and United Press International (UPI) both bid for my services as a photographer - UPI wanted to send me to Portland, Oregon as staff photographer.   Two or three years ago, by happenstance in a fast food restaurant, I met the man  who took that job -- he enjoyed it until he retired and called it great fun -- best job he could ever have hoped for. 

(I didn't want it; didn't like the people at UPI)

I went with AP, which was in my mind a classier outfit (and a nonprofit).

Then on my first or second day (approx) a staff member sent me to see a man who he said my work reminded him of - his friend from China -- 'Henry'.

I went to see Henry and shook Henry's hand then saw the pictures Henry took I was sent to see and compare with my small personal portfolio.

'Henry' was Henri Cartier-Bresson and his 'pictures' filled the De Young Museum, San  Francisco's largest and most prestigious. 

I hardly remembered meeting the old French guy - he spoke fine English, and frankly I HAD NEVER HEARD OF HIM, but when I saw the photos produced by this old guy I despaired.

I went back, told them at AP I didn't want to take any more photos for them, essentially turning down my new photographer job; but they wanted ME, and kept me on as a writer, with no training, no journalism school, and never having written a story in my life.

I was on front pages nationwide the next day with one of my first stories and another that day or next went worldwide.

I swam as a writer when it was 'sink or swim'.

Eventually, the head of AP Photos, legendary AP chief photo editor from New York, Hal Buell, flew to the West Coast when I was stationed in Reno and we met at his request.

I had asked him in 1968 personally for a job as a 'combat photographer' and he had snickered (silently) in his New York office, and kindly gave me words of advice (don't call us, we'll call you), then grabbed my hand to shake it and, one hand on my back, other grabbing my free hand, led me out of his small office in quick time.

(how he must have snickered at my gall!)

But two and a half years later, there he was flying to the West Coast to ask me to come work with him at AP Photos in New York City world headquarters, which I accepted; I would be a world service photo editor at world headquarters.  I was 23.  I also was to represent the photo department in matters with the general manager of AP and the Chicago and Washington Department heads for daily news 'budget' planning - what would be promised news on the news wire the next day.   I was 24 when I started doing that - it was work that usually went to some one in their 40s or older. I did it by the General Manager's invitation (Wes Gallagher).

There Pulitzer greats were passing in and out of the office from time to time - all the greats.  It was about the time that Nick Ut took this photo, and like as not I met Nick Ut at that time but before he got the Press Photo of the Year or the Pulitzer.  A friend in San Francisco, Sal Vader, also got a Pulitzer when the war ended for a returning soldier greeting's by his wife -- an assignment I might have pulled if I had stayed in San Francisco as a photographer. (No regrets)

I met a number of Pulitzer greats, Eddie Adams, Horst Faas, (two Pulitzers) (Sal Vader from San Francisco, whom I counted as a friend), and maybe Nick Ut, but don't recall, or even if he came to the NY office.  My NYC desk was formerally manned by a 'green' photo editor who became a beginning photographer for AP in upstate New York and his first year got a Pulitzer (black campus occupiers with bandoliers at Cornell).

Three years ago at an opening at Fahey-Klein Gallery, Los Angeles for a famous photographer of nude women, with Heidi Klum and various Hollywood and Los Angeles glitterati in attendance, where I was taken as guest of a Lucie Award winner who promised me (free and unbidden) total help in promoting my rekindled photo career, at no charge, there was a sudden buzz in the room.

Nick Ut, it was explained had arrived.

The room was full of famous Hollywood people, art collectors, glitterati, and others of great fame and so-called 'importance' but the arrival of Nick Ut in that particular crowd had set off a 'buzz'.

Like the napalmed girl he photographed, that photo forever transformed his life; he could walk into a room of photo greats and those who made their livings from photo exposition and set it abuzz just by his presence as 'the man who took THAT photo' that helped stop THAT war, as indeed it really did.

Pulitzer photographer Eddie Adams then of AP in Saigon on the other hand, felt otherwise about his famous photo of the execution at pistol point of a Viet Cong prisoner by the police chief of Saigon - he felt the execution was justified.  He banished his Pulitzer Prize winning photo from his Brooklyn studio in his later years.  That photo defined him in the public's eyes but not his talent in his eyes and it was a fight he lost in the end.

Adams was at ground zero on 9-11, but alas, NO FILM! - a lesson. 

I always keep at least three 16 gig SD and/or flash cards in my pocket ready, just in case.  That's 3,000 full-frame 'raw' AND JPEG photos.

Eddie Adams might have transformed himself from a man known for one famous, life-transforming shot into a man remembered for 9-11 shots as well, IF HE HAD FILM that day.  His true genius would have been recognized, IF HE HAD FILM.

Alas, he died not long afterward, his genius mainly unrecognized by the public, a one-shot wonder in the public's eyes.  (I also met casually, Joe Rosenthal, San Francisco, one-time WWII AP photographer who got the Pulitzer for taking the immortal Raising the Flag at Iwo Jima photo -- he worked for a local San Francisco paper.

Eddie Adams regretting that one execution shot and was bitter because its fame became synonymous with his in the public's eye, clouding the public's image of his artistry.

Doug, I thank you for the Wikipedia.org link; it brought back many memories.

Sometimes, it's just a matter of luck who's there getting the shot and who's not, and of those who are there (see the article) who gets THE shot may be a matter almost of chance. 

There are at least three photographers pictured in the Wikipedia article, and only one of them, UT, got THE shot. 

[incidentally, an aside, under the UT article, Wikipedia.org, notes that UT got credit for a shot taken side by side with another shooter, and it was the other shooter's shot that got most use but UT's name was used]

Horst Faas, a Pulitzer winner, had great resistance by AP NY photo editors in letting the napalmed girl's photo showing naked genitalia being published at all.

I think that probably was after I left; if I had seen it, I would have published it on the wire; rule book or no, and no questions asked, job or no job.  I wouldn't have worried.

My domain was transmitting photos to the rest of the world's newspapers, and I didn't answer to anybody but myself (and Buell), who really didn't supervise me. 

Although supposedly, I had a direct supervisor (Bodkin) he was always 'out to lunch' in many ways, secure in his lifetime sinecure, and content to leave me alone, all gung ho, and didn't care about much except about his retirement, years in the future and leaving the rest of AP (and me) alone with me free to really run his department for him.

For the US there were stricter editing standards.

Faas in Saigon edited work coming worldwide out of Viet Nam and was himself a (double) Pulitzer winning combat photographer.  He pushed, prodded and won approval to get that napalmed girl photo on the wires; a boss of lesser gumption might have let that photo die a death in some photo archive somewhere, to be discovered years or decades later. 

Horst Faas, last I heard went on to become London's chief photo editor, AP.

Ut still works for AP Los Angeles, I understand. 

My old boss Hal Buell gave the exception to allow the totally nude girl's photo to be published on the AP photo wire as an exception against all AP rules - a daring move on his part that could have cost him his job.  He did so in agreement with Horst Faas, Pulitzer photographer and then editor from Saigon who urged him to after a New York photo editor

No, not "for pros". They are for when the  publisher says "give me your releases".

In Europe, although it is not always agains the law of privacy to take street photos (what is in the background of all those tourist photos anyway?), they are never published in most European countries, especially, say France and Germany, because of privacy laws.

While photos of street demonstrations and similar events are considered 'fair game' without releases, publishers are deathly afraid, I am told, in Europe of being hit with an 'invasion of privacy' claim, even for books that are published, say in London but for which a sole copy makes its way across the Channel into France (and there is precedence for just such a claim's having made its way into the French court system, but I am unaware of the outcome.)

I once shared quarters briefly with a woman photographer who worked I think for TWA's in-flight magazine which featured places and people, often in local settings.

She recalled taking photos of people in situations, then chasing after them with releases, because her company would not publish their photos without releases of recognizable individuals.

However, the magazine was distruted worldwide, for that's where the airline flew, and it was subject to all sorts of different jurisdictional laws, so anything might have been possible absent releases.

Furthermore as a captive publication, essentially one big commercial for the airline, it might have been argued that the photos were part of a commercial enterprise rather than being just 'editorial', where releases generally are not required for photos in which there is no reasonable expectation of privacy (US law).

Laws differ from country to country; less so in Ukraine, exceedingly strict in Europe, and subject to the US constitution in the USA which relies on the so-called 'fundamental rights' unenemerated in the Ninth Amendment of the Constitution (Bill of Rights) including the four rights to one's image/publicity enumerated in a law review article in the 1890s by four who were or became famous jurists - before then such rights were not recognized or even suspected to exist.  The law review article sort of ginned them up, and it was met with open arms as though those rights were there all the time (unenumerated 'other rights') even though they probably were not.

One was the right to privacy, but it still only exists when one reasonably expects privacy, and it is accorded less to those who insert themselves into the spotlight such as celebrities, and whose lives become subject to the loss of privacy rights because they exploit their private lives for their work, through press releases, interviews, photo opportunities, and so forth.

As time passes, celebrities must show a much higher disregard for their privacy to make a claim stick for invasion of privacy than those who are non-celebrities, according to the US Supreme and lower courts.  The celebrities do not lose their rights entirely, but must show a much higher standard of disregard for their rights on the part of the press. 

(this is not a legal treatise, and should not be treated even as being instructive -- consult trusted works for that)

You are right, Meir, if the publisher says 'show me your releases' or no publication, you better have  the releases, regardless of what law you can quote to the publisher that says 'no releases are required', as the publisher may require them anyway -- it's his/her publication and he/she has every right to make whatever business decision that publisher wishes.

john

John (Crosley)

Hi John! Congratulations for you wondeful portfolio. I am enjoying every picture. I am a new photographer and I would like to know what lens do you use more often? I love this ones. I will qualify this one as excellent

I use whatever lens seems appropriate.

For almost a year I used a single 'kit' 18-55 mm f 3.5 ~ 5.5 lens, and before that for the better part of a decade used one or another of a variety of 17~55 f 2.8 or similar lenses (I've owned up to 10 of them, most from Nikon, also from Sigma and also the 17-35,  etc.)

It isn't the lens, it's the photographer; the lens is only a tool; and I've used some pretty basic or even prime (non-zoom) lenses for some pretty darn good photos.  It just depends.

I even found a $5 manual focus lens in my kit from 30 years ago, put it on my camera, forgot to take it off, saw something quickly develop, put camera to eye, focused, adjusted aperture (both manually) and took a great photo that called for exact timing.

Again, it isn't the lens, so long as you know your equipment, unless you're taking photos of a certain genre that depends on lens quality -- e.g., nudes or fashion, where image quality is paramount and which requires a lens of high resolving power, but for 'street' work the best work is a lens, any lens, on the front of the camera that does NOT have a lens cap on, that is properly adjusted when the MOMENT OCCURS that you seek to capture, so you can use it, as ANY lens at that moment is the right lens.

No matter how great or good its resolving power.

Look at some of Cartier-Bresson's photos taken with early Leicas.  His celebrated early photos often lack good image quality, but that's overcome by his great compositions, plus he had his own personal darkroom tech who is an uncelebrated genius.

In other words, worry less about the lens than the photographer's eye which is what really counts.

Your brain is what creates the compositions, and the lens only helps transform them into captures.  Some photos require greater resolving power than others, while some photos even photos even suffer from greater lens resolution, countrary to the views of many pixel pushers.

Hope that helps.

john

John (Crosley)

Your comment really helped me a lot