'Winter's Travail'

'Harsh, extremely low temperatures have taken hold, a bitter wind

drives falling snow in diagonal lines, slicing harshly into the

pedestrians' faces, but life goes on during even the harshest of

winter's travails in Kyiv, Ukraine, here shown in front of its main

train station. 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

The atmosphere of the winter cold shows very well!

A very good street shot, John !  Best viewed large.  Shows two people who seem to come from very different groups in society.

Kind regards

Jim

I'm not a photographic artistic 'genius' like you; I am more like this man.  I trudge alone, and when I see something interesting, up comes my lens and 'snap' goes the shutter.

My saving grace probably is that I am a very curious person, and very persistent.

Now in my ninth year; who ever thought?

Best to you my Kyiv photo genius.

john

John (Crosley)

You're right.

This looks somewhat muddy or confused when viewed in thumbnail but when viewed not only 'full size' but when viewed with a double click to view original upload size, it seems to take on a whole new dimension -- it's more like being there in the ice and snow.

And you picked up on something that seems so natural to me I didn't really pick up on it; the contrast between the aging man with his aged, rudimentary cart for his burlap bags of whatever and the dressy woman with hat, full length matching coat and boots, all sort of upper crust, but both having to contend with the same snow, ice and driving wind -- equal opportunity bad weather.

I put some time into making the texture of the bags show as they did in the original to give this versimilitude, and feel well rewarded, and the same with the rest of the man's outfit; every fold and crease is memorialized, which I desired to mirror the travail I felt was emblematic of his life.

Is that too arcane?

Or does it reflect in why you commented?

Thanks for an encouraging word.  This photo, which I believe in thoroughly, has had not a high rate, has been slow to pick up viewers, and I'm somewhat off put by that, so your comment is edifying.

Thank you for that.

In looking over more highly-rated photos recently, it seems many now use some sort of 'gimmick, instead of straight reportage or head-on looks if they are to achieve higher rates, including as 'gimmick' some heavy duty  Photoshopping, which I find unnatural.

Steiglitz and Steichen didn't have Photoshop and they did OK.

Same with Cartier-Bresson, though member Tony Dummett who saw his negatives in Paris then compared them with HCB's prints said the prints were pretty heavily burned and dodged.

Manipulation?  But no Photoshop?

Best to you.

john

John (Crosley)

This is also a crop.

It could be trimmed to show even larger, with larger margins and less 'tightness' around the cart pusher.

I specifically cropped to 2:3 ratio.

It might have been cropped otherwise also, depending on the venue; this is a semi-amorphous view, with plenty of extra 'view' around the guy -- essentially it's an 'expandable' scene, a rarity in my folio.

john

John (Crosley)

as thorough a diagonal, tri-zoned, composition as one would expect... taut (in preference to 'tight' which you might construe as meaning crammed - and i certainly do not mean that) and i would guess cropped intuitively rather than by conscious design... two main protagonists walking towards each other in a storm, along the central diagonal; one has to move aside and it seems the well dressed woman does - that snow heaped on the sides must have got on her boots... the heavy-set man is pushing a cart loaded with sacks and could have swerved to his right but didn't, not swiftly enough anyway for the woman... i believe in Ukraine they drive on the right side of the road so the man is in the wrong 'lane' - either he is just thoughtless or he is simply oblivious of his 'misdemeanor'...

Rajat,

Yours is a thoughtful analysis, and especially notes that it is on the diagonal, which I tend to favor and also 'tri-zonal' which adds some depth.

I found this man, seated in the middle of a wide, cleared expense, sitting on a small stool (here atop his sacks), tired.

I vowed he would make  a good subject, so I followed him as he went forth, and I was right.

It's not that he is committing a 'misdemeanors' as he occupies, the leftmost part of this area, he's just not maneuverable - there might be over 100 kilos of grain, potatoes or other foodstuffs in those burlap bags, and he just doesn't have the strength, the traction or the mechanics to maneuver in the snow and ice. 

(Yes Ukrainians drive on the left, and often pass by driving down the center, an unnerving trait, though accidents in/near Kyiv are rare and scofflaws are few, as traffic enforcement is extremely strict -- you pay the police a 'fine' on the spot, so they have every incentive to collect those 'fines', and even the most minor equipment violation will warrant getting stopped).

It's not a matter of lack of politesse at all, but just a matter of getting from Point A to Point B, and the woman, being Ukrainian for sure, is used to stepping aside for men with laden carts -- no real offense, but well noted Rajat (it had escaped me!).

Thanks for a well thought out critique, as always.

john

John (Crosley)