'The Scaffolding, the Skylight and the Painters'

Two daring workmen with a third have climbed their way to the distant

top of a huge Ukrainian central train station scaffold to do what no

one will easily inspect -- to paint the structure surrounding the

immense skylight that lightens the entire interior during all but the

darkest days -- a 'green' use that has saved an enormous amount of

electricity over many decades, and now is painted one more time

pending that city's (Lbib's) participation in the 2012 European

Football Cup (Soccer Cup, UEFA) this summer. Your ratings, critiques

and observations are invited and most welcome. If you rate harshly,

very critically or with to make a remark, please submit a helpful and

constructive comment; please share your photographic knowledge to help

improve my photography. Can you think of any analogues in Classical

painting? Thanks! Enjoy! john

Lbib is also known as Lvov and is a very large, clean, old city, co-hosting the European football championships this year with other Ukrainian and Polish cities in a football mad part of the world.

It is a far more vibrant and richer than when I first visited eight years ago when poverty was everywhere and the immense city was mostly lifeless.

It is pronounced as though it had the missing sound 'uh' in between the 'L' and the 'bib' or in Russian the 'L' and the 'vov' so in Russian it sounds 'Luhvov' pronounced quickly as almost one syllable, but generally as two.  The rules are similar for the Ukrainian variation, which is its official name, Lbib with the 'b' characters taking on more of a 'v' sound.

Lvov is the most European of all Ukraine's cities and at times has been part of Poland (and other empires and countries). 

Soviet-style mass housing and other Soviet-style 'improvements' are far less common here; it's more European style than Russian style, compared to the rest of Ukraine.

Horse driven carts sometimes are used for hauling, but teams are smart, and used with apparent pride, being well groomed and fed, unlike the few places in the rest of Ukraine where horses are used.  I saw a horse used to plow a field in in an orchard with two men, but it seemed they were more adhering to tradition, as the horse was smartly groomed and well fed, not some nag, whereas in the rest of Ukraine, if a horse were used, it would be out of sheer necessity . . . . . because of no tractor or rototiller (orchard requires maneuverability and small turning radius).

All in all, the countryside around Lvov (Lbib) seems far more on par with neighboring Poland, which is light years in development ahead of Ukraine in freeing itself from the days in which it was a Soviet satellite.

However, the beautiful women tend more toward the Eastern part of Ukraine; some older women near Lvov were spotted with mustaches and no attempt to clear their upper lip hair which would be unthinkable in more Eastern parts of Ukraine.

john

John (Crosley)

I agree that for thumbnail this is harder to take in.

This is meant to be blown up REAL BIG.  'Busy is for wallpaper', I think, not for possibly a large-scale scene with great detail.

As to 'precise detail', I suggest you look again.

It has astonishing detail with exquisite sharpness and wonderful tonalities.

Some photos show wonderfully in thumbnail; others do not.  This is one that just will not show well in small format, thumbnail or in small size on a computer screen, but give it a large wall and time for eyeballs to scrutinize it, and I think your opinion might differ.

But then opinions vary.

I knew that when I posted it, yet I was not searching for high ratings, just to show what interests me; ratings come far second.  Your critique (except for the detail remark, which I feel is off the mark), mirrors what I expected, when shown 'small' here.

Best regards. 

Almost all critiques are taken in good faith; I just do not feel bound to accept each and every part of them, nor do I expect I must defend each photo posted and indeed do learn from able critiques such as yours even when I do not accept them in their entirety; there is much validity in criticism when it's on point and much to be learned from listening to others' viewpoints.

Others?

john

John (Crosley)

Appears as if the camera fired by accident.

You are a doppleganger for another member; your remarks are disregarded as such, as they are always nonconstructive.

john

John (Crosley)