'Just Love'

Love comes early and strikes hard in this Eastern European City.

Public displays of affection such as this are common and well

accepted, as young brides-to-be are expected by potential

grandmothers to bear children by ages 20 and 21 at the latest. Your

ratings, critiques and observations are invited and most welcome. If

you rate harshly,very critically, or wish to make an observation,

please submit a helpful and constructive comment; please share

your photographic knowledge to help improve my photography.

Thanks!! Enjoy! john

Please note the lines which are the compositional cornerstone of this photo in this Metro photo, Kyiv, Ukraine's most central Metro station.

john

John (Crosley)

Shutter speed: 1/10th second.  Aperture f 6.3.

john

John (Crosley)

Good capture of a genuine hug,not too hard but loosely(lovingly!) wrapped on the shoulders.I like that you have caught the closed/dreaming eye of the girl in her total momentary abandon.Good B/W with the great tones...as usual.Bravo for an excellent image!

Meilleures salutations-Laurent

I find interesting how you've frozen the hug, while all the rest of ppl are moving.

Nice shot.

Esteve

You have explained my photo so well, I feel there's little or nothing to add.

Best wishes back.

john

John (Crosley)

Sometimes it happens that a scene presents itself so that the photographer can take a long, long shutter speedd thereby causing the background to blur somewhat.  That happened here, and the depth of field here also was relatively greater. 

Thanks for the comment.

john

John (Crosley)

Excellent snapshot, John ... great textures & tones as usual in your B&W shots. Regards

This is one of those shots that may be either considered just 'junk' and a faulty decision to post as a few have rated it, or really, really a good shot, depending on one's point of view.

I think from your remark, you sound closer to the latter camp.  Thanks for the endorsement.  It's always a question when choosing a photo such as this to post on Photo.net whether it will be well received and also whether it represents great photography or not.  I think it's among my best, but who knows?

That's why there's critique, but I reserve my own judgment, because I do like this one verey much.

Thanks for the comment.

john

John (Crosley)

Pardon me for getting your initials out of order, a rarity of me in writing your name. Your name masy be your most precious asset, and I apologize for fouling it up in my haste; a quick edit might have taken care of it, but that no longer is possible under the new rules requiring instant review and edit.  I tend to review later, especially when I post when tired.

Again, my apologies.

john

John (Crosley)

This has long been one of my secret favorites.

One reason is that It is simple, the subjects are entirely hidden -- we just see his back and her crossed arms around his shoulders.

In fact what makes this photo 'work' for me, is the composition as well as the hidden identities and the focus on their embrace.

She crosses her arms loosely and casually around his neck.  This is no first encounter -- she is familiar with him, and we can see that.

As to composition, sometimes composition is helped by 'mirroring' and this photo has it.

Look at the pedestrian bridge over their heads and the line it creates, then look at the line that it intersects that indicates the line of station signs indicating the station they are at (Kreschatyk in Kyiv, its most central or one of two most central stations) and we see that the two lines in our vision appear almost to intersect and thus create a 'crossing' or a 'cross'.

That intersection or 'cross' mirrors the 'cross' of her arms.

I almost didn't take this shot; I was in the midst of a big crowd with large equipment, but for some reason I just couldn't pass it up, even though I didn't have what I considered 'frame-worthy' subjects . . .  but sometimes intuition is all.

Here, I think photographic intuition took the cake.  They are centered, her crossed arms are centered and mirrored by the cross between the pedestrian bridge and the line of subway stations signs that lines the subway (Metro) tracks.

I really couldn't have asked for better, and this shot grows in my estimation, moreso because it is NOT so explicit, leaving something to the imagination.

john

John (Crosley)