'The Fishmongers: One Carp Coming Down!'

Ukraine by mass is Europe's largest country and it is nearly bisected

north to south by the giant Dnipro River, which in many places

resembles a fresh water sea more than a river, with a minimal drop

over hundreds and hundreds of kilometers and ultra wide at spots --

ideally suited for carp such at this fish. Fishermen catch the carp, put

them live into water tank trucks like the one here and then 'fish' them

out live to sell while still flopping at bazaars in places such as capitol

Kyiv. 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 remark. Please

share your photographic knowledge to help improve my

photography. Thanks! Enjoy! john

Love it! Probably, the exposure and contrast is not perfect, but the timing and the epic postures are just excellent! You could find a lot of similar shot in old Soviet photo magazines.

My Photoshop edition is corrupted or I would see if I could do a better job on it now.  It's tricky with bad exposure range and an older camera (D2Xs).

In a few days I will see if I can improv it when I can re-install Photoshop, but it's not time yet for that.

Thanks for the tribute. This is real life in Ukraine though fading somewhat.

john

John (Crosley)

I like this vertical wide-angle composition with a strong focal point accentuated by the geometry of the available elements. However I agree with the previous critiquer about the processing. Of course the dichotomy of the light, resulting I guess from a partially cloudy day, is a little problematic - the gentlemen seem to be in strong sunlight, the ladies and the containers of fish in deep shadow. The upload is just an exploration executed in LR 4.1 on the submitted jpeg.

Every viewer:  Please look at Rajat Poddar's attachment to his comment to see how this older processed capture might have been processed with modern software.

My photoshop today is corrupted or my posted version might be similar; it just is not attainable with my present software which is due for reinstall but my machine also is corrupted and I cannot do so yet for a day or three.

I probably will reinstall everything by the end of the week and try to find the original of this to rework it; it's a pretty good photo for action not worthy of the initial work I gave it a while ago, but it still deserved posting just for subject matter.  I was hampered by poorer software and poorer skills a long while ago when this was taken so it's not up to my present-day quality.  Apologies.

Rajat, thank you so much for an invaluable contribution.

john

John (Crosley)

On the roof, top left, is a beer bottle for when the man who dips the carp is relaxing. He's placed it there because it's in easy reach from high up.

It's summer (they're all in short sleeves), it's hot, and when it's hot in Ukraine everyone drinks beer -- it's a national drink.  In winter, it's vodka, which purportedly warms and at least numbs.

The roof is an out of use shipping cargo container, converted to use as a bazaar shop with the door, left, out of sight, being used as a shop entrance.

This entire bazaar is composed of a large group of such inter-modal cargo containers, converted to holding inventory and use as shops, all arranged side by side with entrances in long dark aisleways, protected from sun in summer and a little warmer and without wind in winter.

john

John (Crosley)