'The Joys of Youth'

Pageants and festivals have just taken place at school, and following

these youths head joyfully home to prepare for the traditional New

Years celebration and school break that pervades Eastern Europe

followed by Eastern Christmas. 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

I really like the joyful expressions of the two boys that you have captured so well and naturally  (centre and left) It looks like the third guy (right)  has spotted you and looks curiously towards the camera. "Schools Out" could be an alterantive title.

Compliments and Best Wishes for 2013

Alf

Thanks the highly complimentary critique.

This was meant to capture a certain amount of the joie de vivre that pervades Ukraine street life among students just let out from school for winter holidays -- e.g. 'school's out' just as you suggested.

As it happens, I was literally a few feet from these kids, blocking their way, so the youth, right, looking at me, was not necessarily 'spotting me with a camera' so much (as far as I can tell) as just looking out how to get around me, as I was just standing there stationary, having spotted this group coming my way down a pathway narrow enough that I could cause them to split if they kept four abreast (see the fourth, right), as they passed me.

I guessed correctly about their keep four abreast, kept camera down until the last moment, then just as they began to pass, raised camera for just three frames at six frames per second.  The preceding frame shows them more spread out, but its composition is not as good to my way of thinking -- the boy, right, (shoulder showing here) shows partly cut off and detracts from the composition in my eyes.

This is one of those 'take it in less than a second' shots that one sees coming, preplans, then at the last minute raises camera and presses shutter, pretty much knowing or guessing how it'll turn out.

Sometimes the results work out, as here.  There are no gimmicks or compositional elaborations in this shot - just pure 'street' life, and it's 'real' as 'real' can be -- in the sense that 'real' is 'representative' of a certain moment in time when the shot was taken and also represents a sort of national or even international universality.  That's asking a lot from one photo;~)))

Thanks for congratulations on the New Year, the same to you Alf, and also for taking the time and effort to write a thoughtful critique.

john

John (Crosley)