new -- color & b&w "The 'Tire Monkey' works his machine"

A practiced eye, a skillful and enormously strong hand and arm

combo, and a cigarette hanging with dangling ash are the scene

as this man works a tire mounting machine -- all part of his trade

as an amazingly quick 'tire monkey'. Photo not posed, but taken

as the man worked with incredible speed and skill.. 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

If you're worrying about not enough detail or out of focus on the face, tire, or other parts of this photo, you're on the wrong track; this is a photo about that 'hand' and the 'hand' and the machine' together with the man's body using it.  His cigarette is meant to be there but without sharpness - you are not supposed to be focusing on his cigarette - just to know it's there, hanging on his lower lip.

And he was using his hands and forearms lickety-split as I crouched and photographed.

He gave me no quarter in my photographing.

It's amazing to me how under very dim light at ISO 2500 that at 1/60th of a second I was able with an 18mm capture at f 4.5 to be able to stop this action and get such detail - bulging veins in his hand/forearm, threads in wheel lockdown device -- even the detail in the background speaker on the wall, and, if you look closely enough, in the shadows (kept as shadows on purpose) tires in two piles, left middle and background).

This is NOT a formula shot; chosen for posting because it had 'good lines' and a good subject.

john

John (Crosley)

Hi John,

I looked at the scene,made up my mind what I was going to write down and then read your comment to find that I had practically nothing to add except that you can almost "Hear the music" blasting from that box,the only sign of modernity in this Garage Life scene with its typically stacked tires in the background.One can imagine the grime under the fingernails that this no nonsense tire artiste has to try to remove to no avail when he gets home at night before reaching for his beer....but that is just extending my thought on this most excellent capture.

Meilleures salutations-Laurent

Laurent J. Frigault:

When I first encountered world class experts with my photos, their expressions (for most captures) was 'each one tells a story' -- much to my surprise, for that was far from what I had an intention of doing, and myself had not set out to do that - it's just something that I come by naturally.

Now, you have taken a pretty decent capture -- good lines, good composition, pretty good lighting, interesting (even great) subject,  illustrating the powerful nature of this man's skillful hands in his grimy circumstances, a and in critique you've added grimy fingernails that must be cleaned each night, a beer that must be drunk (or probably several?) and suddenly, it's probably essentially this man's life, all gleaned from your first class reading of this photo.

Meilleures-salutations in return, my skillful photo-reading friend -- you have done what I might have done if I had reflected long and hard over a long period, but for you it's surely instinctive as is my taking such photos when my mind races to create compositions 'on the fly' remembering and/or creating composition lessons in microseconds, as the scene(s) changes knowing I'll only ever show 'just one' at least to this PN audience.

I just bounce around, changing angles, shooting like crazy, remembering all the lessons I've tried to teach and/or share others in my comments all superfast - even split seconds, as the man throws the tire on to the machine, spins the wheel, locks down the screw device, steps on the pedal to rotate the tire, locks the tire iron to 'pop' the bead.

 And there I am in mere seconds taking advantage of a one-time opportunity, crouching one second, another second hovering over, firing as fast as my 'kit' camera will allows me to; proving you don't need a multi-thousand dollar camera to take good captures, but such cameras allow you to capture 'more' and 'more' of such scenes and get more and better captures and not lose so many good ones fiddling with controls that can be hard to manipulate on a 'kit' camera compared to a first class and expensive apparatus.

Even with a 'kit' camera, you can take good photos if you stick to it, I think this shows, (assuming it's 'good').

I like it; I'm glad you do.

john

John (Crosley)

Interesting technique: there is motion in. BR JV

Joerg Vetter,

Thank you for the nice comment.

john

John (Crosley)

I had a friend who used to admire Charles Bronson's forearm as he wrung his clothes in McKenna's Gold!

Ranga Rathnam

I think this man would be pleased to have his forearm compared to Charles Bronson (if he knew who Charles Bronson was/is).

Wow, such an old movie with so many 'stars' and famous names in MacKenna's Gold!.  What a reference.  The owner knows there's gold in used tires, and I think I've figured out the economics of the business -- it looks good in recessionary times at least.

Thanks for the comment.

john

John (Crosley)

Interesting dynamic shot, very well shown strong hands of this man!

Svetlana K.

I think that the use of a tilted horizon, together with the use of diagonals which coupled together create triangles is helpful in prescribing at least one (or two) triangle(s), is helpful is creating dynamism.

These are tricks I've learned, which I managed to employ in just a split second much almost to my surprise.

Thank you for such a positive response.

john

John (Crosley)

Interesting post treatment and great pov. Reminds me somehow Rodtchenko works.

vlad khodski

I prepared an extensive reply comment, but somehow the software is not recognizing paragraph returns and line feeds.

Also,there is no choice between HTML and normal text appearing on my comment reply page as well as no 'title box' , and although I copied the comment, it disappeared from my clipboard, apparently a result of some software problem - I think on PN's part, as I have no other software problems and my software is newest and up-to-date.

Your comment is very astute; not the result of some cookie-cutter remark, and required some considerable thought. I appreciate that and am very thankful.

I am pleased by the comparison to Rodtchenko, whose work I previously had been unfamiliar with.

john

John (Crosley) (apologies for no paragraph breaks . . . I put them in and they disappeared.)

H-mm, I was sure you had Rodchenko in your mind: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rodchenko

He does a lot of portraitures with that kind of ultimate angles in 1920 - 30s. Anyway, your work, I believe, attracts many eyes, congrats!

vlad khodski,

Believe it or not, I've re-invented many a wheel.

This is just one of many.

Kindest regards and thanks.

john

John (Crosley)

You don't reinvent any wheel; what you invent, others have reinvented it much before you;-)

Ranga Rathnam

I am confused by your comment.

I just meant to say that I an not a copyist.  I had never heard of that photographer and to my knowledge had never been influenced (at least directly) by his work, though his work including taking photos from unusual angles, certainly is one method of photographing that I have employed here and sometimes in the past, often to good effect.

My comment was meant to be self-effacing; if it was not, I apologize.  I just meant to state that I had discovered this method of taking photos as a result of 'form follows function' e.g., in other words, I was compelled to the more unusual viewpoint by the necessity of following the great speed of this man's work, AND including ALL the necessary elements for a good photo that showed all elements of the photo in one frame with decent composition in a fraction of a second, AND to do that I had to adopt what is not my usual photographic stance.

I do not always 'try' for unusual angles, but if compelled, I will adopt such a stance, and when successful, the results can be pretty good, as I think the number of ratings here can attest, though not the absolute size of the ratings -- e.g., this is not a '6' photo in this time of harder ratings, though it might have been six to eight years ago.

In any case, I felt as though my methods of twisting, turning, bending and stooping to get the photo here were not copying anyone, but were 'invented' for the moment and a matter required by the necessity of the moment.

If it seemed as though I were taking credit for the entire genre of unusual angles, please forgive me; pioneers such as the indicated photographer, Bill Brandt, and many others who experimented their photo lifetimes with unusual angles and experimental photographic viewpoints should be given credit, not me.

I just took one photo (out of a dozen or so), this was the one I chose, and it seems to symbolize those photographic elements pioneered by the Russian photographer mentioned.

I have no need to steal anyone's thunder, and apologize if I am seen to have done so.

Humbly,

john

John (Crosley)

--  a pedestrian photographer who just 'tries' and sometimes, seldom, but occasionally succeeds in getting it right despite not belonging to any 'school' of photography other than 'get all the interesting stuff in the frame and omit all the uninteresting stuff' - my motto (seldom achieved).

;~))

Oh My God! I never imagined for a moment that you would take it this way, it was just a light comment though not without some factual basis.

'You' in that statement included me also!

These situations happen everywhere to everybody.

Once my friend was 'stuck' while trying to solve a computer peripheral problem.He called me for help and showed me that he had checked all the relevant voltages, but still couldn't figure out the problem. I gave up because I was not familiar with the machine. He decided to call in an experienced hand. I asked him what would an experienced hand do the first thing. He named a part and said that would get replaced. I asked him why not we do it ourselves. He said there was no logical indication to replace that part. I still persisted, he replaced it and we were through in ten minutes!

twenty two years later, I read in a book by a successful CEO that once they were about to let their company be taken over on the face of severe failure, they asked themselves what would an outsider coming in do, did it and went on to become a success!!

Of course it is a moot point whether I would have listened to my own counsel under such a stressful situation.

I find it very difficult to believe that nature doesn't produce multiple brains that respond similarly under similar circumstances or even disparate circumstances.

I hope that I have clarified myself !

;-)

I have seen this scene a lot of times and I have never taken a picture of this work. As you say the EYE of the photographer is the most important. I like a lot the details of hand and tire

If you look at some of my early work, some of it was captured with a legendary Nikon classic lens, the 50 mm f 2.0 - now considered a classic for sharpness.

However, other, now famous photos and amazingly sharp sometimes, were captured by lenses that often sold for $29 or $35 in the late '60s.

The photo of President Nixon was taken by a $28, 28 mm f 2.8 prime Soligor, in which I had to stop down the lens just to set the aperture, a task now done by the camera, the lens and springs, and then it returns to 'wide open' on todays' lenses, - not so on that lens.

The same lens took the now famous photo of the protesters at Berkeley's (Univ of California campus) "People's Park' demonstrations in which protestors were met by US National Guardsmen with gas masks and rifles with fixed bayonets while the protestors flew carnival style balloons.

Others were taken by similar, telephoto lense, though not as sharp.  The idea was to get the capture, and if it were sharp, that was special but getting the capture was special.

Consider the girl and the tire racing up trash-strewn streamside in Tijuana, Mexico, that was taken with a $35, 135 mm telephoto.  Nothing fancy about that, and the same restriction about 'f' stops and stopping down.  It is not the lens, as you have quickly learned, it's (1) the photographer's eye and (2) mastery of your equipment -- whatever it is.

The lens that took this photo can be bought for $87 new from a New York retailer, with vibration reduction and is a 'kit' lens, though I have more expensive.  I have three such lenses so if one of these plastic lenses breaks, so what?  They have near legendary sharpness  once stopped down a little, especially considering their price, PLUS vibration reduction, a luxury which didn't exist 15 or so years ago.

You asked in your e-mail for guidance, and I am giving it to you -- special delivery in a way.

I hope this helps.

john

John (Crosley)