'No Minors! Don't Make Trouble!' (Rescan and Rework)

Originally posted nine years, ago, the scan and its source material

were in suboptimal (bad) condition. Restoration work on that and

other scans plus the tools of Photoshop CS6 has improved this

photo so in part it now looks almost like a different photo. 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.

(Special thanks to Samy's Fairfax LA for providing special expertise

in print scanning technology). Thanks! Enjoy! john

One gets the feeling that he does not need your I.D. card to figure out if you qualify to purchase his liquor.Lovers of these fine breverages are surely drooling as their eyes hit his stock......not because of the selection,but those prices!!!!You say that this is a re-post from 9 years ago,but I guess fom a much earlier shot...the prices!Back to the shot,great unintimidated look into the camera and the tough guy image is enhanced by that hat,the smoking cigar and that big hand.B/W helps also.Excellent work here;Bravo!

Meilleures salutations-Laurent

Very interesting portrait! With a cigar in his mouth, he looks like Winston Churchill! 7!

Great image John !

Excellent. Gives a real feel for the character.

Thank you for sharing not only this timeless image, but also the work and process you went through to revive this image, which to your credit, came out quite all right. A most interesting image, especially the proportion of this man's hand in relation to his body. It could be of course the result of lens distortion. This takes nothing away from this classic and timeless image. Well done.

DG

I was either interviewing at Associated Press or UPI, both offices at Fox Plaza (Van Ness intersects Market Street, San Francisco, and there is Fox Plaza office/residence tower there). and was leaving interviews or  perhaps I was newly hired by AP, and had quit as a photographer and then was a 'writer', but I carried my camera everywhere anyway.

 

Whatever the case, having met Henri Cartier-Bresson, on advice of a colleague and HCB mutual friend, who compared our work, I saw HCB's touring work in exhibition and decided, 'HCB did it all', and I had no hope for my photographic future, so after a day or so I al most immediately quit my job as a new hire photographer at AP, but they liked me and retained me as a writer with no training.  I got front pages the next day after the transition - with absolutely NO training in writing -- no journalism school, having never written a story for anyone, ever.

 

Now I passed by this liquor store nearby, went in just to view the prices, spied this man behind the counter, talking to someone else, and just like I might do today, engaged him for a few moments and decided to take his photo with his permission obtained just so briefly, almost with a nod and a brief question.

 

I do this same thing today, on a regular basis, and this is one of the first successful ventures doing the same thing 'back in the day'.

 

It's one of my most successful ventures ever, and now this is a historic document' too, because of the man's clothing, the grudging reference on the counter to California's new sales tax, and the prices on the shelves (which low now, then were sky high for the times and mainly for habitual drinkers a short walk away from his shop, as lower prices were obtainable elsewhere in larger shops.) 

 

He looked suitably gruff,  had a GREAT FACE and demeanor which is mostly why I wanted to take the photo.  I'm sure he hammed it up a bit, though really not too much. I think he also was a bit amused at this young guy (me, age 22)  taking his photo, but flattered by the attention.

 

That is how historic photos are born -- and I think this one -- for all the trouble it has been saving it  . . . was well worth the trouble, and somewhat historic.

 

Thanks for the high praise.

 

This photo is  computer enhanced, so please compare to the original post which was also from a scan by the then best available scanner, but can't hold a candle to this.

 

More of these old reworks/rescans are coming, and perhaps there'll be an exhibition in my future.

 

Let the word out, please and help me scout out potential galleries/museums, if you -- or anyone else  -- would?_

 

Thanks so much.

 

john

 

John (Crosley)

 

Thanks for the kind comment.

 

I think in fact that he KNEW he looked a bit like Winston Churchill, too.

 

And he probably smoked his cigar so he would look MORE like Churchill.

 

I bet you, based on my knowledge of Churchill's fame at the time, and the resemblance you well note.

 

 

Best to you, my Kyiv colleague.

 

john

 

John Crosley

I have always regarded this as one of the greatest images I will ever take.

 

I was 22.  I did some of my best work then with a 50 mm lens that came with my Nikon, and I have learned later was a 'classic' (or a no-name 28 mm and 135 mm lens, each of which cost me $28 and both of which took wonderful photos, especially the 28 mm Soligor.)

 

Thanks for the praise.

 

john

 

John (Crosley)

You are right.

 

This is a photo that in addition to being what we now call a 'street photo' was a character portrait.

 

I never heard the word 'street' until I came to Photo.net 9 years ago.

 

I had met Henri Cartier-Bresson and followed work he inspired and the work of those whose agency he founded, The Magnum Agency, since that time, and still it took me to arrive at Photo.net almost a decade ago to first hear the word 'street' applied to photography.

 

I use the term 'street' liberally, and I suppose since I was taking such photos before the term apparently was coined, I have a right to use it as I wish.   Although my work was hidden and unknown, I practiced the craft beginning in NYC when the famous street photographers who kept at it were also getting their start or in their heyday.

 

Unfortunately, we had no contact.

 

I went to work for Associated Press and ended up getting transferred from San Francisco and eventually working in New York City with Pulitzer greats as well as many others (and even Pulitzer great Sal Vader in San Francisco, who mentored me).

 

The only photographer outside of AP of note I met was Bruce Davidson, previewing then his East 100th Street book by showing slides and looking then for a quality publisher.  (An AP great had turned me on to the meeting, and I went on my own time; by then I was acting AP department or subdepartment head of one of its NYC photo departments, age 24).

 

I had a meteoric rise.

 

I could have stayed with AP a whole career, and their General Manager offered me his job if I stayed, but AP was cheap, so I left.

 

I didn't want to be a cheap boss to a worldwide organization, squeezing work and penny pinching hard working journalists who were sometimes putting their lives on the line for tomorrow's bird cage liner.

 

If I were to become a successor general manager at AP, it was guaranteed, I would have to prove how CHEAP I was with salaries, benefits, timecards, hours, etc., and in general being an 'asshole'.

 

I didn't want that.

 

I was an asshole without that extra baggage.

 

Now somewhat recovered.

 

;~)))

 

If I get a place in 'Who's Who', it will be as a photographer, or not at all, and frankly, who cares?

 

Praise from you for my photos is high enough for me.

 

john

 

John (Crosley)

You can't imagine, despite my recitation in the request for critique, what trouble I've endured to bring this image to you in its final form.

 

Or what expense.

 

Or for that matter ANY of my photos.

 

I could be driving a Mercedes and living in  Saratoga,  CA or Los Gatos near the Silicon Valley greats, as I once did, but the expenses of photography have drained me.

 

No regrets, though.

 

This particular photo appeared at first unsalvageable for anything more than rudimentary Photo.net posting nine years ago.

 

Now with new, high-tech scanning (from a print, nonetheless, which acted as a negative, then Photoshopping the print scan), this version was born.

 

Now I see his sleeve cuff and vest were checked which cannot be made out in the original print . . . but the info is there nonetheless.  I can also see the cash register, right, and the box, left, a cigar humidor, which was mostly a blob in the initial scan or print both from long ago.

 

Even his vest shows stripes or checks (I am not now blowing it up to see, but I know if I do, I can tell), and that's the first time EVER I knew that, as it shows white in all the previous print versions I've ever seen of this, -- the INFO is still there, and with Photoshop, VOILA!

 

This is better than the fanciest analog darkroom could have made it appear even 20 or 25 years ago, because then I paid for an exhibition quality print,  which later became soiled with microscopic dust, dirt and lint which was removed through electronics (and not wiping) by a proprietary and special process.

 

I had 54 photos this process was applied to successfully, negatives long gone.

 

Another 24 to 30 negatives survived as well, so I have enough old stuff for an exhibition - even to fill a good size space.

 

And much is my best ever.

 

Early Crosley.

 

Kept all these years, because to my soul I knew most had some worth personally, regardless of what others might think.

 

And I didn't know what they might think because before Photo.net, I kept them hidden and never shown.

 

I just knew they pleased me.

 

I'm glad they please you and others too.

 

john

 

John (Crosley)

Negatives long were gone, a victim of an insurance company not paying its claims so a storage locker in which negatives were stored was sold for rent.

 

Insurance companies sometimes don't pay their just claims, and that's just what they do so naturally and too bad for you if they step on your toes;  they sometimes and even sometimes 'deliberately' ignore just claims, and people (like me) get hurt.  Result:  Sometimes fabulous photos get lost forever, like my entire Viet Nam collection which was in that locker.

 

I lost a treasure just in photographs and negatives but luckily for a few of my best photos, I had at one time had commissioned exhibition quality prints which I quietly put in a box. 

 

My friends and close ones thought all my photos were 'snoozers' - except one woman from Russia who looked at them and enjoyed them thoroughly. 

 

She broke out laughing when she saw my collection of photos and I KNEW I liked her very much. Everybody else had gone to sleep when my photos were shown.   She understood them (and thus me).

 

I was so delighted with her, and her taste matched mine so well, we tried to get married (for that and lots of other good reasons), but internal dealings between her and the Russian Mafia which tried to cheat her out of her penthouse flat in Moscow's Inner Ring, a central location, beckoned her to Moscow with her prodigy son, where she had to stay to protect her flat, now valued I am sure at multi millions of dollars.

 

Or at least a million and then some.

 

For her it was a good financial decision at least.

 

She had to do it.

 

Anyway, these prints stayed in a box, shown only to her and no one else who would appreciate them.

 

I had once enrolled in a Dreamweaver (web design) class in a huge Community College to learn how to make my own web site just for the purpose of showing my early work with no thought of taking new photos.

 

Somehow I discovered Photo.net which had an audience of hundreds of thousands of members plus nonmembers and millions of drop-ins, and I posted a few old photos. 

 

Numbers of viewers soared, and by the end of the first year, my viewers (old system) totaled over 2 million, so I gave up plans for a web site and stayed with Photo.net.  I was successfully taking new photos.  My popularity began to soar; I jumped to No. 1 on Google.com the first time they indexed the name 'John Crosley' as I recall.

 

When I started taking photos actively again, the rest is PN history, with 'views' now in the hundreds of millions (old system).

 

I've been here for over nine years.

 

Negatives gone, I bought an ultra-large scanner to rescue these otherwise lost images, -- some prints were 'oversize', and piecing prints part scans together and joining the pieces in Photoshop then was not commonplace or easily done automatically by Photoshop as now.

 

I scanned them on my Epson XL scanner.  The scans were quite good, but slow, with a USB connection and at 12,000 dpi were outrageous sizes files.

 

Some prints were large, so it required a VERY LARGE AND VERY EXPENSIVE AND HEAVY SCANNER OF HIGHEST QUALITY.

 

Files were so large they were hard to manipulate, but I trimmed them down.

 

 For most of a decade, I had no idea there was so much dust and dirt embedded in the prints AND the resulting scans and for years thought I had good, clean scans, until I tried to work with them to exhibit new prints.

 

You could see dust, dirt, and other detritus on blowups.

 

Dust and scratch filter worked only marginally and dulled the photos.

 

They needed rescanning but time had not treated the photos well, and the storage conditions included being left in the winter unheated on the floor or a dirt garage in Ukraine in a sealed container that became unsealed letting in dust, dirt and sand.

 

Years, later, in fact the last two years, I've been trying print by print, sometimes for two weeks at a time per print, to use the 'healing brush' and the 'clone tool' to remove the dust and dirt from the print scans made long ago.

 

It was a horrible, time-consuming process for marginally better results --all on the old scans.

 

The prints I figured were in worse shape though I still had them, and they even had sat in a garage in Ukraine and the container they were in had broken its seal and it let in with sand, dust and dirt -- not a lot, but some.

 

I figured for the prints, all was lost.  I literally gave up hope, but made a last ditch effort.  I figured the dust/dirt/etc., was embedded and no amount of wiping by my with no technique would clean the photos for suitable scans.

 

I took all to Samys, Los Angeles Fairfax store service bureau and although I knew about the Photoshop 'dust and scratch' filter -- for my old scans, I knew it also took away detail and sharpness and made the prints look just a little more dull.

 

Roger of the service bureau kept his method proprietary, though I suppose it's well known, but it worked wonders.

 

He contracted to scan 54 prints for a reasonable sum, said later he did not use 'dust and scratch filter' for the final scan but apparently scanned more than once.  If I understand correctly, he did a straight scan after surface cleaning and one scan with dust and scratch filter, then electronically subtracted out the difference, electronically subtracting out the dust and scratches.  (This one has to be redone, but many were near perfect!)

 

This particular photo, for instance was full of white spots where the long-ago darkroom workers apparently had overlooked doing a good job spotting, and I had not caught it -- (bad job Ivey Seright, Seattle, long ago).

 

But the tones, etc.,  were good enough, and more important, all the information was in the print that one would need to work on it  with Photoshop if one had the highest quality scan.

 

I got my scans from Roger of Samy's (a nice guy) and went to work; he was not to deliver everything finished -- I was to do my own Photoshopping.

 

I took the raw scans which looked dull and unsharp, but which had the dust and dirt electronically subtracted out.

 

Voila.

 

After using levels to make the scan fill out the entire histogram, I found the white spaces that had represented much dust on the original print which I had not seen to object to the original printer, were gone and also  a great deal of the dust and dirt of the intervening years had disappeared,

 

For this print, it appeared that Roger's methods had not worked entirely the best and it may have to be reworked by him -- so I used 'dust and scratch filter' a little here, and voila.

 

With the addition of some sharpening to combat the use of 'dust and scratch filter' (an old trick I've used before), this print had all the latent information of a negative.

 

I found, for instance, that the man's cuffs were checked.  His vest also had a geometrical pattern to it.  Both had looked absolutely WHITE in the exhibition print produced by Ivey Searight of Seattle bought at great expense long ago. (of course I would have had it redone,, but it was not possible using analog darkroom techniques to do the burning and dodging necessary to equal what is shown above).

 

After an hour of photoshopping, with CS6 Photoshop with its quick selection tool at the ready, I had made enormous strides.

 

This may not be the last edition of this photo, but reworked in Photoshop it just jumped out of the screen at me.  Details I did not know existed and could not even envision on the 'exhibition quality print' were able to be brought out of the high quality scan from Samy's service bureau using Photoshop CS6 and the quick select tool.   

 

The work proceed fast and easily.

 

In a word, this photo looks far better than the digital darkroom exhibition quality print. even though the scan now was from a poor quality, dirty, dusty, filthy print, (only wiped clean and not rewashed because of the likelihood of color shifting from embedded old chemicals).

 

Voila, dust and dirt was made to disappear by 'electronic subtraction' and the photo's information (since it was 'high quality otherwise) had most of the information of a negative and its scan was used as a negative would have been used.

 

Thus, this is a hybrid print/ from negative to print to scan to web image.

 

And this image now can be printed, and probably exhibited.

 

Wonder of wonders.

 

It pays to persevere sometimes.

 

john

 

John (Crosley)

 

Or if a really good analog darkroom technician with the original negative could have produced an amazing print, this probably is its equal.

 

There's more to be done, but I'm just starting on the 54 prints, and frankly most are hardly any work.  A few have to be rescanned, but that's in the nature of things -- a f

They don't make 'em like this guy anymore. I can smell that cigar. Takes me back to Mount Vernon, NY, and fellows like this in local stores or playing bocci ball in Hartley Park, puffing on Optimo cigars.

Of course, Lex, they still make them like this. I see them daily in small shops and market stands. Often wonderful people that in this case you can be sure have tried all the cigars on display and tasted the liqueurs too. I wish John continue to shoot these types of guys, because they deserve the attention - but I'm not sure, I would trust his advice, but never mind, his company is worth gold.

I am glad this photo is so evocative to you.  Yes, in the US outside maybe of Manhattan or Brooklyn, such individuals are quite rare indeed.  In fact this is the last such person I have run across and it has been about 40 years.  Notice that he's dressed up like he's going to a funeral and only selling cigars and liquor, but that's the way people dressed 'back in the day'.  No longer.

 

Those certainly are 'days gone by' at least in the USA.

 

Thanks for sharing your thoughts.

  

john

 

John (Crosley)

 

 

Such people, dressed such instead of extremely casually, are virtually disappeared from the US, but as I recall you live in Europe, and it may be different in the tens of thousands of shops that populate a major metropolis like, say, Paris.  There you may find such individuals, but they seem long gone from the USA, and for the USA, this is a historical document, especially noting the incongruity between his profession of retail seller/possible proprietor and his garment finery.

 

This is a man who's proud of being defiant, a cigar smoker who doesn't care who breathes his smoke, doubtless a strong drinker, and a tax protestor (Note the tax sign on the counter, which I recall was invoked against the then new 'sales tax' which he felt he had to excuse charging for his cigars and bottles of alcohol).

 

 

Retailers used to call it 'for the governor' when they charged the sales tax, a point of derision, though the tax was for the people of the rapidly growing state to raises revenue. (and it still keeps growing).

 

He probably also kept a pistol (or even a shotgun) under the counter --  I would venture.  I would even take bets that it we could go back to that time, I'd be proved right.

 

Yes, Anders, I want to go where there are such men still; can you point me the direction?

 

john

 

John (Crosley)

Paris, maybe in some areas, but go to Istanbul, Naples or Palermo, and you will see them all around.

I have lived for periods of a month or so in various Parisian neighborhoods, but maybe in the wrong arrondisements -- think the dix neuvieme, for instance, and others somewhat less tony, though not as 'colorful'.  For sure the Parisians 'dress up' more.  And in Vienna, you see wares lined up on shelves like this in individual shops, but the shopkeepers look very 'tony' and well kept -- nothing 'earthy' about Viennoise shopkeepers.

 

I've been to Istanbul , twice since joining Photo.net; it's an overnight or longer stopover on the way to Ukraine (it's just across the Chernoye More (Black Sea), and an hour's flight away from some Ukrainian cities and sometimes the fare from the USA is lower through Istanbul, so a stopover means some wonderful, inexpensive baklava.

 

I did once take a photo of a police chief or captain in his Istanbul stationhouse after I had a complaint, but they caught me sneaking it, and made me delete it.  I didn't have other media which would have allowed me to switch CF cards, insert a new card, and use recovery software to recover that (those) image(s), or I would have. 

 

It was then the only card I had and then I only had one digital camera.  Recovering deleted images then was not even practiced by me, though I had thought through the idea by that time.  The images weren't good enough to worry about though.

 

I am always just a little afraid to take 'street' photos in Istanbul -- lots of young, angry looking men lounging around the inner city, all smoking and looking somewhat dangerous, and NO young women or couples at all after daytime disappears.

 

Women I understand go everywhere and have many freedoms, but you wouldn't know it by the streets at night.  And I don't speak Turkish or Arabic, and who knows how many of those dark haired and dark bearded (poorly shaven) young men, (angry looking) are really Turks or displaced Arabs who Islam and think as part of their religion that a photo is a 'graven image' and I therefore a blasphemer.  Best to be careful in that part of the world, even in Turkey,  especially when the young men may NOT be Turks at all.

 

So, I am very wary of taking any but a 'tourist photo' in Istanbul unless and until I have a local guide, which I hope for some day when I hit the lottery.

 

Naples and Palermo I haven't been to, so I can't comment, except Italy in its southern parts is heavily criminally populated and my good, large equipment is easily spotted.  That's not a big problem compared to pickpockets in Europe and in Ukraine the Ukrainians will NOT rob but if you leave anything, don't expect to find it even a minute later).

Of course, crime in Southern Italy is legendary -- the stuff they made the Godfather movies about (I saw Francis Ford Coppola filming 'Godfather I' out of a window at Associated Press, Rockefeller Plaza, NYC, long ago and even on the sidewalk on 5th Ave., blocking my way to lunch, back in the day.

 

I guess that dates both the movie and me, hunh?

 

I guess that's what they make Leicas and little point and shoots with 16 and even 24 megapixels for nowadays, even the Leica's made by Panasonic which produce magnificent photos with enough light.  You can be clandestine without spending $6,000 for one camera and one lens.

 

I tend not to hide too much, or if being clandestine, just use a telephoto, but in Southern Italy, I think there's no real hiding -- everybody would know what I'm up to in a second, and they'd be sizing me up for a theft.

Maybe in your travels you know different.  I invite your comment.

 

I've been to Rome, Naples, Genoa and Firenze, and Turin with not many problems, except being accosted and stalked by Gypsies in Firenze (without cameras even).

 

I just haul off ready to hit them and let them know I WILL hit them if they even start to do the 'crush' on me.  That scares them off.

 

I double back if I think I'm being followed or go to the middle of the street, to, tricks I picked up in NYC when everybody carried a knife or box cutter in their pocket for protection and everybody knew someone shot or stabbed (a friend was stabbed by a butcher knife on the subway at 96th street while going to Columbia where I went).

 

Gypsies started to do the swarm or the crush on me twice twice in Moscow's Metro until I unleashed my karate moves, and finally 'off they went' each time.  They spotted me by my shoes, since I was then not taking photos and otherwise dressed like a Muskovite.  In fact, I lived there off and on for a year near Begavaya Metro with a fiancée I later married and who got brain cancer shortly after our marriage, sadly.  

 

I used to live and go to school in NYC's Manhattan at the edge of Harlem and alone used to talk through Harlem (I'm very white and was then blond), and used to get taunted at almost every block  as being white then in a time of racial tension and even riots (Martin Luther King riots were shortly afterward -- see my portfolio), and I walked a tightrope with each block but learned 'street smarts' that saved my bacon when in Dnipropetrovsk, Ukraine when the Dnipropetrovsk massacre mass murders were taking away as I blithely photographed (they bludgeoned people impaird or somewhat unaware to rob them of things like 'cell phones' and were caught after about 21 murders in about 23 days, pawning a cell phone and are spending life in prison and I was there (it was NOT in the papers, though there were 10,000? detectives in Dnipropetrovsk just looking, but the population knew nothing.  Just kids being kids, I guess, just like in America but with pipes, etc.

Wealthy kids, too.

 

If I had been 'unaware' doubltess they'd seen me and would have targeted me, but I am always 'alert' and never even drink or stop looking around when I have equipment on me or even when I go out.

 

I became very streetwise very quckly when at 18 I went to NYC's Columbia Univ and that was marred only once seriously when I was shot by a man shooting another man on a Penn Central train approaching Newark train station (bullet went through the intended victim and lodged in my leg, almost causing loss of my leg but no leftover symptoms ever.  Then I went to Viet Nam freelance the following summer.

 

There's a time to pull out a camera and a time to just let things slide.

 

Most of the time I pull out a camera or have it draped around my neck (even two).

 

And, given my age, people usually leave me alone, and if there is a tussell, it's usually someone trying to pull my camera off to get me to delete a photo I won't delete, but that happens every other year or so (and I NEVER delete no matter how big the threat or how big the man, so long as he is not armed).  If I go to Africa, it will be quite different:  yes sir, no sir, yes, I will delete that, sir!  But it makes you look SO HANDSOME, sir, are you sure, sir?

 

;~)))))

 

I hang on to my captures.

 

If anyone wants to take them from me, they have a fight.

 

And now if I absolutely have to delete, I can simply recover the photos by taking out the card, inserting new media (so I won't overwrite the old, nonprotected information and file structure) and voila, there's the photo, never deleted, with only the file structure deleted and 'recovered' by 'recovery software' which sometimes can be had for 'free' on the Internet or very little money, if one has to purchase.

 

(sorry for the long reply, but this is also for the newbies who haven't read all these tricks of the trade and haven't read the 16,000 comments and replies about such things under my photos - enough for a book on 'street tricks' I think.)

 

Best to you,  Anders, and thanks again for the complimentary critique.

 

And the advice on where to go.

 

I may be in Europe this Spring/Summer so if I get into Italy (a bus ride away from Ukraine), I may end up in Naples or Palermo and look for guys like this (and carry my cheapo Nikon and its throwaway $100 but 'sharp' zoom VR lens.

 

john

 

John (Crosley)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thanks, John, I'm never frightened of your long posts. They are always inspiring and filled to breaking point of your lifelong experience.

I don't have the same experiences as you, neither in Istanbul nor in Southern Italy. One of the reasons might be that I follow in the footsteps (with all possible expressions of modesty) of Cartier-Bresson (and Ambromowich) of trying to be "invisible" when I'm out shooting. A very difficult task, I must admit, if you happen to be in a small provincial town in Southern Italy, where every local soul has spotted you, and your camera,  even before you have spotted them ! 

Maybe one of the reasons, why I feel more at easy even in these places, than you seem to be, might be, that I'm shooting other scenes, than those, that you so well master of extraordinary personalities in extraordinary contexts.

The guy on your shot above is in that sense, a typical John shot, and much less mine. You take these risks. I do rarely, and would, when I do, use a tele-lens and stay as invisible as possible, watching my back for whatever comes up. 

 

I remember my trepidation (read that as a big word for 'fear') when I approached this guy to start to take his photo and indicated that was what I wanted to do.

 

However, he was game, and it was only a second of amusement for him with that young man with the camera [me]. You have to show some boldness and take what comes. For him, I think it was as break in monotony and thus some amusement.

 

He must have had some sense of how he looked, and it obviously pleased me, and maybe I appeared a little frightened too, or maybe 'too big for my britches' or just a little bold.  People admired me for being 'bold' when in fact I was just scared but did things anyway.

 

I've done that all my life -- been trepidatious (read fearful)  and bold at the same time, and maybe that's what defines my photography.

 

Where others act on their fear, I act on my fear and my boldness, and somewhere along the line, several hundred thousand photos ago, boldness started to move to the forefront and fear started to diminish somewhat.

 

I'm still trepidatious, but now in its more pure form -- with somewhat less of a 'fear' component.  I just take photos and have a huge oeuvre to show for it, so I'm no longer just 'some upstart' if someone challenges me, and they can sense it, if they do challenge me, when I respond defending myself.

 

That gives me added boldness.

 

It's one of the strengths of posting almost 2,000 photos here on Photo.net and getting such wonderful, insightful critiques that sometimes sneak in on me, like yours did until I discovered it somewhat tardily.

 

Yes, I was more than a little scared and have been sooo many times, but I still venture forth.  I justify it by saying to myself, 'if not me, who?' then I go forth and do what my photo instincts tell me to do.

 

I'm not James Nachwey, war photographer, documenting the horrors of war for all time and all people, creating an exemplar of man's inhumanity toward man, but instead intruding somewhat into the daily lives of people, trying in advance to size them up for their reactions.

 

Sometimes they welcome me and offer me a drink which has happened far more times than I can count. I'm friend (for a brief time) of oh so many I've depicted, and I've not yet accepted one drink, for a drunk or even tipsy photographer not only cannot take any more photos, he can't take a photo with one hand on a bottle or glass, and even a little tipsy, he's target for theft.

 

I'm a sober one on the street, and with the Dnipropetrovsk massacre two, who killed over twenty, they obviously (I am sure) had spotted me and would have killed me too, if I had shown weakness, but in advance I long ago had 'street smarts'  (I was very prominent those days and during that time in Dnipropetrovsk -- compare my posting dates with the murder dates in the Wikipedia article and you'll see proof I was there in the center of Dnipropetrovsk at the time of the mass murders, many of which took place near the center of that metropolis where I was commonly and stood out like a 'sore thumb' with  huge equipment, known by so many.

 

But the murderers bludgeoned drunks, sleeping people, inebriated people and the infirm, then pawned their 'valuables'.

 

One was a lawyer's son, and his father put up a spirited defense.  Son's in prison for the rest of his life.  Same with the other; their third didn't murder, so he got it for theft only I think and had taken off before the murders.

 

I'm untouched and left with a provable and most improbable story, but absolutely provable.

 

And the Ukrainians knew nothing of the murders, not even one, as there was a total news blackout until far after the murders and when the trials started.

 

Freedom of the press?

 

Things were different in Ukraine then, and maybe now too?  I don't know.  I'm not a social critic in the political sense.

 

I'm a critic of the nature of people as they react to other people and their environment, and often engage in predictive behavioral analysis.

 

I spot someone who I think will do something 'interesting' based on some 'observation' I have made, and very often they or their cohorts do something more that's also interesting or even much more interesting than what I saw.

 

I just hang around and let things unfold.

 

I just snap away when things get 'interesting' either from nearby and in the open, or from a distance with a tele.

 

Even if they see me photographing, especially with a telephoto, or even with a wide angle in a crowd, I'm often disregarded, and might as well be a Cartier-Bresson type invisible person for all that shows in my photos. (not all, but some). 

My AP colleague sent me to see his former colleague Cartier-Bresson, saying my meager photos 'reminded me of Cartier-Bresson's photos.

 

What a compliment, but I was unknowing.

 

I realized then I couldn't hold  candle to the maître, alas, and gave up all photographic ambitions the moment I saw le maître's work.  Were it not for that, I might have stayed a photographer all my life.  I'm maybe the only photographer of any talent who quit the profession after one day on the job just because of meeting le maître and seeing the greatness of his museum full of work. 

 

 

'He's showing some of his pictures over on Van Ness,' [Ave., San Francisco, De Young Museum] I was told.  'You should go see those pictures and maybe shake his hand, and say hello from me', my colleague, Jimmy White, told me, the new photographer hire.

 

'We were together in China,' he said, and I had NO idea who Henri Cartier-Bresson was, even after a brief conversation, but when I saw his photos, I was done -- it was all over for me and photography.  I saw I never had a chance (Besides nobody was even hiring HCB at the time; magazines were folding, and he was retiring though no one knew it at the time).

 

I've really enjoyed this colloquy, Anders, I wonder if anyone will read it besides the two of us?

 

From time to time, I still can take an arresting and/or wonderful photo, but it may take 40 years or so to find out if they stand the test of time, like this.

 

That's partly why I post so many, you never know what will 'catch on'.

 

Right now in my 'NEW' folder, the most viewed photo is a man's and a woman's feet and shoes, with 8,000 views and I'll be darned if I know why?

 

Foot fetishists?

 

Good photography?

 

I've done far better.

 

If you see it, let me know your opinion, would you?

 

john

 

John (Crosley)

I like it. Its seeing shots like this that makes being a photo net member worth it. Great work. I like the background of whisky and spirits. The cigars the whisk of smoke. The poss and what it gives me for feelings for the guy I am looking at. This is picture that speaks to me. Well done.

An earlier, less complete and unrestored version of this has been posted here on Photo.net for almost nine years.  It has untold views (well, they're counted when clicked now, but who knows how many have viewed this image?)

 

But this is the first time it's ever been seen properly, and of course Photo.netters get to see it first, because they've been my mainstay for intelligent criticism over the years with one exception, a world renowned critic now disabled and no longer available to me.

 

I value much of Photo.net critique feedback; it's a basic reason I've stayed here so long.   Photo.net is the place to get intelligent comments, in my experience.

 

I'm so glad this photo speaks to you; there aren't too many like it, but there's maybe something for everyone in my huge portfolio - or I like to kid myself that's so.

 

Thanks so much.

 

john

 

John (Crosley)

My life once was filled with historical characters.

 

The man who did my laundry for PROMPT CLEANERS in New York City and threw my laundry bag into his huge washing machine along with the bags of countless other Columbia University/Columbia College students, had numbers from his concentration camp tattooed on his left forearm.

 

I was not then taking photos, but imagine if I had, had taken his portrait, and it had tellingly shown his forearm and his face. 

 

He was a nice guy, not so old, really, and raising a family - what we'd call early middle age.

 

In fact New York City had countless such persons, tattoed left forearms, all done by the Nazis to mark them for life -- marks and badges of honor in my mind, but not meant that way -- they were in fact badges of certain death for many until the Allies prevailed.

 

In fact NYC was peopled with so many characters and so many more of all kinds.  There's little doubt I had good reason for picking up my first camera and literally the first day walking away with a 'lifetime keeper' photo, on my first roll of film. 

 

Browse my portfolio; it's got its own folder, if you doubt me or want to see what I produced on 'day one, first camera ever'. 

 

I proudly show it today.

 

I knew I could not really make a satisfying living as a journalist or photographer so I practiced law for almost two decades, and did it with great passion mostly, but the photographic side begged to be let out, and I found the two for me were not compatible (and I had a spouse who was bored with seeing shots like this - well NOT with 'shots like this' but this shot exactly, along with some other shots that now are historical and have helped my reputation.)

 

I'm very happy to show this shot and a little chagrined I did not photograph more in my early to middle years, but photography requires both dedication (which I had) and eats money, (which I did not have) and both at the same time.  (When I had money as an attorney, the attorney business took all my time and left no time for a hobby at all or frankly any personal pleasure.  I was an attorney nearly 100 hours a week, 7 days a week.

 

The exigencies of life prevailed over photography and then journalism, and I later had a model family with kids and the upper middle class to higher class home wealthy home in noted and now famous suburb where people did not look at photos like this and now populated with the electronics glitterati -- the people who changed the world putting computer products into your workplace, your home and your pockets were my neighbors.

 

I've had more than one life and have seen many parts of life.

 

I find if I'll be remembered for anything, it'll be photographs like this and some of my more telling other photographs -- even though as an attorney I often worked 'miracles' for clients.

 

They were unsung 'miracles' however.  Nobody ever knew, often the client.

 

I can never speak of those cases or clients or ever tell others about them and  many clients never even knew their 'unwinnable' case was won when no sane attorney would have taken their claim or case on, but I routinely got recoveries from such cases, and the only satisfaction was personal knowledge of overcoming great challenge and the financial rewards, now ended long ago by decades.

 

john

 

John (Crosley)