'The Streets of LA (II)'

Timing, shadows and geometry are the highlights of this photo, taken

recently in an industrial district of Los Angeles, CA. 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

Interesting combination of lines and shadows!

I was intrigued by this shot just for the lines and especially the 'mirror' or repetition of the cardboard shape the man is carrying and the similar shape in the shadow to his rear with its identical diagonal line.

It's really quite a complex photo, isn't it?  I'm glad you like it.

john

John (Crosley)

Interesting angles and light. Very nice shot. Great in color.

Very well seen and taken. Centering works. Catching him where you did is the key. Compliments.

I agree.

This is a very unusual photo and destined to be one of a kind -- not a 'chance shot' because it was 'seen and planned beforehand' by a second or so when I spied the man on his bike with the cardboard at a special angle,  and saw where he would be going.

It does work better in color, but it also works pretty well in black and white, just not as good.

Thanks for a thoughtful and succinct analysis of a pretty complex photo.

john

John (Crosley)

Thanks for the compliments.

This was previsualized though by a scant second or two when I saw the guy, which speaks for my eye and reflexes, though I wish they worked as well so often.  This is a rare example of when the two work together, as there are so many misses.

You are right, centering worked; this is a crop, and it also worked with the right untrimmed but it was a little off balance and the frame had 22 megapixels, so cropping was an option here.

For such a photo, getting it perfect with centering would have been well nigh impossible (well, maybe not impossible but very, very rare). 

I seldom crop, but this time just by a little, and it worked; witness your comment.

Thanks for the time and effort for leaving your kind thoughts for this sneaky little photo that has no 'meaning' but just kind of 'works' nevertheless.

john

John (Crosley)

AH ! great John. You have invented a new family of delinquency endangering the work of serious photographers ; shadow thiefs. The penalty must be severe  for this type of offenses, in order to defend the profession.

Where he got the shadow from and where he intended to bring it, is the mystery of this image. 

By their nature 'shadow thieves' are almost 'other worldly'.  They appear and disappear, and taming them or even capturing them -- even for a split second -- even recognizing when they will appear and how they will appear -- requires a sort of photographic legerdemain (lighthandedness or sleight of hand if you're less literal in French, I think, based on my basic one year of high school French). 

Incorporating those 'shadow thieves' when and where they may appear into a composition is, in my opinion, one of the highest forms of the 'street' art.

See, for instance, the following photo, which I think of my otherwise meaningless photos is one of my finest.  This photo 'Lines, Shadows, and Shapes, makes 'two images (one in complete motion) into four, and the positioning for my mind is absolutely perfect and never ever replicable:

http://photo.net/photodb/photo?photo_id=6601942

It is to me my unsung masterpiece.  

Note that the street sign is replicated on the surfaces and the man and his newspaper also are replicated completely, the spacing is to my view to die for, and that if anything were moved a matter of inches, the whole scene would fail.

The image was taken from a car window while the man was 'on the fly' and unexpectedly had exited the building when I caught him thus.  I had been unaware anyone was in the building.

And 'Of Light and Shadow' was considered by one critic to be seminal 'art' as opposed just to photography:  http://photo.net/photodb/photo?photo_id=6734946

This next one did not require split second timing, as I chose if from probably over 50 images as I 'worked the scene' but it got Photo of the Week:

http://photo.net/photodb/photo?photo_id=13142312

I often deal with silhouettes.  Photography is 'writing with light', but if there is light, the coherent absence of light forming a figure can easily be a silhouette and in effect you get a reversal image with strong contrast when shooting silhouettes.

See the following: 

http://photo.net/photodb/photo?photo_id=14474192

and

http://photo.net/photodb/photo?photo_id=12064691

I try to remain greatly aware of my friends in the occult 'shadow thievery kingdom' because on occasion they can be the photographer's best friend.

They can jump out of nowhere, but if you are attuned to them, they sometimes give off an 'aura' to which the perceptive photographer can be 'attuned'.

Well written comment; I enjoyed it greatly.

;~)

john

John (Crosley)

not a street of just a few blocks.

You're critiquing my captioning again, and that's not helpful.

You're photography critiquing can be great.  Why kvetch about the words?

john

John (Crosley)

Thanks, John, for the links to some of your silhouette scenes, which I mostly have seen before and like very much. I did indeed comment some years ago on your waiting line shot. I have introduced a comment on the first you mention above and respect totally your message of no-crop principle unless absolutely necessary. I agree that the slight crop I mentioned in my comment, with all possible excuses (!) is not "absolutely" necessary, but personally, I would have done it. 

But my plans have taken a decided change for the worse, and I must stay in the USA, at least through Mid April, alas.

I had been hoping maybe for a bus ride your direction fronm the East or a stopover and a 'hi' but 'no', not to be.

Maybe in a month or two following then maybe we can say 'hello' in person as well as one or two others in your beau cite.

Alas . . . . double alas..  I had hoped so much, since I've been stuck in the USA so long.  (no reply please or message system only).

john

John (Crosley)

Let me explain.

Foreign investors were involved in documenting my work, and it 'fell through' when they ran out of funds, but it appears they are getting new funding and things may be a 'go' beginning next month, mid-month.  I had been scheduled to go to Ukraine, but found out yesterday that is impossible, and for a month at least I must stay in the USA due to bureaucratic requirements..

So, I will, all due to some short-sighted bureaucratic regulations, or at least I believe they're short-sighted, and not Ukrainian.

Ukrainians laws have the least interest in the project at all and I have the most to gain, but cannot go without support (which I get staying in the USA) until sometime in April unless these people get their funding earlier and are willing to come to me.

I had hoped during negotiations there might be time to slip away for a few days by bus to make acquaintance and do some documenting of the world's most beautiful city (at least in my eyes).  Envy, envy, envy. . . .

It's been all too long for the East and for the West even far longer, but there have been things intervening.  (Again only message system for communication, if you will).

My apologies to M. Hollande.   (from a truck stop next to Interstate 5 between California and Washington, as I scurry from one state to another, due to what I believe is a bureaucratic foulup as I drive all night just to submit a piece of paper.)  Alas.

john

John (Crosley)

Which caption is that?

I know you're not senile, so I suggest you compare a dictionary with my caption and your wasteful comment.

Really, you have so much good to contribute--so much knowledge and mastery of certain points of photography--and you waste it with word quibbles over less than nonsense for what purpose other than to stir the pot?

You could be so much higher above it than that, it saddens me.

As a young law clerk for two years I clerked under a guy named Meir, a famous lawyer in California who founded Palo Alto's first schul.

Meir was too smart to try his litigation -- too wasteful of his valuable time.  He made deals, often by the fistful with his mostly small cases.

If he had six cases with an adjuster he wouldn't settle five that deserved settlement until he got a grand settlement for the sixth that was undeserving, and therefore put the adjuster under pressure from his chief adjuster bosses 'why can't you get that piddly case put away, it's throwing off our books so we can't close them for seven years back and those other five cases, too.  And they'd throw more money on the bunch and eventually get them settled for far more than they were worth, so Meir had a full chandelier full of bulbs.

But sometimes Meir overplayed his hand. He made deals to settle client litigation injury cases and in case after case, his word was NOT his bond.  He'd come back to the adjuster on each and every case almost and say 'the client just needs $850 more to settle this case, and in some cases I pretty sure the client would have taken less, maybe far less.

Meir ended up with the nickname 'whining Meir'

That happens to people who overplay their hands - they get nicknames.

Whining Meir almost always got lower offers so he could waste time pretending he got the offer increased by his tactics, but when I went into practice with identical cases, I got far greater settlements than he right off the bat and MY WORD WAS MY BOND.  If I said I would tell my client that was the best a case was worth, he could get another lawyer - and be told the other lawyer would claim a fee (and so would I) from the proceeds, but the total proceeds would likely be less.

I routinely got great offers.

I wrote letters -- enormous, explanatory letters, and cannot recall ever reneging.

I don't think my word was 'gold' or anything like that, but I also don't think anybody accused me of whining or 'lowballed initial offers' just so I could 'play games'.

Often initial offers knocked my socks off - I worked insurance adjusters so hard reading my long, well detailed letters that they knew they'd have to pony up megabucks (thousands and tens of thousands of dollars for defense attorneys to tell them I was right, in my letters, because all my letters were was 'trail brief's disguised as letters, and could be word processed with a few alterations, placed on legal paper with legal captions and introduced into the court record with additional citations, as 'legal briefs' or 'trial briefs', and they knew it.

I stared them down by upping the ante.

People dreaded my long letters, but they got results.  They knew they'd have to pay, because I wrote everything down that I could absolutely prove and discarded anything that was doubtful or noted that it was an allegation or not doubtful.

We each get our own nickname.

I'm sure I had a nickname as Crosley, the guy who writes to much (and whom we have to pay by the word, damn it!)

And my old boss was named 'Whinin' Meir' for his trick of always coming back to 'up the ante' claiming clients rejected offers when in fact .  . . .

Meir Samel, what's your nickname with all your knowledge and skill going to be on this site after timewasters like the two above?

John (Crosley)

John; what are you rambling about? My comment alluded to the address on the door. It struck me because one does not see high address on city streets of  Jerusalem.

And its relationship to Los Angeles is?

john

John (Crosley)

John;

"And its relationship to Los Angeles is?:

LA    34 degrees 3' 8" North

       118 degrees 14' 34" West

       language predominately Indo European

       Nearest Neighbors Drug Cartels

Jerusalem 31 degrees 46' 48'' North

                 35 degrees 13' 48" East

                 language Semitic

                Nearest Neighbors Jihadists

Does that help?