'Trudging'

An apparently exhausted woman walks through an underground

passageway, illuminated specially by overhead lights. 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

Very nice scene with lovely perspective. I think it would have a much better impact if you moved a few step to the left so as to have the lady more to the right of the image. Good work John!

Best Regards

Patrick

Thank you.

And thank you for the hint on composition.

This is a one-second photo -- literally taken in less than one second, including the time in which I spied the woman being illuminated and placing my camera to my eye then zooming.  My zoom was too wide, so I had to crop a bit, and that's about one of the few times I'll crop -- when the lens is too short.

This is one of those captures that's for the 'quick and the dead', if you follow the New Testament and Protestant Liturgy.  (you don't have to be Christian or Protestant to follow those, however.) 

I'd been by there before a couple of times, so I had my eye out, but this woman's outline caught me by surprise and somewhat unprepared, just walking, then scrambling and adjusting.  ;~))

john

John (Crosley)

I probably should have been more explicit above.

There was NO CHANCE to move about and reframe due to time constraints with this woman moving and being already spied in the proper place under the light with her trailing shadow.  If I moved, she would have been gone from her position; hence no photo at all.

Hope that is clearer.

john

John (Crosley)

There is a thread which..... J.C.

:----]]

How nice to see this meets your able eye.

I suppose your reference to 'thread' refers to my message to you - it was a well - earned thread, which I was happy to report.

This was a photo I pre-planned in a way -- I spotted this place a week or so before but the likely 'players' did not happen by, and when I came by again, this woman moved into the most likely spot with a 1/2 second to go just as I realized, so I raised my camera and fired, having been unaware then of a photo situation developing. 

It pays to commit to memory likely places where good photos might take place -- such as this underground passageway, and then file them away for future reference.  This method paid off here, and once paid off in a Photo of the Week for me.

Good to give you some pleasure -- best wishes.

john

John (Crosley)

Planned or not,you have seize this scene so skillfully.The slightly bowed shoulders of the woman and the dangling braids from her head down position are all indicative of her fatigue.Her isolation in this huge empty corridor testifies to her long day and leaves her alone to ponder on her return the next morning on the other side of the ramp.Your timing,maybe part luck when I read your intro,was right on to get that squeeze of light between the woman and her trailing shadow.The center position here serves to show that there is not only a lot of corridor up front but that she has been in it for some way.Excellent image!

Meilleures salutations-Laurent

There is a certain hopelessness and despair in the pose and gait of the woman.

There is a name for the device that suggests by omitting the ending and showing the repetition that suggests the repetition goes on forever.  I had a wonderful book by a photographer that named so many wonderful devices I already was using, and due to a hard drive failure I no longer can find the E-book or PDF of that book or remember its name, but you get the idea.  If the end of the corridor were in sight, I certainly would have cropped it to emphasize the endlessness of her task rather than the certainty that she would come to an end.

Although it may seem almost for certain from my colloquy with myself and others above that this is a 'chance' capture, in reality it is studied, but the 'chance' portion is I just came across this particular MOMENT at the last one-half second, and that is the surprise -- not the fact that I'd get a capture on this corridor, which I had marked and staked over a week before as a place for a wonderful capture, with floor to ceiling patterns and interesting motifs plus interesting perspective.  I just figured since I had numerous times in the future to traverse it, I'd be aware of its potential, and then voila, there she was, and there was the light upcoming in her path to illuminate her properly and me with my camera down. 

I raised camera to eye, and did all the rest of the settings in a thrice to get this capture.  I'm glad to see it's being well received by you and others.

Best to you, Laurent, et merci.  Your very articulate comments mean much to me.

john

John (Crosley)

You are correct about the hopelessness and despair (and perhaps fatigue).

I think that, her hunched back and its synchronicity with the curvature of the light and shadow behind her are what make the photo work.  Her long, trailing braids (see critique above), only add to the feeling of hopelessness and fatigue, I think.

If she were any place other than where the light curves into shadow and did not have the big shadow behind her, I think the photo would not have such interesting and large impact, do you?

I had many possible future shots of this corridor that I might have taken -- two months' worth, but decided this would be the only one, and for good reason -- it's as good as I could hope for.

(It also works very well in color.)

Best to you, my Kyiv friend.

john

John (Crosley)

This is not just any corridor, this is a hospital entrance and exit corridor to its main garage.  I do not think the garage is for staff but for patients and their loved ones -- in other words, those who are being treated especially outpatient, though it's open to anyone. 

High prices, however, and validation, I think, prevent staff from parking there -- patients get validated, while others pay exorbitant fees.  I think staff has its own parking facilities or is expected to use public transportation.

Question:  Is she a patient then, a loved one, or a hospital staffer just exiting to a vehicle?

john

John (Crosley)

The first way to leave this hospital complex is through the front door to waiting relatives, taxi, limousine, bus, even feet, or whatever.

This is the second method, usually reserved for day clinic visitors because of high cost of daily parking and the hospital's 'validation' of parking stamps together with its many 'handicapped' spaces through this underground corridor to its underground parking garage across the street.

The third, least preferred method is covered by a sheet on a stretcher to the coroner or in the back of a mortuary van.

You see, people die in hospitals all the time, and most hospital people seldom blink an eye when that occurs.

Once in Silicon Valley's well known and highly regarded El Camino Hospital, Mountain View, California which treats now many electronics giants as well as the Silicon Valley population I heard a page for 'Mr. Blue, calling Mr. Blue' over and over over the loudspeaker system.

Then I heard hospital staff cheering from near and far. 

I was puzzled.

I did not understand, so I asked.

'Why the cheering?' I asked a staff member in the emergency room front desk quietly and discreetly.

'It means someone has 'passed' said the nurse euphemistically meaning that a resident had died.

'We're overcrowded, and we have many patients waiting for beds, but we have none, so that means now we have a new bed!'

Death was a welcome visitor that night in El Camino Hospital, Mtn. View, CA that night -- at least to the staff.

It simply meant 'bed available now'.

So, if you go to a hospital and you hear a call for "Mr. Blue' or 'Code 201' or whatever, and then hear 'cheering', say a prayer. 

An angel may have just got wings.

john

John (Crosley)